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I used to be one of those with a desktop and a laptop. That was back in the days before iPads and iPhones. The powerful machine (Mac mini or Mac Pro, aka Desktop) was there to house all the things, with a large monitor and limitless power and storage expansion. The small machine was there to allow me to be portable and to do simple tasks, and it always had limited power and limited connectivity.

Anyone who ran a setup like that remembers how difficult it was to keep things in sync. There was iSync. There was iDisk. There were countless online storage solutions we all used. And, of course, there were thumb drives and floppy disks before them. It was a royal pain in the ass, so if you ever wonder why Dropbox took off so quickly, that’s why.

When the iPad came around, online storage was a little better, and slowly, the laptop became the big machine; the iPad was the portable one. It was for me and many as laptops became powerful enough.

But in December 2015, I leaped to the 12.9” iPad Pro full-time — no more desktop or laptop. And at that point, it no longer made sense to have a smaller device that wasn’t my iPhone. Because, as in the decades before, it was hard to have things magically synced between two iPads. It was mostly there, but not quite. A Mac and an iPad — yeah, you could sync those up enough, as that was mostly syncing files and not settings. But two iPads? Not so much.

So I’ve mostly stuck with a 12.9” iPad Pro since then and used my iPhone when I needed to be more portable. But there’s an issue with that setup: the iPhone isn’t comfortable holding and reading on for long periods. And it’s even worse to connect a keyboard to and write with. It’s not as good as a portable workstation—unlike the iPad or the laptop before.

The 12.9” iPad Pro is incredibly powerful and spacious. But it’s a large footprint and a good amount of weight (especially with a keyboard cover) to take around. If all you do is go from home to the office, it’s not so bad. But when I travel, I notice the weight, the bulk, and it’s frustrating.

So for a big trip, I took with my family to Italy, I knew I wanted to sort something out so I could slim down. I bought a secondhand, base model iPad Mini 6 (64GB, WI-FI only) and took that with me. I knew I wanted the Mini screen size for videos on the plane and writing when I had the time — so I wanted something more than my iPhone.

What I didn’t expect is that all those woes of decades past are truly a thing of the past. And I forgot how freeing a device the size of the iPad Mini is.

I love this little thing.

Size, Form, Specs, and Such

This is an iPad Mini 6 with WIFI only and 64GB of storage. There’s not a lot more to talk about which cannot be said with these images:

In Use

I’ve been putting this through the test. I used it for days instead of my iPad Pro. I only took it on a 12-day trip and used it for 13+ hours of travel (each way) to backup/edit photos and everything else. I’ve written countless articles on it too. It’s been tested.

And it’s good.

It’s not great, the iPad Pro is great, but it is good. The screen isn’t as good, and the speed can lag when you push it. But, the weird thing I found about the Mini — the part I wasn’t really prepared for — was how much I prefer using it over my iPad Pro.

iPad Mini 6

iPad Pro 12.9

You get that impossible feeling when you pick the Mini up in your hand. The how can this thing do that — feeling. I got that with my first iPhone. I got that with the first iPad too. Sometimes I feel that with random other devices — they seem impossible that they can be so good, powerful, and small. The iPad Mini is all that and then some.

It fits perfectly in my hand. If I need to hold an iPad for anything, I want it to be the Mini. Same with carrying it around — even with the bulkier external keyboard I have for it — it’s my preferred device to carry. When I carry the iPad Pro, I know I am carrying the iPad Pro. So my carry of it is intentional: only when I know, I will use it.

The iPad Mini is a device you can toss in ‘just in case.’ It takes up very little room and is very competent as well. It’s good.

Where it’s not good is when it comes to onscreen typing. The landscape keyboard is cramped, and the portrait is too large. So you need an external keyboard if you want to type, and it’s all good. There are countless videos on YouTube of people expressing love for this device, and I get it now.

The iPad Mini quickly became the device I prefer to use for anything but writing. Except mine doesn’t have cellular, so that preference is limited to my house, where the wifi is plentiful and fast. Tethering, sadly, is still as shitty as you assume it is.

Mini v. Pro

I started at the top, talking about desktops and laptops. I brought that up for a reason. The main drawback for a long time was no background sync. So you couldn’t seamlessly move from one device to another and keep going. But with the current iPadOS and if you fully buy into iCloud — you can easily do this. I do it all the time.

