After I tried the CAP1 and fell in love with it, I wanted to try the CAP2 so I could see if Evergoods was able to capture that same magic twice. They weren’t, but the CAP2 is a pretty unique pouch in the marketplace, so before you rule it out, let me tell you what it is and isn’t.
Sizing and Such
As the name suggests, this is a 2L pouch that measures 9.5” x 3.5” x 5.75”. It is made of the 420d HT nylon 6,6 Evergoods uses on many things, with a 210D lining.
It’s effectively a stout rectangle with an odd opening and two zippers. It feels padded and has many oddly sized but mostly applicable interior organizers. There is; frankly, too much going on with this thing to explain, so images are best. Take a gander.
In Use
The first thing I noticed about this pouch is that, like the CAP1, it is a clever pouch. It’s not too clever, either. It’s straightforward to get gear in and out and keep it all organized and protected simultaneously. The dual access entry to the top pocket makes the pouch somewhat useable from within a bag, but this is primarily a pouch that needs to be pulled out and opened up fully to be used.
When it’s sitting on a desktop, it will sit upright and display all your gear for easy selection and access. Even the outer top pocket is accessible when it’s sat on a table like this (note that in all images, I took zero extra effort getting this to ‘stay put’ while snapping photos). This is where it stands as reasonably unique on the market — many pouches may open up to and lay out, but this stands up while open. It’s pretty neat overall and makes for a great mobile workstation of a pouch.
The issue is that it’s much too bulky for what it carries. I took everything out of this pouch and put it in a much smaller volume pouch, and it still had room. Yet when packed in the CAP2, it was nearly full. These padded/rigid types of pouches all suffer from this fate, and while it’s not a bad thing outright — it’s very much a thing.
The last note on my use: this fits well at the bottom of a Filson Journeyman, leaving just enough room on the side of it for a Fellow travel mug or stashing a CAP1 vertically next to it. The issue with this type of placement is that you need to fish the pouch out of your bag to get into it and get your stuff out. That proved less than ideal for me day to day.
Overall
I was pretty sold for the first couple of weeks with this pouch. If I had written my review at that time, we would be in a situation where I was encouraging people to buy it. But the more I needed to get gear in and out of the pouch, and the more I wanted to keep my bag slim, the more frustrated I became with the CAP2.
It’s too bulky for me. And my use case isn’t pulling it out to have the gear in it at the ready. That’s not how I work. But it is how some people work, and if you are such some person — this is a pretty lovely pouch and one of the few that allows you to work this way.
I won’t be getting much use out of it, though…