I went through the process of buying a sidecountry backpack this past fall and walked away from it fairly disappointed. The pack I ended up buying works fine, looks okay and fits well enough, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. As such, it wasn't much of a surprise to me that packs started catching my eyes while wandering the floors of SIA this past January. The one that stood out to me the most was Arc'teryx's Quintic 28 backpack because it not only looked good, but was thoughtfully designed in a functional way that few other of today's packs seem to be.
