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6 Montbell Bags Compared | From 39g to 599g, for the Commute, Travel and Town

2026.09.04

The lightest weighs 39g. The heaviest weighs 599g. Same brand, same category — a bag — and more than fifteen times the difference between them.

Montbell, the Japanese outdoor brand, is read by most people as mountaineering equipment. But laying six of its bags out on a table and living with them for a while, what struck me was how little the mountains had to do with it: every one of these works for a commute, a supermarket run or a trip abroad. And even among the three that share the same 20-litre capacity, the weight, the price and the situation each one belongs in are completely different.

Let me say the important part first: this is not an argument that lighter is better. The heaviest bag here, at 599g, earns every one of those grams. What decides the right bag isn't the size of the number — it's where you'll actually use it most.

The six, side by side

| Bag | Price | Capacity | Weight | Where it belongs | |---|---|---|---|---| | U.L. Knapsack | ¥3,300 | 13L | 39g | A spare bag inside your luggage | | Pocketable Light Pack 20 | ¥6,200 | 20L | 198g | Errands and days out | | Pocketable Light Shoulder M | ¥5,200 | 13L | 181g | Town, when you want your hands free | | Versalite Pack 20 | ¥9,700 | 20L | 220g | Light, and genuinely for the hills | | Delight Pack 20 | ¥7,800 | 20L | 360g | Work and the commute | | Colorado Daypack | ¥14,300 | 17L | 599g | When you're choosing on design |

Prices are Montbell's official retail prices, tax included, as of September 2026.

1. U.L. Knapsack: 39g, closer to carrying a handkerchief

• Price: ¥3,300
• Capacity: 13L (H48 × W34 cm)
• Weight: 39g
• Packed size: 12 × 11 cm
• Fabric: 30-denier siliconised nylon double ripstop

Thirty-nine grams means nothing on a spec sheet. In the hand it means you keep checking whether you're actually holding anything.

The fabric is a 30-denier nylon coated with silicone on both faces — extremely light, and unusually good at resisting tears for its weight. Packed down it's 12 × 11 cm, small enough to live in a corner of a suitcase without ever being in the way. The shoulder straps adjust, and there's a loop for a carabiner.

What you're giving up is equally clear. There's no back padding and nothing resembling a proper harness, so this isn't a bag for carrying a heavy load for hours. It's a spare for travel, a summit bag for the last push, something to fold into a day out.

Autumn/winter outfit: navy and denim, with the orange as the accent

The orange of this one is bright enough to lead the outfit, so I kept the clothes in navy — a plain navy shirt, dark denim below. Keeping top and bottom in the same family lets the bag do the work as an accent. Knapsacks tend to read sporty, but against a shirt and denim this one comes into town easily. The bag is so light that overthinking the styling felt wrong; simple was better.

2. Pocketable Light Pack 20: 198g, and it finally looks like a rucksack

• Price: ¥6,200
• Capacity: 20L (H48 × W28 × D15.5 cm)
• Weight: 198g
• Packed size: 17 × 20 cm
• Fabric: 70-denier nylon ripstop, polyurethane coated

Twenty litres for 198g, and it packs into its own inner pocket — a 20-litre rucksack that folds down to 17 × 20 cm. That alone makes it worth a place in a suitcase.

Compared with the knapsack it has a proper rucksack shape, with a front pocket, side pockets and an internal pocket. Drinks on the side, the things you want quickly at the front: that division is what makes a bag usable day to day, and it's the reason this one gets picked up more often than the lighter option.

The caveat is the same as before. It's a lightweight fabric, so twenty litres of capacity is not an invitation to fill it with heavy things. Think of it as a second bag for travel, or the one you take out on an ordinary afternoon.

Autumn/winter outfit: ivory, denim and black

Against the black pack I wore an ivory fleece. Black bags go with anything, so rather than matching the bag I went for contrast. A fleece is an outdoor piece, but with denim it reads as ordinary clothes. Autumn and winter pull everything darker, so I put the bright colour up near the face and let the black bag anchor the bottom of the outfit.

3. Pocketable Light Shoulder M: 181g, and A4 fits

• Price: ¥5,200
• Capacity: 13L (H33 × W36 × D12 cm, fits A4)
• Weight: 181g
• Packed size: 25 × 17 cm
• Fabric: 70-denier nylon ripstop, polyurethane coated

The only shoulder bag in the group, and the one that takes documents and a tablet without a fuss. There's a mesh pocket on the right side and a smaller one inside for odds and ends.

The detail I liked most is smaller than any of that: there's somewhere to stow the leftover length of the shoulder strap. No loose tail swinging against your hip, no fiddling with it on a train. It's the kind of thing you only notice on the tenth day of use, which is exactly when it matters.

This one folds down too, to 25 × 17 cm. A shoulder bag of this size that travels flat in a case is a genuinely useful thing to own.

Autumn/winter outfit: black and brown, with blue in the middle

The blue shoulder bag got the most playful outfit of the six: a cropped black hoodie on top, wide brown trousers with a slight sheen below. Black and brown alone would be a quiet, settled combination — the vivid blue is what stops it being sober. Since the bag itself is casual I avoided taking the trousers in an outdoor direction and let the fabric do something different instead. Of the six looks, this is the one closest to fashion rather than function.

