Zpacks Super Nero 50 Backpack Review

The Zpacks Super Nero 50 is a high-capacity frameless backpack with a modular and interchangeable shoulder strap system that lets you swap between fastpack-style vest shoulder straps or conventional shoulder straps using the same pack bag (See this video for instructions). We tested the fastpack style shoulder straps, which let you keep water, food, and essentials close at hand. Being frameless, the Super Nero 50 has a maximum recommended load of 20 lbs. It is optimized for carrying ultralight but bulky loads, including a hammock sleep system or a synthetic insulated backpacking quilt. Carry a much heavier load, and your shoulders will hurt. 

• Gender: Unisex
• Weight: 15.8 oz (incl vest straps)
• Volume: 50L
• Type: Frameless
• Shoulder Staps: Fastpack Style (vest)
• Pockets: 3 external
• Hydration-ready: No
• Load Lifters: No
• Removable Hip Belt: Yes
• Waterproof: Yes and seam-taped
• Material: Ultra 100X
• Bear canister compatibility: BV 475 and smaller fit horizontally, BV500 vertical
• Pros: Vest sleeves can hold up to 20 oz bottles, waterproof backpack
• Cons: Max load limit of 20 lbs, cord-based side compression is awkward to use

Backpack Storage and Organization

The Super Nero 50 is a high-capacity waterproof backpack made with durable Ultra 100x, a woven 100 denier Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) face fabric laminated to a waterproof lining and seam-taped to prevent leaks. The pack bag is configured as a rolltop with buckles that meet on top of the pack instead of the sides. It has a large mesh front pocket and solid side pockets in a standard ultralight backpack configuration. The Super Nero is not hydration-compatible, however, and there’s nowhere to hang or store a water bladder inside the pack or run a hose through a hydration port.

The Super Nero 50 has two cord-based side compression straps, configured in a z-shape, which are good for attaching long, skinny objects like trekking poles to the sides of the pack but are limited in their ability to apply a lot of compression. There are a pair of cord-based sleeping pad straps at the base of the pack, which are very handy and easy to use, as well as a top webbing strap, which can also be used to carry a foam pad.

The back of the pack behind the shoulder straps is unpadded, although the pack comes with a foam sit pad and elastic straps to hold it in place. It does a surprisingly good job of padding the back, although you need to be careful in how you pack so objects like hard-sided bear canisters don’t poke you from behind. If you need to carry a bear canister, my advice would be to get yourself a backpack with a frame for back protection as well as a heavier load-carrying capacity.

Backpack Suspension and Vest-Style Straps

Being frameless, almost all of the weight carried in the Super Nero 50 rests on your shoulders, limiting its max recommended carry to 20 pounds or whatever your shoulders can tolerate above that. While there is a hipbelt included with the pack, it is a simple webbing strap design to keep the bag close to your torso and prevent it from bouncing if you decide to run or jog. While it closes with a beefy buckle, it’s easy to lose because the ends of the webbing strap are not doubled over and sewn to prevent it from slipping off. This is a finishing error that we weren’t happy to see.

Despite that, the fastpack-style shoulder straps are quite cleverly designed. Each strap has three external pockets: one large enough to hold a 20-oz water Smartwater bottle, a second sized for gels and snacks, and a third with a zipper sized to hold a smartphone. The pack comes with two sternum straps connected to the vest straps along daisy chains, which also help keep the straps from sliding off to the sides of your shoulders.

Hiking with vest-style straps is convenient because you can keep your “office” (maps, phone) and “kitchen” (snack, water) easily accessible without having to stop to dig stuff out of your backpack. It also helps distribute some of the load, particularly water weight, to the front of your torso, improving your balance on rocky scrambles and helping to maintain your momentum when climbing. But despite the weight redistribution, you’re still limited to a 20-pound maximum comfortable carry since the Super Nero is frameless.

The fastpack straps are padded with spacer mesh and are quite comfortable. While they are attached to the packbag with tri-glide clips and webbing, the tops of the straps are also connected with a yoke that runs along the top of your back below your neck when worn. Its purpose is to keep the width between the shoulder straps fixed so they don’t side off the sides of your shoulders – the yoke is absent on packs with Zpack’s conventional shoulder straps. While the yoke is innocuous with lighter loads, it becomes more noticeable and even painful when you increasingly overload the backpack (at least for me.)

While there is a trend among backpack manufacturers to add fastpack-vest style straps to their backpacks, there are still limits to how much gear weight your shoulders can carry, absent a frame and load-bearing hipbelt. While the Super Nero 50 is a super fun pack to carry lighter loads, I’d caution you about trying to load it up like more conventional 50L backpack with a frame.

Given its carry weight limitations (20 lbs), I still think the Super Nero 50 would be a good backpack to use if you carry a lot of sleeping insulation like a cold weather hammock system with a top quilt and underquilt or a synthetic insulated sleeping quilt which would benefit from being packed uncompressed to “use” up the pack’s volume.

Recommendation

The Zpacks Super Nero 50 is a waterproof, ultralight rolltop backpack made with Ultra. It is available with an interchangeable suspension that uses conventional shoulder straps or vest-style fastpack straps. While the fastpack-style vest straps are effective at distributing load across the front and back of the pack, they do not increase the load that can be comfortably carried by the backpack above 20 lbs. We do feel that the Super Nero 50 would be suitable for carrying bulky sleep insulation, even in its uncompressed form, provided that your overall load does not exceed the suggested maximum gear weight carry.

Disclosure: Zpacks donated a backpack for review.