Review: Gaston Luga Rullen 16″ Backpack

Gaston Luga Rullen is the latest offering from Gaston Luga, and it is designed to be a versatile backpack whether you’re travelling in the city or in the outdoors. The Rullen comes in four different colors – black, olive black, taupe black, and mustard yellow black. The one I have is the black model. Gaston Luga Rullen is priced at S$229. But you can apply coupon code TECHJIOxGL for 15% off your purchase.

Tech specs

Build quality and design

The Gaston Luga Rullen looks like the bigger brother of the Gaston Luga Splash, and shares the bulk of the materials used to construct this bag. Rullen is made largely from polyurethane like the Splash, which feels like a smooth rubber-like texture. This material helps to make the Rullen waterproof and easy to maintain. It also gives the Rullen a firm, structured shape even when the bag is empty.

The design of the Rullen is where it starts to differ from the Splash. It utilises a roll top flap and closes via a single G-hook. To me, the overall design gives off a slightly adventurous yet minimal look that is great for daily commuting or even on a hike – I like it and find the Rullen to be the best designed Gaston Luga bag to date.

Features

Gaston Luga Rullen utilises a roll top system which is secured by a single G-hook. By using just a single G-hook, I was able to access the top bag quicker than on the Splash, which has two G-hooks. There are up to 9 latch points which the G-hook can latch on to, depending on the amount you have packed in the Rullen backpack.

The roll top has a zipper which allows it to be fully closed off. This truly allows the Rullen to be waterproof as it does not leave any open gaps for rain to accidentally enter, unlike the Splash which uses button clasps at the top.

Once you fully unroll the top, the Rullen is actually a rather large bag. In fact, the fully unrolled Rullen measures nearly 60cm long. You can really pack a lot of stuff in the bag, and feels more than a 17.5 litre bag.

Compartments and space

Let’s start with the exterior of the bag. There is a water bottle pocket on both sides, and they are non-expandable. This means that the some of the space occupied by the water bottle compartment will cannibalise the internal space. As there are no other small pockets on the exterior of the bag, the side pockets are handy to keep thing such as tissue paper for quick access.

On the back of the Rullen, you’ll find a passport pocket on the the bottom left corner. As this pocket pressed against your back while carry, it makes it a secure place to keep valuables like your wallet or passport. The harness loops also slightly blocks the zipper so it makes it harder for anyone to access this pocket quickly.

The back panel of the bag is actually the laptop compartment, which is large enough to fit up to a 16″ laptop. I was able to fit my 2018 15.4-inch MacBook Pro in the compartment. Sadly though, the laptop compartment does not seem to have a false bottom.

There is one big compartment in the Gaston Luga Rullen which you can access from the top of the back. As aforementioned, the amount of space in the bag once fully unrolled is quite big. I have packed two magazines, two set of clothing, an iPad Pro 10.5″, keyboard, and the Soundcore Flare 2 speaker – and there is still half the room of storage left.

There is a thin flap located at the top of the main compartment. The material of the pocket is rather thin and does not have much structure. As the position of this pocket is at the top of the bag, it would be ideal to store items that you’ll want to keep out from the main bulk of the space, such as an iPad Mini for easy access.

As it could be a hassle to continuously dig through your items from such a deep bag, Gaston Luga placed two zipper openings at each side of the bag. These openings allows you to quickly access the items that are located near the base of the bag. If you’re packing for a short day trip, it would be useful to pack items such as outerwear near the base of the bag.

Comfort of carry

Gaston Luga has continued to make improvements on the comfort of carry of its bags. From Biten to Splash, the harness gets more padding. The padding and width of the harness on the Rullen is more or less the same, but what’s changed is actually the shape of the harness. The harness on the Rullen is slightly curved and has a gentle taper to fit better on the body.

Another thing that Gaston Luga implemented well on the Rullen is the addition of a perforated padded back panel. Bags like Biten and Splash didn’t have a padded panel so it kind of limits the use case of the bag. With a padded back panel, this helps to make a case for the Rullen to be an everyday bag to use in a variety of situations such as a hiking bag as it allows for greater air flow.

Overall, I found the Gaston Luga Rullen a comfortable carry largely due to the perforated padded back panel.

Conclusion

The Gaston Luga Rullen is definitely Gaston Luga’s best bag yet as it brings about versatility of use due to its design. It looks clean, minimalistic, and has the ability to increase capacity of storage due to its roll top design. As Rullen is made from waterproof materials and easy to clean, it also a great option to use for hikes or day trips.

If you are interested in the Gaston Luga Rullen, you can purchase it from their official website here. They are having a promotion now, where you will receive a FREE Plankan cardholder (worth S$49) with every purchase! Even better, use the code TECHJIOxGL for 15% off so you just pay S$195!