ULA Nexus Review: Expanded Cons

Standard drawbacks of frameless design: While frameless packs usually offer up to a pound of weight savings compared to their framed siblings, they come with some major drawback including: increased pressure on shoulders; lower maximum load limit; and increased likelihood of lumps jabbing into your back. While these issues are genre wide and in no way unique to the ULA Nexus, the simple fact that it’s a frameless pack will likely rule it out of consideration for a majority of potential backpackers. The upside for Nexus specifically is that it has a padded hip belt, which when tightened, takes about a quarter of the weight off your shoulders and places it onto your hips. A beltless frameless pack might save a few ounces, but will add about five pounds of perceived weight onto your shoulders, ultimately causing more strain and discomfort.

Unusually long sewn-in Y-strap can’t be temporarily removed, must be loosened to access main compartment: So this is only one of two issues we discovered that are totally unique to the ULA Nexus. In order to secure a bear canister on the upper deck while the pack is full, the strap was made extra long – about five feet in total length. That’s all well and good. However, it’s sewn-in, and thus it cannot be removed or temporarily unbuckled; if you don’t want it, you have to cut it off permanently.

But leaving it in place while not using it is also annoying. Not only does it create strap clutter, you have to loosen it each time you want to access the main roll top compartment, placing one half of the slackened strap onto each side, and then cinch it back down to close up shop, tucking away the excess strap material into the front mesh pocket. It just adds extra steps that don’t need to be there. As ULA already offers a removable top Y-Strap on most of their packs, we’d like to see them switch the Nexus to that system, and move off the extra long sewn-in strap currently used here.

Internal foam back doesn’t double as sit pad except at camp: Generally speaking, we always like when frameless packs have a foam back panel, and the ULA Nexus does. They usually only weigh a couple of ounces and do a lot of work blocking lumps and stiff objects from jabbing into your back. Not having to carefully put all your soft items up against the inside of the back panel while packing makes life easier.

The other upside to foam back panels (especially external ones) is that they can usually be temporarily removed and do double duty as a comfy seat, eliminating the need to bring a dedicated foam sit pad. However, the way in which Nexus’s foam back panel sits on the inside of the pack makes it difficult to remove and impossible to replace without fully emptying your pack. Ergo, you can use it as a foam sit pad while at camp once you’re unpacked, but cannot do so while on a midday break, as you would need to fully unpack in order to set the foam sheet back in place. Examples of good external foam sit pad back panels in fastpacks can be seen in the Zpacks Nero, Gossamer Gear Skala 38, and Nashville Cutaway.

Not seam not taped, back panel not aerated: Lastly, there are a few features that are not applied to the ULA Nexus, that give some other packs minor advantage over Nexus. Both back panel aeration and seam taping are desirable characteristics (the former as seen in Durston Wapta, the latter as seen in Zpacks Nero and HMG Contour), but both add manufacturing cost and/or weight. Seam taping in particular is a nice touch because it weighs nothing and eliminates leakage into the pack, upgrading the overall status from highly water resistant to non-submergible waterproof.

Back panel aeration is also a nice touch in the way it can just feel comfier to hike in than having a sheet of sweaty ULTRA X rubbing on your back. All of ULA’s most popular packs, like the Circuit and Catalyst, have this feature. However, it does add weight and cost, so while we miss it, we agree with the choice to cut it in order to keep weight down for the Nexus.