Why Does This Exist?! - Patagonia Atom 8L Sling Bag - REVIEW - EDC, Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck

This popular EDC sling left us scratching our heads. This is a bag that doesn't really excel in any areas other than construction and sustainability but that is accompanied by a truly frustrating design. Overall, we found that the bag seems to lack any cohesive vision for how it might be used, presenting the owner with two pockets (one divided) and seemingly no thought as to what might be stored inside.

In our testing we'll try to fit an 11 inch iPad Pro, Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, Kindle, and a 32 ounce Nalgene inside to see how it fairs.

Overall we found this bag underwhelming. The pockets are somewhat spacious but constrained by the overall design and short zippers that limit access. An argument could be made that this is a security feature or due to Patagonia's self proclaimed loathing of the zipper itself, but the bag includes no other apparent safety considerations. The stacked design of the main and outside pockets heavily limits the thickness of anything that could be stored inside. In our use we struggled to fit most of our basic necessities, whether we were using the bag in EDC mode, for hiking or even just for a quick walk around the neighborhood.

The size and shape of these pockets and zippers severely limits just about anything the bag can hold. It's a crapshoot as to whether a given item will fit at all. The bag was not even able to hold most of our standard sized water bottles, which we believe should be a core functionality of an item geared towards hiking and outdoor enthusiasts. We'd actually struggle to find a use for this bag outside of simply carrying pocket items, like a wallet and car keys.

The bag features a right side only strap. There is simply no excuse why the shoulder strap can't be changed. There's nothing like having shoulder fatigue on one side from a sling bag and being powerless to do anything about it. This also renders the bag inaccessible to people with certain mobility issues on their right side.

We'd love to see this bag redesigned one more time with styling similar to the Osprey Daylite sling but featuring the same quality construction and eco-friendly materials we've come to expect from Patagonia.

We give this bag a rating of 6 out of 10.