Mono Cases The Flyby Ultra BLK

This could have been the best gear bag to ever exist. Its drawbacks however are compelling me to return it unused, as they are MAJOR. Let me explain why I give it a 0 star rating.

1. The laptop bag is HEAVILY padded at all the wrong places, while providing virtually zero protection to the bottom of the bag. The padding of the front is heavy and super thick and competely unnecessary. It eats away a huge deal of the backpacks volume for no other reason than looking cool when worn separately. The slot is also heavily padded which also adds unnecessary ~2cm bulk and weight in the middle of the unit when worn with the main compartment attached. There is no padding whatsoever at the bottom of the break away laptop bag. NONE!!!

2. The lower strap buckles are made of plastic. You read that right! PLASTIC! And they do have a give, so they're not rigid enough and will break eventually.

3. The side pockets are unusable as the openings are very narrow and you can't really use their full volume.

4. The linings of the inside copartments have no padding whatsoever and feel very tender and super easy to tear.

5. The heaphone hook is alright but only if you don't use the full capacity of the main compartment. Competitor bags provide fully separate headphone compartments.

6. What struck me the most is that the bottom of the main compartment is not fully padded across the whole lenght of the bottom and there's a 2 cm line of the bottom lenght (across the whole width) with virtually no padding.

This bag will not protect you precious gear well enough. Neither does it look well as it comes crumpled and very ugly to look at. It could have been the best gig bag for me if it weren't for the problems described above. The material quality is super nice but it's not well thought out. So final verdict is zero stars. Sorry about that, Mono, while I really wanted this to be at least marginally better than my $150 UDG Ultimate backpack, it's actually way worse to the point where no comparison should be made. So please go back to the drawing board and I'm sure I'll give you another chance.

If you can stomach the price, go with your gut and buy this bag.

The bragging points from the ad campaign have all sounded true so far, it's so useful, modular, waterproof, and spacious.

So far I have been using the smaller laptop bag part more often than the entire bag, which is more than enough for day trips, but if you need to bring a change of clothes, or bulkier gear like a midi keyboard or cameras, the bigger one does the job and attaches easily.

Pros:
Build quality - excellent
Materials - excellent
The functionality in general is just so good, so many nifty little features that I forget about/ discover, very good.

Cons:
just price really

Again, if the ads tempt you and you need a bag, and you can afford it, buy this one - it feels like it will last a long time and is great.