The North Face Borealis is the everyday backpack you have seen on a thousand shoulders, on the train, across campus, in the coffee queue, and it is one of the best-selling packs on Amazon UK for good reason. It is a 28-litre town-and-daily-carry pack built around two things that matter for that life: the FlexVent suspension system and a protected laptop compartment. If you want one bag for the commute, the lecture hall, the gym run and the occasional day out, the Borealis does that job about as well as anything at the price.
What it is not is a technical hiking pack, and that distinction is the whole point of this review. The Borealis reads as a rucksack rather than a slim daypack, it carries a laptop and a working day beautifully, and it will happily come on a gentle walk or a day out. Load it with a full hill day's kit and march it up a mountain, though, and you will feel where the design priorities actually sit: in comfort for the daily carry rather than on-trail load control. Buy it for what it is, an everyday and commute pack, and it is excellent value. Buy it expecting a hiking sack and you will be disappointed.
If your split leans more towards the trail than the office, hold that thought, because there are better tools for that job and I point you to them below. But for the reader who mostly needs a bag to survive normal life and cross over to the odd day out, this is one of the safest buys in the category. Here is the full picture.
Who the Borealis is for
The Borealis is for the person whose bag spends most of its life in town. The weekday commute with a laptop and a lunch, the campus day with textbooks and a tablet, the gym kit, the travel day, and then the occasional walk on the common or a low-key day out at the weekend. It is an everyday and commute pack first, and it is one of the best in that lane at the money.
It suits you if you value organisation and daily comfort over trail features. There is a proper padded laptop compartment, a genuinely useful secondary organiser panel, a fleece-lined pocket for a phone or glasses, and the FlexVent back that keeps the pack comfortable through a long day of wearing it on and off. It also suits anyone who wants a bag that reads as normal, a plain colourway carries from the muddy gate to the meeting room without a second glance.
Who should look elsewhere? Anyone whose main use is real hiking. If the bag has to carry a full day's hill kit, waterproofs, layers, food and water, over serious distance and ascent, a dedicated hiking daypack with a proper hip belt and a ventilated harness will carry that load far better. For dog walks and days out, a smaller and tidier pack is a better fit, and I have covered exactly that use case in the best backpacks for dog walking and days out guide. And if you want an everyday pack that also shrugs off sustained UK rain, the Patagonia Black Hole 25 is the more weatherproof crossover.
The FlexVent suspension
The FlexVent suspension is the feature that defines the Borealis and the reason it carries as well as it does for an everyday pack. It is a harness system built around three things: flexible, moulded shoulder straps, a padded and channelled back panel, and a breathable lumbar section. The straps have small ventilation openings that also make the foam more malleable, so they mould to your shoulders rather than sitting stiff against them, and they are mesh-lined for a bit of airflow.
The result, and reviewers land on this consistently, is a comfortable, supportive carry for the loads this pack is designed to take. The back panel is densely padded with an air channel down the middle to cut down on the sweat patch, and the whole system is certified by the American Chiropractic Association, which is the sort of badge that means the load-bearing geometry has been thought about rather than just marketed.
Set your expectations correctly, though. FlexVent is a comfortable everyday harness, not a load-hauling hiking suspension. There is padding and an air channel, but this is not the tensioned trampoline-mesh back of a dedicated hiking pack, and airflow is good-for-a-commuter rather than genuinely cool on a warm climb. For carrying a laptop and a working day around town, on and off all day, it is excellent. For pinning a heavy load to your back on a hot ascent, it is outclassed by a proper hiking harness, and that is the theme that runs through this whole review.
The laptop compartment and organisation
Organisation is where the Borealis earns its keep, and it is built for a working day rather than a trail day.
The dedicated laptop compartment takes up to a 15in machine in a protective case and holds it snugly, with a fleece-lined tablet pocket alongside so your laptop and tablet each get their own protected home. It is a real compartment rather than the afterthought sleeve you find in a lot of everyday packs, and it is a large part of why the Borealis is such a popular commute and campus bag. The one flag reviewers raise is that the laptop sits on only a slight false bottom, so there is minimal drop protection at the base compared with a laptop-first commuter pack that suspends the machine off the floor of the bag. For normal daily carry it is fine, but if you regularly set the bag down hard, be aware the laptop rides fairly low.
