Neonic Sidekick Pickleball Bag Review

If you play a lot of pickleball, eventually you are going to need a great pickleball bag. It helps you carry your pickleball shoes, your balls, your paddles, and more. These bags are fantastic for making sure you never forget anything, but also for keeping your phone, keys, and everything else safe while you are playing the game.

The Neonic Sidekick is a newly released bag that I really enjoyed using! I'm excited to break down everything there is to know about this bag and what I learned during the few weeks I used it as my main pickleball bag.

‍

If you decide to get the Neonic Sidekick Pickleball bag, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11PICKLES” at checkout. We were not compensated for this review, but Neonic did send over a trial bag to give an honest and detailed breakdown. This code also works for 10% off paddles and other accessories with Neonic. You can get the bag here.

To write this review, I exclusively used this as my paddle bag. To write this review, I exclusively used this as my paddle bag for a couple of weeks.

Very Clear And Easy To Understand 

Most pickleball bags I have tried, like the Friday pickleball bag that we reviewed previously, assume that you know what to put things and where to put things in the bag. Most bags carry similar things when it comes to pickleball, and you can kind of intuit where things should go.

That said, the first time we ever got a pickleball bag, this was not obvious. We put things in the wrong place. We tried to make things fit that wouldn't fit until we eventually realized the correct compartment for the correct thing.

The really great thing about this bag is literally every compartment comes labeled with a suggestion of what to put there, so you never have to guess. You know what sizing it's designed for, and it makes it really easy for you to get started with the bag on a strong footing.

Obviously, you do not need to follow its recommendations. However, it was a very pleasant surprise to see.

It basically meant I had to do no thinking. I could immediately put things into the bag and I was ready to go.

Really Spacious And Pleasant To Use

In my opinion, there are a few really key factors to a great pickleball bag. The most important things for me are that it is easy to use, it can fit a lot of stuff, feels good in my hands, and I can hang it easily on a fence. It'll be durable because I play a lot of pickleball and it looks great.

This bag scores very highly on pretty much all of those metrics. Literally from the moment I took it out, it felt great in the hands and it felt very high quality. This really feels like a premium bag.

In addition, for its size, it actually fits quite a bit, whereas I felt the Friday pickleball bag was a little bit tighter but longer. This bag is a little bit fatter, which allows me to fit more balls and more paddles. It's a small difference, to be very clear, but it was a nice addition.

The fence mount is built into the top of the backpack and easily mounts onto the fence. What was really impressive is it doesn't use one of those metal-looking mounts. It actually fits the design of the backpack extremely well to the point where you wouldn't really see it if you aren't paying attention, but when you do actually need it, it's there.

It looks great and functions really well. When it comes to spacing, I didn't try putting shoes in this because I don't tend to use shoes with my bags, even though there is a dedicated compartment for shoes, but without shoes, I was able to fit about three paddles and eight balls very comfortably in this. If I wanted to squeeze, I could probably fit another paddle.

The website says you can fit up to seven, and I do believe if I didn't put that many balls, I could fit a lot more paddles. It is quite spacious.

One thing that I don't use this backpack for, but it is cool that it has, is the laptop compartment. So if you are bringing your laptop on the go or you're traveling a lot for tournaments, this backpack is quite nice because you can bring your laptop directly in this bag and really mainly carry just this backpack with you and maybe some change of clothes.

I didn't test this because I didn't need to, nor do I have this many paddles, but apparently you can fit 10 paddles in here if you don't use the laptop compartment and instead use it for paddles.

I think the actual design and fashion will be more up to personal taste. If you like a subtle, muted, blacked-out look, this is really good. If you like bright colors, you might want to go elsewhere. Personally, I really liked this style. Unlike the bright color Friday bag, no one really approached me, saying, "Wow, it's so pretty," but it definitely felt good and looked good. And again, looks and feels very premium.

The Details That Make It Special

From day-to-day use, there's a lot of things that I probably wouldn't pay a ton of attention to, but are quite nice to have. Great products pay attention to the details. And my belief is products that do pay attention to detail tend to last longer.