I kill my iPad Pro/Mini battery at least once a day. I used to grab a charger to keep going. Now I switch iPads and keep going. It’s seamless. While Settings are not syncing, almost everything else is — you’ve likely experienced this with your iPhone already; it carries over when using two iPads.

But the Mini feels like the older Apple laptops, where they had limited power compared to their desktop counterparts. The iPad Pro has more power than you can harness with the OS/Software. The Mini, you can top out if you try. Toss a dozen 48MP raw files on it, and start processing, and things will jitter occasionally. Not so with the iPad Pro.

Is that an issue? Probably not, because you are editing a 48MP Raw file in Lightroom on an absurdly small device and using an Apple Pencil. What a world we live in.

What the Mini can’t do is replace your Mac. You’ll struggle. The iPad Pro absolutely can, but the Mini can’t. It lacks stage manager and a better screen, and the screen is tiny. Theoretically, it could, as it’s certainly more capable than that 2015 iPad Pro I moved to full-time, but in some ways, the landscape has changed, and we demand more from these tiny computers. I think you’ll struggle to have this be your only computer — I know I have. But as a supplement? Yes, please.

My iPadOS Complaint

This is a section made so I can say: Apple, if you insist on 64GB being the base iPad storage, then at least respect users enough to make iPadOS much better at seamlessly handling offloading to make room locally. Right now, iPadOS sucks at this. Right now, it purges things in apps using iCloud for storage instead of being more aggressive with Music or Photos. There’s very little user control and yet very little action on the OS part. It’s slow to react and slow to recover.

I had 14GB free on the device for over five days, and for all five days, the iPad Mini said it couldn’t sync UP my photos in Photos because the device storage was full. But the device had plenty of space. Try harder, Apple.

Overall

The iPad Mini 6 is the perfect device for someone who still insists they need a Mac for everything. Or for someone who likes to spend money and has a larger iPad Pro — and wants something extraordinary for reading and consuming content.

When/if Apple tosses an M1/M2 into the iPad Mini, I’ll buy another. This time with Cellular and more storage, though. I don’t need a new iPad Pro, but I am keenly watching/waiting for a new iPad Mini.

Buy here.

Note: this item was provided by Mystery Ranch for review.

I’ve long recommended the Mystery Ranch Urban Assault to anyone asking me for a good backpack. It’s the backpack I recommend the most, because it’s versatile, comfortable, easy to use, and the price is competitive. But there’s odd things about it, and so when I heard Mystery Ranch was working on a bag based on the Urban Asssault, but updated to be more EDC friendly, I requested an early sample of the bag.

The new line is called Catalyst. It comes in 18, 22, and 26 liter variants. I have the Catalyst 26 in Shadow, and I’ve been testing it for some time now. It’s almost a straight upgrade from the Urban Assault line. So let’s dive in.

Specs & Dimensions

As mentioned, the bag is 26L, and it’s on a similar footprint to the Urban Assault 24. However, it’s designed in a more integrated fashion, so while I always loathed the looks of the Urban Assault 24, the Catalyst 26 looks quite nice. In a lot of ways, I mistake the Catalyst 26L for the 22L variant since it looks very similar.

It’s made from recycled CORDURA Nylon, something Mystery Ranch has been using a lot. It feels really nice. Perhaps the biggest addition here is the two external water bottle pockets on each side of the bag. I know there are a lot of people who wanted this with the Urban Assault — the Catalyst has it. And those two pockets aren’t baggy looking, they sit cleanly and smoothly against the bag, while still allowing full sized water bottles to ride securely in them. I’m a big fan.

In Use

When I first cracked the bag open, I was excited. It was exactly what I was hoping for: a larger Urban Assault, with a dedicated laptop sleeve and external water bottle pockets, without sacrificing looks. Boom, I had it.

What I didn’t expect was all the small little upgrades throughout the bag which make it a gem to use. The quality is tried and true Mystery Ranch quality. The Nylon feels really robust to the hand, without there being rough nylon sitting on your clothing. This particular CORDURA feels like something between a 500D and 1000D. A little thicker and rougher than 500D, but not all the way to 1000D, it’s a very nice material.

The harness is simple, subtle, and comfortable. It’s not fussy, and its something almost anyone will instantly find useable and comfortable.