Beyond the laptop compartment, the organisation is genuinely good. There is a large main compartment with a wide horseshoe opening that makes it easy to pack and see into, a secondary front organiser panel with a notebook sleeve, a zippered tech pouch and smaller pockets for cables, chargers and pens, a key clip, a soft fleece-lined pocket at the top for a phone or sunglasses, and two stretch side pockets for a water bottle. There is also a bungee system and daisy-chain webbing on the front for lashing a light layer or a helmet.
For a commute, campus, the gym or a travel day, that layout is hard to fault. The only mild criticism is that the rigid laptop partition eats into the depth of the main compartment, so if you need to stack three or more thick textbooks the main space can feel shallower than the 28-litre figure suggests. For everyday loads it is plenty.
Comfort for daily carry and days out
Comfort is the Borealis's strong suit for the life it is built for. The FlexVent straps and padded back make it a pack you can wear all day, put down, pick up and wear again without it digging in, which is exactly what a commute and a campus day ask of a bag. Loaded with a laptop, a couple of books, a layer and a water bottle, it carries close and comfortable, and the 28-litre volume swallows a working day with room to spare.
It crosses over to a day out perfectly well, too. For a gentle walk, a trip to the coast, a stroll on the common with the dog, it is comfortable and roomy enough to carry a flask, snacks, a waterproof and the family bits and pieces. The chest strap steadies it, and for the light-to-moderate loads these outings involve, the everyday harness is up to the job.
Where the comfort story runs out is under a real hill load. The waist strap is a thin webbing stomach strap rather than a padded hip belt, so it steadies the pack but does not transfer weight off your shoulders onto your hips the way a hiking harness does. Reviewers are clear on this: the waist strap is not a true load-bearing hip belt. For everyday carry that does not matter at all, because the loads are light and the walking is short. For a long, heavy day on the hill, where hip-belt load transfer is the whole point, it is the single biggest reason the Borealis is not the right tool.
Water resistance for UK use
The current Borealis uses a recycled 210-denier nylon ripstop with a non-PFC durable water-repellent (DWR) finish, which is a sensible spec for British everyday use. The DWR beads light rain and drizzle and buys you time to get from the car to the door or the platform to the office without the contents getting damp, and the recycled fabric with a non-PFC treatment is a cleaner environmental story than the old finishes.
Reviewers rate the Borealis as having some of the better water resistance in its everyday-pack class, and for the drizzle, showers and dashes-through-the-rain that make up most of the UK commute, that is enough. It keeps a laptop and a working day dry through the ordinary British wet.
Understand the limit, though. A DWR finish is a water-repellent treatment on a standard fabric, not a laminate and not a sealed shell. It sheds a shower, but in sustained, driving rain it will eventually wet out, and the coil zips are not waterproof, so water can find its way in around the closures in a real soaking. There is no built-in rain cover. For the everyday and commute life this pack is built for, the DWR is fine. If you specifically want an everyday pack that keeps working in relentless UK rain, the Patagonia Black Hole 25 and its TPU-film laminate is the pack that does not wet out, and it is the one I would point a wet-west reader towards. For everyone else, keep anything critical in a dry bag inside in the worst weather, as you would with any DWR pack.
Why it is not a hiking pack, and what to buy instead
This is the section that matters most, because the Borealis is so common that people reach for it as a default hiking bag, and it is the wrong tool for that job.
Three things separate an everyday pack like the Borealis from a proper hiking daypack. First, the hip belt: the Borealis has a thin webbing stomach strap, whereas a hiking pack has a padded hip belt that carries most of the load on your hips and off your shoulders, which is what makes a heavy day comfortable. Second, ventilation: the FlexVent back is comfortable but it is not the tensioned trampoline mesh of a hiking pack, so it runs warmer on a hot climb. Third, the shape and features: the Borealis is a boxy, town-oriented organiser, not a trail pack with a stretch stash pocket, walking-pole loops, a hydration routing built for hiking and hip-belt pockets for the things you grab on the move.
None of that is a criticism of the Borealis. It is the Borealis being exactly what it is designed to be. But it means that if your real use is hiking, you should not buy it for the trail. For dog walks and gentle days out, the best backpacks for dog walking and days out guide covers the right sort of pack, and the Osprey Daylite Plus 20 is the sensible starting point. For full-day walking with a proper harness and hip belt, the best hiking daypacks guide is where to look, and something like the Osprey Hikelite 26 or Talon 22 will carry a hill load in a completely different league. Keep the Borealis for town and let a hiking pack do the hiking.