First off is the zipping experience. We've tried a lot of different bags in the past, and the zipping experience varies. Sometimes the zippers get stuck more often. Sometimes it's kind of hard to tug on them. Sometimes it feels like the zipper might fall off if I pull too hard. These zippers feel really good, really smooth, like those on the high-end jackets that I've tried. I didn't test this, but the website even says that the zippers are waterproof. I'm not sure if the entire bag is waterproof, though it does feel like it from the material. But if this is true, this is great news because I've definitely had my paddles with me in the rain before, and in the past, they would sometimes get wet. As many of you may know, water is definitely not a paddle's best friend. If this is true, this can really help protect these paddles, even if you are wandering around in the rain.

Speaking of zippers and quality products, this product also comes with a three-year warranty, which is not something that you typically see. This covers manufacturing defects, so it won't cover misuse, accidental damage, or general wear and tear over time, but if there's anything wrong with it that comes from the manufacturer side or poor quality zippers or something like that. It's all covered under a warranty, which again, you don't see very much when it comes to pickleball accessories. Especially not ones that are three years.

This thing also has a crazy number of pockets. You don't really notice until you start putting stuff into the pockets because, again, like everything, the design is subtle, but there are a lot of pockets that you can put stuff in and use for different purposes, which again makes this really great for being on the road because it makes it very easy to carry all the stuff that you might need and keep everything organized.

Finally, once again focused on travel, this backpack also has a little luggage strap that makes it very easy to attach to your luggage over the suitcase handle. And while again, I didn't travel during this time, nor use this backpack for travel, I did pull on it and poke at it, and it did look quite high quality. So it doesn't seem like it'll be damaged from being used.

Again, if you don't need these things, you may not even notice them because they are so subtle and they're not in your face. But if they are useful, they're all there. It makes this for a wonderful bag that is very multipurpose and has a lot of utility.

How It Compares:

Out of all the bags that I have tried, seen, and used myself, this is by far my favorite when it comes to utility. It does the job extremely well. It has everything I need in a bag and more. While I don't use all its functionality at the moment, I feel very confident that should I need to, it's there. It carries a lot for its size and is really easy to go around with. Every time I've found myself wishing that it had something, it's always had it, which has not always been true with other bags. It's priced pretty competitively and similar to many other top bags, and rightfully so. It has a premium feel.

And clearly, a lot of thought went into the design of this bag!

Quick Specs Breakdown:

• ‍Dimensions: 18" x 12" x 9" (compact, 27L) or 18" x 12" x 12" (expanded, 35L)‍
• Material: 900D polyester with PU coating, waterproof zippers‍
• Capacity: Expands from 27L to 35L via perimeter zipper‍
• Bottle pockets: Two exterior holders, each fits up to 40 oz bottles‍
• Paddle storage: Main compartment fits up to 7 paddles (2 in sleeves + 5 more), laptop compartment can hold 3 additional paddles for a total of up to 10 paddles‍
• Laptop compartment: Padded, fits up to 16" MacBook Pro, with hidden pocket for AirTag/valuables‍
• Shoe compartment: Separate front “shoe garage,” ventilated, fits up to men’s size 12 court shoes, does not use main compartment space‍
• Back panel: Two concealed pockets, luggage strap for suitcase handle, fence hooks on shoulder straps‍
• Organization: Multiple mesh pockets, paddle sleeves, accessory slots, magnetic towel buttons, quick-access keychain pocket‍
• Other: TSA-approved under-seat travel size; reinforced handles; smooth nylon bottle holders[1]‍
• Warranty: 3-year warranty covering manufacturing defects in materials and workmanship under normal use

Conclusion: The bag I’ll likely be using most

As pickleball reviewers, we have a lot of pickleball equipment, which means we tend to use a lot of facts, but I'd easily say that this is one we'd likely be maining simply because it's so useful. It’s especially great, because we can carry a lot of different paddles that people can try out while they're making their decisions on what they like best. 

It has everything I look for when it comes to a bag of this size!

Again, if you decide to get the Neonic Sidekick Pickleball bag, you can get 10% off your purchase with the code “11PICKLES” at checkout. We were not compensated for this review, but Neonic did send over a trial bag to give an honest and detailed breakdown. This code also works for 10% off paddles and other accessories with Neonic. You can get the bag here.