About a week ago I finally received Bolstr. If you’ve never heard of it, feel free to google it. Long story short, it was an ambitious project tying to realize the ultimate EDC bag in an affordable price. Following is my initial impression so far after spending a week with it. BTW apology for my clumsy English as it’s not my mother tongue. 

Its exterior quality is pretty good with beefy material, taped edges and accurate stitches. It doesn’t look cheap. It doesn’t look like a murse either. The main material is very similar to Tom Bihn’s Ristretto. It’s equipped with fine water-tight zippers of unknown brand.

The front pocket is velcro flapped and is super handy for storing my compact camera. I can quickly open the flap and pull out the camera when needed. It can accommodate iPhone 6 Plus also.

There is a side internal fleece lined pocket intended for storing sunglasses. But I found it a bit small for contoured sunglasses like Oakley. I can wedge them in but doing so risks scratching lenses with the zipper. Meanwhile it’s too small for iPhone 6 Plus. This pocket hangs inside of the main compartment, so if you store a bulky item here it will eat up the real-estate of main compartment.

On the back side, there is a slash fleece lined pocket, which is just the right size for iPhone 6 Plus, or whatever items of similar sizes. The pocket is embedded between the outer shell and the inner lining.

The strap pad is almost useless because it’s too slippery to stay on my shoulder. After a few minutes walk it slides down to my back or front.

Personally the main compartment feels a tad small. But I know the creator, Jay, carefully determined the size to strike the best balance between too big and too small, so I think I will get used to it. The main compartment is roomy enough to swallow common 500ml water bottle. But it doesn’t accommodate iPad Air unfortunately. I can insert iPad and force closing the zipper, but the edge of iPad will be razed with the zipper.

While the bag’s exterior craftsmanship is good, internal finish is a bit rough compared to the 1st-class brands like Tom Bihn. The main compartment is lined with smooth rip-stop nylon material, but roughly cut and stitched edges are not taped. To be honest I found the internal finish to be a little cheapish. But maybe I demand too much for the affordable price.

Well that’s all for now. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Thanks for reading.