Durability
Durability is one of the Borealis's quiet strengths and part of why it is such a common sight after years of daily use. The current pack is built from a recycled 210-denier nylon ripstop, with the harder-wearing panels bolstered in tougher deniers, YKK reverse-coil zips and Duraflex and ITW hardware. That is a solid, sensible build for a bag that gets carried, dumped and stuffed every single day, and reviewers and long-term owners report it standing up to years of commuting and student life without falling apart.
The stress points on any everyday pack are the zips and the shoulder-strap anchors, and the Borealis uses good hardware at both. The North Face also runs a lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects, which is worth knowing on a bag you intend to carry daily for years. It is not an indestructible expedition pack, but for the everyday and commute role it is aimed at, it is built to last.
Specs at a glance
- Capacity
- 28L
- Weight
- ~1.2kg (2 lb 11 oz)
- Dimensions
- ~50 x 34 x 25cm
- Body fabric
- Recycled 210-denier nylon ripstop with non-PFC DWR, reinforced panels in heavier deniers
- Suspension
- FlexVent: moulded flexible shoulder straps, padded channelled back panel, breathable lumbar, ACA certified
- Laptop
- Protected compartment for up to a 15in laptop, plus fleece-lined tablet pocket
- Organisation
- Front organiser panel with notebook sleeve, tech pouch, key clip; fleece-lined top pocket; two stretch side pockets
- External carry
- Front bungee system and daisy-chain webbing
- Waist strap
- Thin webbing stomach strap (not a padded hip belt)
- Water resistance
- Non-PFC DWR finish (repels showers, not a laminate; no rain cover)
- Hardware
- YKK reverse-coil zips, Duraflex and ITW hardware
- Warranty
- The North Face lifetime warranty against manufacturing defects
- UK price
- ~£90
Pros and cons
- FlexVent suspension is comfortable and supportive for daily carry, ACA certified
- Protected 15in laptop compartment plus a fleece-lined tablet pocket
- Excellent everyday organisation: front panel, tech pouch, key clip, fleece-lined top pocket
- Non-PFC DWR sheds showers and handles the ordinary UK commute wet
- Tough recycled ripstop, YKK zips and a lifetime warranty, built for years of daily use
- Plain, low-key look that crosses from town to campus to a day out
- Strong value at around £90 for one of the best-selling everyday packs going
- Only a thin webbing stomach strap, not a load-bearing padded hip belt
- FlexVent back is comfortable but not a ventilated hiking harness, runs warm on a hot climb
- DWR sheds showers but wets out in sustained rain, and there is no rain cover
- Laptop sits on a slight false bottom, so limited drop protection at the base
- Rigid laptop partition eats into main-compartment depth for thick loads
- Boxy, town-oriented shape rather than a slim daypack; not built for trail features
The person who wants one comfortable, well-organised pack for the weekday commute, campus or daily carry, with a protected laptop compartment, that also crosses over to gentle days out. Not for real hiking loads.
Verdict: is the Borealis worth it?
Yes, for the everyday and commute life it is built for. The North Face Borealis does exactly what its millions of owners want from it: it carries a laptop and a working day comfortably, it organises the daily carry brilliantly, the FlexVent suspension keeps it comfortable through a long day of wearing it on and off, and it sheds the ordinary British showers. At around £90 for that, it is one of the safest everyday buys in the category, and its status as one of the best-selling packs on Amazon UK is deserved.
The caveats all point the same way, and they are about role rather than quality. This is an everyday pack, not a hiking sack. The waist strap is a thin stomach strap rather than a padded hip belt, the back is comfortable rather than trail-ventilated, the DWR sheds showers rather than shrugging off sustained rain, and the shape is a town organiser rather than a trail pack. None of that is a flaw. It is the Borealis being true to what it is.
So buy it for the commute, the campus, the daily carry and the odd day out, and it is excellent. If you want an everyday pack that also survives relentless UK rain, buy the Patagonia Black Hole 25 instead. And if your real use is the trail, do not press the Borealis into a job it was not built for, buy a proper hiking daypack and keep the Borealis for town.
Rating: 4.2 / 5
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