Piorama A10 Bag Review

Intro

The Piorama A10 is one of the world’s most versatile bags.

Some bags have seamless finishes and exotic fabrics, some are designed with pocket for every device under the sun, and some have unique shapes or colors. This bag has none of that.

Sure, the finishes are neat, but that’s not why people buy the A10. There are also just 3 pockets and one main cavity, and the entire bag is a simple tube shape that comes in either black or grey.

What makes this bag extraordinary is how many ways you can customize it. You can wear it as a duffel, a backpack, a sling, or a handheld, it expands from 31L to 46L to 62L, and it can even compress down to the palm of your hand.

And that makes it ideal for people who want just one bag for all of life’s adventures. But to provide a great do-it-all experience, every size and style variation needs to work well without interfering with the others.

Piorama A10 Design

Piorama tackles this challenge with a tube-shaped bag, where each end can be closed or opened with a drawstring. The ends are 15.5L each, so with both closed, you’ve got a 31L bag, with one closed, you’ve got a 46L bag, and with both open, you’ve got a 62L bag.

And this is my favorite part of the bag, Piorama nailed the expandability. In 5 seconds I can open both ends to go from 31L to 62L, and in 30 seconds I can collapse the entire bag down to the palm of my hand.

But the A10 isn’t only about custom sizes. It’s also about custom styles. For me, this was the most confusing part of the bag.

It comes with two backpack straps and one duffel strap, but there are 10 connector loops on the bag. So it’s not obvious how to connect each strap, or whether they’re in the right position.

Eventually I figured it out, but I wish there were matching colors or shapes for the straps and connection points. I also wish the 10 straps were cut down to 6, I rarely use the four connectors at the very edges.

There are also five handles on the bag, one on each end and three handles on top. And the reason for the three on top is so no matter what size the bag is, one of the handles will always be centered.

I understand why Piorama has all these straps and handles, you can rationalize all of these choices, I just feel like they solved custom sizing in a far more elegant way than they did custom styling.

Piorama A10 Weight

But if drawstrings on a bag doesn’t sound like an “elegant” solution to you, consider how this one design choice also radically lowers the weight of the A10.

Piorama uses 400D nylon on the exterior of the bag. And they do this because anything heavier would prevent the drawstrings from closing properly. 400D is a weight rating that means if you stretched one thread of this fabric over 9km, it would weigh 400 grams. It’s plenty durable for most backpacks, but it makes the bag lighter than the heavy duty bags using 1000D or 1680D nylon.

Padding would also interfere with the drawstrings, so Piorama removed that too, making the bag even lighter.

And finally, there are only three small, central pockets on the A10 (one external, two internal) because anything too large or too far towards the ends would also interfere with the drawstrings. Each pocket is 7.5” x 10.5” so you can fit a book or a tablet, but not a laptop. The external pocket also has a quick access key clip, and the internal pockets have loops for a pen or pencil. Once again, this relatively spartan pocket design make this bag even lighter.

So the final result of this drawstring scaling approach is not only a bag that’s easy to expand, but one that is also very light, bordering on ultralight, with plenty of strength. You won’t get padding or lots of pockets, but these drawstrings are why this bag is light as a feather.

Without the straps, the A10 weighs just 1.5 pounds, while most duffel bags weigh 3-4 pounds, and most suitcases weigh in at 10 pounds or more.

In fact, I’ve only seen a handful of extreme ultralight hiking backpacks that can compete on weight, especially considering that the A10 holds 62L of gear.

For context, the 26L Bellroy Venture Ready Pack I recently reviewed only carries about 40% of what the A10 can carry, yet it’s heavier. And compared to most backpacks, Bellroy’s bag is relatively light.

Piorama A10 Straps, Zippers, Drawstrings, and Loops

Straps

If you want to carry this bag as either a duffel bag or a sling, you’ll be using the single duffel strap. I like to connect it to two of the loops in the central area, but when expanded to 62L, you can stretch this strap to the very ends of the bag. You can also angle the strap if that’s more comfortable for you.

In backpack mode, you’ll be using the two backpack straps. The bottom of each strap connects to D-rings that sit further from the center zipper than the other loops, and the top connects to the loop on the opposite side of the central bag area. In backpack mode, you won’t use any of the loops on the extreme ends of the bag. The backpack straps also have little clips that wrap behind each strap to keep them secure.

Zippers

The A10 uses size 8 waterproof YKK zippers as the main zipper, with a lock loop to keep your gear safe. The other pockets all use size 5 zippers, with the same waterproof coating applied to the exterior one. They’re easy to slide, they get the job done, and they have thick pieces of knotted fabric to pull on.

Drawstrings

At first I was skeptical about the strength of the drawstrings that close off each end. It’s a unique approach and string doesn’t sound like it would be strong, but these drawstrings work great. You can pull on them as hard as you want, and they don’t loosen up when your bag is full of gear.

The strings tuck away in a magnetic pocket when the ends are closed off, and are spread throughout the bag’s fabric when the ends are open. For a really tight cinch on your bag ends, first pull the drawstrings, and then tighten the clamp afterwards.

Constrictor Loops

There are two more loops on the side of the bag that are designed to give your bag a slimmer appearance in 31L mode. You can tighten them when your bag is half-full and you don’t want all your gear sloshing around, but you could also use these loops to tie on a pair of running shoes or attach a bike light.

Overall Experience

Overall, I’m really impressed with the custom sizing on this bag, I think that’s the big innovation here. There are a few too many straps and loops for my liking, and a padded laptop sleeve would let me use this bag more often, but it does the job it is supposed to do.

So in my view, this is the ideal vacation bag. If you’re traveling for work and you bring the same gear on all your trips, you might be better off with a normal backpack or duffel.

But on vacation, winter ski trips demand way more gear than beach getaways, and every excursion on holiday could easily mean that you need different gear, and maybe even a different bag style.

So instead of packing a suitcase, a duffel, and a backpack on your next vacation, this one bag can replace them all. You also get a nice weight bonus when flying because this bag is so light.

Most airlines cap luggage at 50 pounds, and most suitcases already weigh 10 pounds empty. This bag is 1.5 pounds empty, so you’ve got another 8 pounds for your gear, and 62L mode gives you just as much space as a typical suitcase.

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