Needed a convertible bag which could be carried by hand, shoulder strap, or as a backpack for a 50 day expedition from Beijing to St. Petersburg with extended backcountry tours through Mongolia and around Lake Baikul. After considerable research I chose this one. Its just arrived and after examining it from end to end although it's not expedition size, I'm going to pack light and it will be perfect. Rugged construction with solid stitching and straps. Clips and zippers are plastic but look beefy enough. Compression straps will be really useful. Ends have handles for loading and unloading into tighter spaces. Dividers inside can be individually tucked away so you can have one, two or three compartments. Top pouch for easy access to a tablet, sunglasses, small binoculars, or passport. Would be a bit cramped but doable for a full sized camera and maybe an extra lens. Side pouches are also not particularly roomy but have mesh pockets for organizing stuff. No end pockets and no bumper buttons to protect the fabric bottom but I'm going to give it 5 stars anyway. Will post again after my trip.OK. Here's my update. As I mentioned in my previous posting this is not an expedition sized bag. If you are off for an extended period or if you will be in more than one climatic zone like I was you may want to look at something larger. Especially if you will be carrying colder weather gear. That being said the bag survived the trip no problem and did what was expected. I used it as a duffle with the shoulder strap or top handle only, never as a backpack. For a shorter expedition I'd gladly take it again. It has several nice features; the compartments allow you to separate things according to function, The outside pockets although not large were useful for passports, smaller stuff and my tablet. One thing that I discovered and found very useful, is that if you put the top zipper at one end outside of the compression straps when you close the bag, you can access one end of the inside, very useful when you need to grab a snack, camera or ??? and you don't want to undo the straps and zipper. I'd recommend this for trips in hot climates up to 2 weeks duration, or moderate climates if packed carefully. If you have a limited wardrobe, only a few gadgets and access to a laundry up to a month or even more. The attached picture shows the bag on the left fully loaded in a Mongolian yurt, as you can see there other stuff that I couldn't squeeze inside. PS. The rock is there to keep the roof on. It gets windy in the Gobi desert.