Wandrd Rogue 9L Sling Review: Style Over Substance?

Few years ago I bought and then reviewed the big Peak Design Messenger bag and I admitted, having spent six months using it for my photography shoots, that I was disappointed with it. Since then I’ve looked at heaps of other bags, and clicked the purchase button on more than a few, but there’s always something that puts me off, I hesitate, and it languishes in my cart on the website for eternity.

But at the end of last year, before the seasonal madness got into full swing, I walked into an actual camera shop in Sydney and walked out with a swanky new sling bag (I mean, I paid for it obviously, I might be a deinfluencer, but I do draw the line at shop-lifting). That bag was the Wandrd Rogue Sling 9 litre and I have been using it as my main carry for the last couple of months and, having used it properly, I’m now ready to share my review of it with you.

The Obsession is Real

We photographers do obsess over our camera bags, don’t we? Now that I think about it though, I admit I don’t find it that surprising. Let’s face it, we lug about unholy amounts of expensive equipment in often unforgiving and downright hostile locations, and anything that makes that a bit easier and our equipment a bit safer, is welcome.

I do own an excellent backpack, a LowePro Protactic 450, but I don’t use it very often because I just prefer the simplicity of sling or messenger bags. I’ve had five different sling bags over the years but this is my first by the achingly trendy vowel-deficient Wandrd, specifically their largest Rogue sling – the 9 litre version that tops a range which also includes 3 litre and 6 litre versions.

Exterior

The Rogue sling comes in many colours – mine is in Yuma Tan, which I chose because it reminded me of camera bags of yore (not yaw as in twist or your as in yours but yore as in olden times). It reminded me a bit of an updated Billingham Bag which I’m sure you photo-nerds know is the bag of choice for the kind of pipe-smoking photographer who shoots Nikon and Nikon only! While it’s nowhere near as capacious as a Billingham bag (which has a staggering 21.5litre capacity incidentally), it does mean you don’t have to wear tweed when you’re on a photo shoot and you won’t need to remortgage your house to buy one.

The bag is made of ballistic nylon, a material (I have learned) that was developed by the DuPont company for the flak jackets worn by airmen in WW2. So it’s good to know that your camera equipment will be safe, should a 20mm cannon shell fired by a Junkers-Ju-88C-night-fighter hits the airframe of your Spitfire. In all seriousness, this is a rugged material that is designed to be treated badly by photographers, which is just as well for me as I literally never baby my camera equipment.

The construction features excellent YKK zippers which work smoothly and cope better with detritus, such as sand, than other cheaper zips. You’ll find a large carry handle on top for when you want to go sling-free, and on either end are nylon grab handles for hefting the bag in or out of confined spaces more easily.

The front features two adjustable straps with a standard clip design, positioned in a way that cruelly hides the Wandrd badge. They’re designed for tripods, coats or, if you’re French – a baguette or two. The supplemental storage doesn’t end there – the bag’s underside houses an expandable pocket that can accommodate a tripod, water bottle, umbrella or a footlong sub.

I’ve found this under-pocket to be fiddly as fuck to use unless I take the bag off my body, with little elasticated sinch straps that have proved to be a source of continual frustration because they snag on anything smaller than a traffic cone. While these straps are necessary to retain whatever you put in there, they’re so annoying that I only use that pocket for things I don’t have to take off or put away more than once. Putting anything in the under-pocket also makes it difficult to rest the bag on the ground in an upright position and the top-heavy design means it is probably going to topple over onto its back.

The main strap can be completely unclipped from the bag for switching between left and right-handed carry. Behind the rear backpad, you’ll find a stabilising strap that can be deployed when hiking to stop the bag from continually shifting around on your back. When stowed away, that stabilising clip sits right in the middle of the padded back of the bag and I’ve found that it digs into my spine, depending upon how I wear it. The shoulder strap is padded, of course, but it’s too narrow – you’ll feel it digging into your shoulders during extended wear, though that obviously depends on how much weight you’re carrying.

The front panel features the first of the pockets, designed for slim items such as your smartphone, with a thoughtful little key clip and divider installed to stop said keys from scratching said smartphone. The back panel houses a much larger pocket serving a dual purpose – in its basic configuration it’s simply a deep pocket capable of holding a surprising amount of crap (I keep my filter wallet, knock-off Leatherman multitool, head torch and small lenses in there).