Walking through the bag, you get:

• External laptop pocket. This has a divider in it, where you can keep a decent amount of gear. I can carry my two iPad Pros and a notebook. You could mix in a MacBook too if you wanted. Access is via two zippers from the top. Simple, easy, perfect.
• 3-Zip design is still on this bag, but I suspect the zipper has been redesigned here as it moves better than any other 3-zip I have had from Mystery Ranch. There’s no binding on the zippers as you pull the main zipper up or down. It’s really top notch.
• The top pocket of the lid is identical to most of the Mystery Ranch bags, and is cavernous.
• The two external water bottle pockets stretch slightly out, and mostly inward. They have a lightweight elastic at the top. If the bottle doesn’t ride low enough in the pocket, there’s not enough friction to keep it from falling out if the bag finds itself in an awkward position. A 32oz Nalgene is on the cusp here as far as securely staying in the pocket when pushing the bag flat under an airplane seat in front of you.
• Inside the bag is a plethora of new organization options. Three zippered mesh pockets, a handful of open top pockets, and a couple of elastic loops. They are going to be hit and miss for people, but there’s little downside to ignoring them completely.

This bring us to the first miss on this bag: pen slots. There are none. There are elastic loops you can use, but none of them hold a pen very well. The top mesh pocket seems made for pens, which isn’t how I prefer to carry my pens. I wish the bag had even one slot to store a standard pen. As it is, the loops are too large, and either too deep or too shallow to securely hold a pen. I use the top mesh pocket on the back panel of the bag.

There is only a few other downsides:

• The load lifters add clutter to the bag, without adding a ton of value. I’d prefer to see them removed all together.
• For me the straps would be better if they were a half inch wider at the widest points on them. They aren’t uncomfortable, but I do wish they were a touch wider. That said, for people with a smaller frame, these straps are going to work really well for them. It’s always a tricky balance to make a strap which works well across many body types and shapes, and I think the balance is struck well here.
• The sternum strap is what I’ll call the ‘lightweight’ variant, where it hooks onto a thin/small daisy chain. It’s not bad, and it is very easy to clip off, but it’s not particularly robust if this is something you rely heavily on.
• The org inside the bag can be a little fussy to use as it goes decently low into the bag, but not all the way down. Leaving a bit of a void of space at the bottom of the bag, thus dragging something out from that section may interfere with items you have stored in the org. Not always, but sometimes.

However, let’s talk about the positives of this bag, because there are a ton, so these are just a few:

• There’s no zipper stick as the vertical zipper moves down the center of the bag. I mentioned this above, but it’s worth mentioning again, as this is the top complaint I get about the Urban Assault from my kids.
• The internal organization take ups zero space if you decide you don’t want to use it.
• You’ll not notice the laptop sleeve at all, but you’ll appreciate the heck out of it.
• It holds a ton of gear, while being a lightweight bag to carry. It holds more than I need for the office.

The thing about this bag: it could be the only backpack you need. I don’t see a downside to hiking with it. It seems perfect for travel. It is fantastic in the office. It is comfortable to wear, without being fussy to wear.

When I started using this bag, it took absolutely no time at all to get used to it. I tossed my office gear in it, and off I went. Then I put it away for more than a month, as I was waiting for the release date to come up. And when I pulled the bag back out, again it took no time to get used to the bag, and to appreciate the smart design. In use, back and forth from the office, this backpack is a gem.

One big improvement: the top handle, it is awesome. A really nice add, and something Mystery Ranch generally doesn’t have on many of its backpacks. The Catalyst also has enough depth it can somewhat sit up when it has some weight in the bag. While still not looking big, and carrying a ton.

So yeah, it’s quite good.

Compared to Urban Assault

The big question is how it compares to the Urban Assault. At first I thought the comparison was that this was an Urban Assault, but for the office. That’s true, but the Catalyst is more than that. The Catalyst has almost no downsides when compared to the Urban Assault line.

Technically, you could argue the Urban Assault has better materials with 500D. But I am not sure how much any of that matters. And even then, the top handle on the Catalyst is light years better than the Urban Assault.

The true distinction is that the Urban Assault is a stripped down bag when compared to the Catalyst. The UA is a blank canvas for the user, where the Catalyst is trying to nudge you to being organized.