4. Versalite Pack 20: 220g, and here the mountains come back in

• Price: ¥9,700
• Capacity: 20L (H51 × W25 × D17 cm)
• Weight: 220g
• Packed size: 18 × 20 cm
• Fabric: 30-denier nylon, with 100-denier nylon ripstop on the base

Twenty-two grams heavier than the Light Pack 20, and built on a completely different premise.

The body is 30-denier ballistic nylon, but the base — the part that scuffs — steps up to 100 denier. There's chest support, an ice-axe loop, side pockets, and compatibility with a Trail Water Pack hydration bladder. This is a bag designed for fast hiking and summit pushes that happens to weigh almost nothing.

It packs away as well, into its own top lid. Watching a 20-litre mountaineering pack disappear into something that small doesn't stop being funny.

Choosing between the two is simple: the Light Pack 20 if travel and town are the point, the Versalite Pack 20 if you actually intend to be on a hill. The 22 grams aren't the decision. The purpose is.

Autumn/winter outfit: blues over charcoal

This is the one I styled straight down the outdoor line. A blue down jacket up top, and my own Montbell Chameece below. The bag is blue-green, so the upper half stays in the blue family and the charcoal settles the bottom. The bag is meant for the mountains, so rather than forcing it into town I dressed it for what it is: an easy hike, this weekend, in the cold. Functional bags tend to look best when you stop apologising for them.

5. Delight Pack 20: 360g, the one between work and the hills

• Price: ¥7,800
• Capacity: 20L (H48 × W28 × D13 cm)
• Weight: 360g
• Fabric: 330-denier nylon, polyurethane coated

The most interesting bag of the six, once I understood what it was doing.

It holds the same 20 litres as the Versalite Pack, and weighs 140g more. The reason is plain: the fabric is a substantial 330-denier nylon, and inside there's a back pocket sized for documents and a laptop, a mesh pocket for small things, and a large pocket across the front.

So this isn't a bag chasing a low number. It's the one you carry to the office through the week and take up a low hill at the weekend — and for daily use, thin fabric is not automatically a virtue. Of the six, this is the one that fits an ordinary working life most closely.

Autumn/winter outfit: a tailored jacket with an outdoor bag

Here I changed register: a navy double-breasted jacket, black trousers, and the navy pack. Outdoor rucksacks are usually styled with fleece and down, but a design this plain sits under a jacket more comfortably than you'd expect. Because the jacket and the bag share the navy, the rucksack doesn't announce itself as the odd element. A white or ivory layer underneath and trainers on the feet keep it from tipping into formality. This is the version for work, travel, or a weekend when you'd like to look slightly put together.

6. Colorado Daypack: 599g, and every gram is accounted for

• Price: ¥14,300
• Capacity: 17L (H48 × W34 × D16 cm, fits B4)
• Weight: 599g
• Fabric: 1000-denier nylon oxford body, 900-denier polyester back panel, cowhide leather and wool felt on the shoulder harness

Seventeen litres and 599 grams. After the first five bags, the obvious question is how.

Part of the answer is the body fabric, a 1000-denier nylon oxford. The rest of it is on your shoulders: the harness is made with quality cowhide leather and wool felt, and there's a leather patch on the base for attaching a strap. This is a bag built on the opposite philosophy to everything above it.

The silhouette is a classic teardrop, and it swallows B4. The clever part is inside — a divider flap operated by an internal zip lets you switch between one large compartment and two, so the things you want quickly can live below and a change of clothes above. The sides are wedge-shaped, which keeps it from collapsing on a day when you're barely carrying anything, and the opening is wide enough to actually see what you packed.

Autumn/winter outfit: ivory, olive and red

The red bag leads here. Ivory on top, muted olive green below. Red and green sounds like a difficult pairing, but both of these are dusty, settled versions of those colours, and in autumn they sit together easily. Black trainers keep the whole thing from drifting too casual. It's the most classic bag of the six, so the clothes went warm and slightly old-fashioned — the traditional outdoor look, worn as ordinary clothes.

What the numbers actually show

The lightest is 39g, the heaviest 599g: a spread of 560 grams, more than fifteen times over.

But the heavier bags aren't losing this comparison. The 39g bag has no back padding; the 599g bag has a leather harness. Two bags hold exactly 20 litres and differ by 162g, because one is a thin travel fabric and the other takes a laptop through a working week. In every case the purpose came first and the weight followed.

• If the only thing that matters is weight → U.L. Knapsack (39g)
• A spare pack for travel → Pocketable Light Pack 20 (198g)
• Town, with things you need to reach quickly → Pocketable Light Shoulder M (181g)
• Light, but genuinely for the hills → Versalite Pack 20 (220g)
• Work through the week, a low hill at the weekend → Delight Pack 20 (360g)
• Chosen for the design and the materials → Colorado Daypack (599g)

Where you'll use it most

Six bags from one brand, pointing in six directions. Read down a catalogue and the differences look like numbers; laid out side by side, the numbers turn out not to be the decision at all.

Where will this bag spend most of its life — the commute, a gap in a suitcase, a low hill on a Sunday? Answer that and five of these six fall away on their own.

Outdoor bags are treated as equipment for the mountains, but brought into ordinary clothes they settle in far more naturally than their reputation suggests. Lining these six up was, in the end, a way of testing that.

Which one caught your eye? If you already own one of them, I'd genuinely like to hear how it's worn in — the comments under the video are open.

Prices and specifications are Montbell's official figures as of September 2026. Check the product pages for current pricing and availability.

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This post contains affiliate links. Prices and specifications are as of the video's publication date. Most items are sold in Japan.

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