Square and Swedish, it’s the bag of the basic girl: the Fjallräven Kånken. While it’s popular and well-made, the bag is expensive and not worth the price.

To start, the Kånken is small. While it’s expandable and can fit more than anticipated, I’ve only ever used mine to bring on short day trips or to go out with friends. Briefly, I tried to use the bag for school, only to find that getting my binder in and out of it was incredibly difficult. In order to fit the binder inside of the Kånken, I had to shake and shimmy it in, which was not ideal. Personally, I’d rather use my Jansport because it can more easily fit everything I need inside of it.

The starting price for a mini Kånken is $70. The price only moves up from there. The classic is $80, the 15” Laptop is $115 and the Kånken Tarpaulin bag is $220. Personally, I don’t even have $5, much less $100, and the Kånken is too far out of the budget for many.

The bag has thin, canvas straps. These can’t possibly be comfortable for long periods of time, even though Fjällräven created the first Kånken in 1978 “to spare the backs of school children…”. It’s not comfortable to wear after about 15 minutes with a heavy load. While there are Kånkens that come with padding on the straps, they’re more expensive than the models without it. You can also buy the padding separate from the bag if you decide to buy a model without the padding, but they cost $20, and by that point, you might as well just have bought a different, cheaper bag that can hold a bigger load anyway.

The Kånken has two side pockets that should be meant to hold a water bottle, right? They don’t. Because the Kånken material is so stiff, the pockets don’t stretch at all, and unless you have a super skinny water bottle and a light load, you won’t be able to fit an actual water bottle in there.

I mentioned earlier that I prefer my Jansport. My Jansport has padded straps that I didn’t have to purchase separately, a laptop sleeve I didn’t have to pay $115 for, a side pocket that can actually fit a water bottle and enough pockets to fit everything I need with room to spare. The Jansport’s shade of blue reminds me a Kånken color, which is nice because I don’t want to pay $100 for a school bag.

Spend your money as you wish, but a Kånken bag is not worth it and I’d save my money up for something bigger instead.