Contents
This is not a sponsored review of the Black Ember Grip Sling 9, nor was I compensated in any way for this. All thoughts presented in this post are my personal opinion after many months of real use.
Video Review
In 2024, after much debate and travel experience through the past decade, I purchased the Black Ember Grip Sling 9 alongside the Alpaka Elements Travel Backpack to become my ultimate travel duo for both short and long trips across the Atlantic.
The purpose of this bag duo is to keep the smaller Black Ember Grip Sling 9 under my seat as my “personal item” with any essential I may need on a flight, such as meds and entertainment. The larger Alpaka Elements Travel Bag would act as my “carry on” luggage, and contain my larger gear such as my Macbook and Fuji X-T5 and assorted lenses.
Together, I’ve been able to transport a significant amount of gear, while still maintaining an extremely small flight footprint. In addition, these bags have held up under serious strain.
In a separate review, I’ll dive into the Alpaka. This review will only cover the Black Ember.
Technical Details
- Price: ~$150.00 USD
- Time in use: 1 year of continual use at the time of this review
- Desired purpose: Primary under-seat flight bag (personal item) + EDC
- Season: 4 season
- Size: 10 h x 13 w x 5 d inches
- Material: 420D Cordura, ripstop, and more
- Volume: 9 Liters
- Compartments: 3
Pros & Cons
Grip Sling Pros:
- Extremely high quality build with Cordura and other materials.
- Sits up-right on its own.
- Strap swivels that connect to the body allow for properly flexibly and movement on the go.
- Very nice looking bag. I get compliments on it at airports sometimes.
- Unique and elegant zipper pulls that also act as anti-theft mechanisms.
- Aquaguard zippers have held up through extended use.
- Robust top handle easily accommodates an overloaded sling.
- Has the ability to fit a small Black Ember camera insert for photographers, but I don’t use it for that purpose.
Grip Sling Cons:
- Excess strap gets messy and is hard to contain. The strap locking mechanism is better in theory than practice.
- The optional (not included) V Buckle Straps on the bottom of the bag don’t stay taught around gear and aren’t very useful with the way they’re designed. They take a beating on the bottom of the bag.
Loadout & gearlist
- Phone
- Wet Ones for cleaning up spills, hands, etc
- NXT tech pouch used for moist towelettes, Dude Wipes, mints, candy, bandages, alcohol prep pads, and more
- Liquid IV to mix into water for hydration
- Assorted drink flavor packets, including some caffeine
- Field Notes
- Travel tissue pack
- CLIF bars
- Savior Equipment Tactical Mesh Zipper Pouchs (x2)
- Assortment of charging cables, adaptors, and more.
- Pepcid, Tums, Claritin, saline spray, floss picks, Ace bandage
- Pocket-sized Duct Tape. A must have in case things break or rip on your journey
- Mylar emergency blanket
- Anker Prime 67w Wall Charger
- Ear plugs for sleeping on flights
- Hand moisturizer
- Travel pen w/ carabiner
- 100 lumen flashlight
- Hand sanitizer
- Lip balm
- Advil
- Olbas Inhaler. Highly recommend for anyone who suffers allergies or inflammation of sinuses
- Listerine mouth spray
- Remarkable Tablet with liquid e-ink display for notes, sketching, ideating, etc
- Apple Ipad for photo editing, entertainment, games, etc
- Silica gel packs to keep compartments dry
- Occiam noise cancelling ear buds w/ 90 hours of playback time between charges
- Classic corded Apple Earpods with zip pouch for plugging into plane seatbacks
- Coman extendible mini camera tripod
- Camolo Mag-Safe collapsible phone / ipad holder
- Not shown: International power adapters, depending on destination
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