What makes this back pocket special, though somewhat unbelievably, is that it doubles as a laptop pocket. By unzipping the bottom of the bag, you release a strong nylon inner-liner that allows you to post your laptop vertically into the pocket and secure it on top with a strap. While it can accommodate a 16″ laptop like my M2 MacBook Pro (assuming you put it in its own sleeve first), it’s a ludicrous design that feels like walking around with a cheeseboard stuck down your trousers.

Wandrd makes a big point about this ‘patent-pending’ design, suggesting there aren’t many sling bags that can accommodate a 16″ laptop. To which I say – yours can’t either – it’s not in the bag, it’s just hitching a ride. The safety of your laptop depends entirely on the quality of the sleeve you put it in (and Wandrd does, of course, have their own laptop case available in matching colours and materials). I would never entrust my laptop to this setup for anything other than emergency stowage, partly because the laptop is so exposed and partly because it just looks fucking stupid.

The backpad deserves special mention for the impressive amount of fuzz it’s managed to generate within just a couple of months of use. The bags are mainly designed to sit quite high up on the back when moving, but when I get to wherever I’m going, I lower it down to about waist height for easier lens swap-outs. This fuzz was caused by my belt rubbing against the back of the bag, and I am singularly unimpressed by how badly it has held up after such a short period of time. Not everyone wants to walk around with their sling bag tucked under their armpit like a concealed carry holster, and I seriously question Wandrd’s choice of materials for the one part of the bag which is in constant contact with another surface.

Interior

The main compartment is accessed via a well-protected rubberized seal that surprisingly doesn’t get snagged at all. That said, it’s not great for one-handed operation – the bag’s angular design and stiff zip often gets stuck on the corners, meaning I have to cradle my camera in my elbow while opening and closing the bag.

Inside, you’ll find a small pocket on the top flap best suited for cables, while the back of the interior space features a sleeve area suitable for thin devices, books, business cards or fast-food restaurant menus, complete with elasticated tabs for spare batteries or SD-cards. The main space can be modified using the usual padded velcro dividers – it comes with two, but I removed one because I nearly always have a big zoom lens with me.

Capacity-wise, you can comfortably fit a mirrorless camera with a zoom and a spare lens or perhaps two depending on their size. My main zoom is the Fujifilm 100-400 which takes up most of the interior space on its own. I did my homework and was aware of this limitation prior to buying the bag – my solution is to only stow the lens on its own, not when it’s attached to the camera. The interior space is good and useful overall, with ample room for big cameras and multiple lens combinations. I particularly appreciate how the lid sits upright and (mostly) out of the way, letting me use the bag like a shelf when switching out lenses.

The Good and the Bad

The bag is undeniably rugged and well-suited to the sort of mistreatment that the average photographer inflicts upon their equipment. The construction quality is solid – Wandrd hasn’t skimped on materials or components, with good stitching and protective weather sealing on the all-important zips. The design offers flexibility, allowing you to attach various equipment to the external surfaces and even clip on entire secondary bags if desired.

The downsides, however, are significant: poor choice of material for the back panel (further compromised by the stowed plastic retaining clip for the main strap), difficult single-handed access to the main compartment (a real issue when you’re holding a camera), a half-arsed gimmicky laptop slot, and that frustrating elasticated under-pocket with fiddly straps that make accessing anything other than a cucumber a logistical nightmare.

Conclusion

There are some great design features in the Rogue Sling, particularly its nice boxy rectangular interior that accommodates a wide range of camera equipment well. While nearly all of the bag is rugged enough to survive the challenges of clumsy bastards like me chucking it around in nature, I suspect that – like those expensive 4WDs you see – most of these bags will see out their lives in the city.

It’s badly let down by several flaws – the fragile material used on the back-pad, the shoulder strap that is too thin, the fiddly bottom pocket and the inside-outside laptop papoose. At least with the laptop feature you can just use it as a big deep pocket, which is precisely what I intend to do.

I got a very sweet deal on this bag in one of the sales, but had I bought it at full price I’d have seriously considered taking it back. My old Peak Design Everyday Messenger bag might have been the most unexciting design in the history of luggage, but it could probably survive a nuclear blast at ground zero and just buff-out. The Rogue Sling, on the other hand, is well intentioned but often sacrifices simplicity for over-engineered gimmicks.

Wandrd should’ve spent less time removing vowels and more time removing flaws.