Ran across this store over the weekend, and they offer a decent looking down jacket for 79.90. Seemed liked a pretty decent deal, although the zipper appeared to be on the opposite side (like a womens jacket).

Anyone have any experience with this jacket? How it might compare with the Montbell Down Inner, especially, in terms of warmth. My wife was wearing hers, and the loft seemed equivalent.

Edited by rstanek on 11/07/2011 05:51:34 MST.

i'm over here in south korea...uniglo (uniqlo?) is an asian company and is definitely represented in all the large cities here. since the clothing is built to asian specs the zippers are all on the same sides (men and womens).

even montbell over here is like that. took me a while to get used to it.

Where did you find the weight? Looks promising, but I couldn't find many specs on it.

edit: found some specs. looks like it's 650fp from their site

Ryan

Edited by ViolentGreen on 11/06/2011 19:16:20 MST.

I'm pretty sure that's euro fill stats on uniqlo's japanese site, fwiw. I'm a big fan of their quality for the price, and they definitely have good stuff for smaller sizes. Although admittedly I haven't checked this jacket out in person.

It seems like a pretty decent deal compared to a full price Montbell jacket. Pretty much half the price and same "relative" weight. Not sure about the DWR. Suppose it could be applied or reinforced with something like TX DWR spray.

I'd likely still covet a Montbell at a sale price or close out.

The UNIQLO does come in a wide variety of colors which may appeal to some wearers.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'll bet if this store were to offer ecommerce options, they might pick up some business from this crowd.

Tried on the XL, which is my usual size. Felt true to size, and had good coverage down arms and waist. The hood is simple, with no draw string our other volume adjustment. Seemed warm for the two minutes I wore it. Very gossamer thin fabric, would not want to wear this anywhere abrasion would happen. Think of it as a sweater with a hood, depending upon actual temperature rating.

Comes in dark brown, black, navy blue, beige, maybe some others. I would say my Mont bell inner jacket is loftier by a small margin. Note that uniqlo has several styles, with and without hood, as well as some fancier designs that are more expensive.

I would say it's a good value, but I'm not sure of it's durability and it's absolute warmth. If I was in the market I probably would have taken the chance.

Edited by Einstein on 12/02/2011 18:12:30 MST.

My brother-in-law has one of these down jackets, in beige.

I have felt his jacket and it seems durable enough. The material is nice and its well made. A great value for price. It is comparable in function to the popular Patagonia down sweater.

He bought his jacket while living in Asia. Uniqlo is a good brand that has a huge presence in Asia, but little in North America. Think of it as a higher quality H+M, if you are familiar with H+M.

If someone wanted to buy me one in NYC and post it to me, I'd love that. My brother-in-law can also get me one when he goes back to Taiwan, if I don't get any one to pick it up for me in NYC.

Edited by ejhayes on 12/02/2011 22:27:43 MST.

I've had this jacket for a little over 2 years now and I've been very happy with it. I've used it camping multiple times and it's held up well -- no rips/etc. It's pretty warm, especially for the weight, although maybe not as warm the Costco down jacket (might have to do with age). It's definitely not as warm as my heavier down jacket, the GoLite Roan Plateau. For the price, I don't think you can go wrong as a down inner layer, especially if you can get it at a discount (Uniqlo has weekly specials during winter and the jacket sometimes gets discounted to $59).

I picked up the hooded version for $50 during the stores NYC grand opening sale.

Its hard to get loft and warmth details in a crowded store so I took I kept the tags on and did some testing. There really wasn't much loft to it, however I found the jacket to be slightly warmer than my nano-puff, but defiantly not as warm as 100g synthetic.

It was light and cheap, but I returned it. Id rather pay a little more and find a used montbell UL down. Same weight but considerably warmer.

I had my relative in Asia send me one of these when Uniglo had them on sale.

The medium weighs 9.6 ounce, of which 0.3 ozs of that is the stuff sack.
(note that medium US = large Asia size)

I'll agree with the above post. I think it is probably warmer than my Nano puff, for about an ounce less in overall weight.

However, The fit is more relaxed than I'd like. It may also just be that I am at the smaller end of the size.

Here are some pictures:

Edited by rcaffin on 05/19/2012 15:25:53 MDT.

See subject, that is odd.

He edited out a sentence that stated I was planning to Ebay the jacket because the fit didn't suit me.

What's so secretive about that?

Roger Caffin is part of the BPL staff.
Here is why your E Bay comment was deleted :
"For Sale postings may not include references (especially URLs) to any external listings. We'll cheerfully remove such cross-posting information"
You can read that in the heading of the Gear Swap section.
Franco

Roger's a BPL editor and rids any sort of posts alluding to the sale of items...unless you cough up dough so you can post in the "appropriate" forum. You see, the owner is a "business" man, a successful one too, he'll proudly say.

I didn't include a URL, sale reference, price, etc. I only stated "I will probably end up Ebaying the jacket" because I don't want it.

If I wanted to list it for sale here, then I'd put it in the for sale forum.

Each, their own I guess. Some people power trip off being internet admins, etc.

Edited by ejhayes on 05/19/2012 17:33:05 MDT.

"If I wanted to list it for sale here, then I'd put it in the for sale forum".

As I posted above, you have to pay to sell around here. You're not a member so you can't post in the "sale forum". Some have no problem with it. Others call it greed. Some people power trip on seeing how much money they can make.

Edited by rustyb on 05/19/2012 19:09:34 MDT.

I'm not trying to sell anything rusty b.

I have never sold anything on this forum, didn't even know you have to be a 'member' to do that...

No worries, Ed. I wasn't taking a shot at you. I'm one of those here that think it's in poor taste to require membership to sell. But, by the same token, it's not in good taste for me to be sarcastic either.

In BPL's defence i have to say i'd rather buy from someone who's invested monetarily in the community and therefor protects their "investment" in looking after their good name with fellow BPL'ers.

There's plenty of other places you can buy/sell for free if you don't like the set up here.