If I were buying a bag to use in the outdoors/woods: Urban Assault. But for actual urban use? For the office, for travel, for school? Catalyst is the better bag.

Overall

I love this bag. It’s fantastic. It does come at a steeper price, with the MSRP on the Catalyst 26 coming in at $179. It’s not the bargain that the Urban Assault is out of the gate, but it is certainly the better bag of the two.

Highly recommended. This is now the bag I will recommend to people who don’t want to think about bags, but want something great.

Buy here, $179. (18L and 22L variants.)

Today is the final day for Apollo and many other apps/development teams who decided not to accept bullying from Reddit’s CEO/Executives. They are shutting down today rather than be extorted for money tomorrow.

Good for them.

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I’ve always been a monocular nut — I don’t want spotting scopes, telescopes, or binoculars as they are all too conspicuous. Give me a nice discrete monocular, and I feel like 10 year old me spying on a world in the most obvious way ever. So something like that.

I have a lot of fun carrying a monocular in my bag, or on hikes, even when traveling. Being able to make out something a bit more clearly, it’s worth it. But not all monoculars are made equally — as any photographer will tell you, when it comes to ‘glass’ you get what you pay for.

Maven is trying to buck that trend a little (and they are not the only ones) attempting to offer high quality optics, for more reasonable prices. To check out what they are making, I snagged their CM.1 Monocular which is a large 8×32 optic.

I’m a fan, but it is large.

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Shortly after I published my original review of the Filson Journeyman Backpack, I sold/traded off the backpack. While it’s an item I loved — at the time, I was convinced that it wasn’t something I would keep using, and I had found something better. It didn’t take a few weeks after I parted ways with that bag to start regretting the decision — I wanted to own it, but would I use it?

I had no idea. After all, the Heritage line of the GORUCK GR1 is a much better backpack similar to the Journeyman — and I love that Heritage GR1, so why go backward in carrying comfort? I was pretty torn, but I found a great deal on a well-cared-for Journeyman and snagged it. And then I started to use it a lot. As in, more than my Heritage GR1 was getting used. And then, perhaps, I bought a second Journeyman for color variation or something.

As I’ve thought and used it more, I felt it was time to talk about why I love this backpack, despite its apparent flaws and high price.

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I had been traveling with a pretty basic setup for water: buy a water bottle at the airport, carry a few water purification tablets for emergencies, and call it a day. I never really had a ton of issues. But I have some pretty annoying/comical stories of the shit I have done because I was in the hotel room, had no bottled water available, and didn’t want to drink the tap. But that’s for another post.

I started to look at what I might pack to take care of my water needs on a much more manageable level. I knew I wanted a filter, so I started looking at what filters out what and decided I needed/wanted something that handled both bacteria in the water and viruses. That quickly narrowed the search and led me to buy a Grayl Ultrapress (16.9oz). Grayl makes a few variants of these — the differences are predominantly the capacity and the materials. The Ultrapress is akin to carrying a slightly skinnier Nalgene bottle, with about half the capacity.

I love this so much; I own several of them — and highly recommend them. So let me tell you why this is a stellar filtration bottle.

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I’ve always waffled on buying a Laulima light — they look amazing, but the larger lights seemed like they wouldn’t offer something I would use over my HDS, and the Hoku is a twisty, so it was out. Recently-ish, they came out with the ‘Slim’ lineup of lights, which run off a 14500-sized cell — these are fantastic looking. I snagged a Malihini Slim in Titanium second-hand, and I fell in love.

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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.

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I’ve seen a few stories/articles about people unexpectedly loving the Filson Duffle Pack. This is one of Filson’s few Nylon offerings, and is pretty unique among those offerings at that ( meaning: it’s not just a Nylon version of something they make in their classic materials). The Duffle Pack is firmly a travel bag, and it’s one of those dual-purpose travel bags: offering a shoulder strap and backpack straps.

After snagging one to try myself: yeah, I get it, this is a really good bag — not my thing, but certainly better than similar offerings from Tom Bihn and others.

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This is the third part of my ‘Three XYZ Collection: Budget to Luxury’ series of posts (part one, part two). The idea is simple: building a three item collection for a given category, which should cover almost anyone — and doing it in three price brackets.

Let’s get started with flashlights.

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