Lowe Alpine Sirac Multi-Day Hiking Backpack, Sirac 50 Liter, Ebony

I own many hiking backpacks and the majority are from Lowe Alpine, this has been my favorite brand for years. Unfortunately this bag did not impress me the way the smaller bags did.The back pad was a different setup then I'm used to and caused significantly more sweat due to a lack of air flow.The next concern for me was the lack of outer pocket. I've always had the large outer pocket before but thought this would still be acceptable and intended to use the bungies to strap my sleeping mat to the outside. I didn't think this would be a big concern due to the 2 large mesh side pockets. The problem for me was that both side pockets are open on the top (as expected) but also open towards my back (while wearing) this might have a purpose and provide quick access but for me only limited what I could carry. The side pockets weren't deep enough to hold anything securely and constantly resulted in items falling on the ground every time I took it off. I ended up only using the side pockets for my hiking poles and tripod but found them almost useless fir anything smaller than that.These pockets may have a specific purpose that I'm not familiar with and might be a perfect design, but for me, I had not usable outer storage which was a huge problem on the hiking trip that I bought this bag for.I returned the bag and purchased a Deuter bag, this ended up being a much better design for me.