Horizn Studios H5 Pro Cabin Luggage (36L) Review

Coming in at around $370 at the time of first review, the Horizn Studios H5 Pro Cabin Luggage (36L) brings a premium build quality and conventional layout that won’t leave you lost as if they’d tried to reinvent the wheel. While there’s nothing groundbreaking or innovative to speak of, sometimes premium simply means comfort and familiarity, and that could be well worth the asking price.

So, if that’s the type of fuss-free luggage you’re into, stick around and see the full details. Who knows—we may have found a few small details that truly highlight what makes this the best carry on luggage for you.

External Components

The H5 Pro Cabin’s exterior is one of the most typical materials used for hardside luggage: polycarbonate. It’s a trusty material to craft luggage from for a variety of reasons, but we’ll stick to pointing out the obvious ones. Firstly, it’s cheap, so it keeps costs down. For example, polycarbonate luggage tends to be priced lower than aluminum-based pieces. But, for the price, polycarbonate still has the distinct advantage of being very flexible. Sure, aluminum-based luggage may feel more premium, but it tends to keep dents permanently, whereas polycarbonate shells have more give in their structures.

Curiously, Horizn Studios specifies that the polycarbonate used here is not just any polycarbonate, but an aerospace-grade German one. We’re not quite sure what that means, but we’re imagining there might be a specific region in Germany where they harvest polycarbonate and train it to be astronauts. Kidding aside, the H5 Pro Cabin does feel premium and solidly built. No detail seems out of place. We haven’t seen anything shoddy, whether leftover trimming from the polycarbonate’s molding or loose threads in the fabric. Scratches are inevitable, however, as with other polycarbonate luggage. It’s just a key weakness of the material.

Wheels are also a huge factor in making a piece of luggage feel premium. After all, what good is a solid shell if it feels like you’re lugging a knockoff Fisher-Price toy around every time you roll it? To ensure that’s not the case, Horizn Studios opted for the ones used by many high-end luggage brands: Hinomoto wheels. We’ll say more when we get to the next section. But for now, impressions on these four sets of wheels are solid. There’s minimal play within the wheels’ assembly, and the rubberized texture feels thick and like they’ll last a long time (though only time will tell if that holds true). That said, these aren’t the most robust Hinomoto wheels we’ve seen in our years of testing, but they’re still better than non-Hinomoto wheels.

The top and side carry handles are flexible plastic. Coupled with a subtle sliding mechanism, this allows the handles to remain flush against the shell when they’re not in use. In turn, this preserves the bag’s overall sleek silhouette. It’s a nice touch that we often see brands utilize when they want to emphasize aesthetics just that tiny bit more. Complimenting the side handle are stands on the opposite side. These keep the polycarbonate shell off the ground whenever you set the bag down on its side, suitcase-style.

Also included is a neat little leatherette luggage tag. And we’re not just saying “little” as a throwaway qualifier, by the way. We’ve seen other brands go a bit overboard with the luggage tags they include, making them too big and bulky. This one, though? It’s just the right size. There’s nothing smart or high-tech about it, though, so make sure to have your pen ready.

Off to the side is a TSA-compliant combination lock, and you can tell it’s TSA-compliant because there’s a pin hole where their agents can insert a universal key. The main compartment’s twin zippers are held captive by inserting their tabs in the tiny slits in the lock. Scramble the combination, and the zippers will stay in place. Admittedly, this is a pretty standard feature, even among premium luggage, so there’s not really much to say about it.

The telescoping handle is somewhat different from all the other luggage we’ve tested. See, we’re used to telescoping handles that have a straightforward telescoping mechanism. You pull the handle while holding the lock release button to extend it, and you can stop at predetermined height adjustments, usually with more than two levels. With the H5 Pro Cabin, though, they made it so that the second highest adjustment is only accessible by fully extending the handle and then pushing it down, so you have to go through the first three levels first. We’re not quite sure why they did it this way instead of a more intuitive and linear fashion, but it is what it is.

Fit Notes

As for the adjustments themselves, there are four available. The lowest one seems too low for all but kids and young teenagers, which could be good news if you’re ready to give your young ‘uns some responsibility during trips. Otherwise, we’d stick with the second-lowest or the highest adjustments, which can both be comfortable depending on your pushing or pulling style. The second highest adjustment would’ve been the most comfortable, but going through all other adjustments first makes it too tedious to access whenever we’re in a hurry.

The good news is that, once you’ve found a comfortable height setting for the handle, rolling the H5 Pro is a smooth experience. The wheels easily negotiate rough sidewalks, only jolting whenever there’s a gap to cross over.

Inside The Carry On Luggage

The H5 Pro Cabin’s layout is similar to that of other luggage we tested, featuring two large bucket spaces of roughly similar volume, with one half having a compression panel and the other covered by a mesh partition. We’re not going to diss Horizn Studios since we see this in all sorts of areas and markets, whether all cars turning into SUVs, or all phones turning into large touchscreen slabs. If the design works, why fix it? That said, Horizn Studios does have more than one piece of luggage in its lineup, so they still need some distinction between models. In the case of the H5 Pro Cabin, it’s the compression panel. Lower models make do with just another mesh cover to keep clothing cinched down.

The bucket space on the right has the compression panel, and we like how it’s mounted by two straps running parallel to each other. This is a more efficient way to hold down clothing since this strap setup gives roughly equal and widespread pressure across the panel compared to single-strap designs, especially setups with only a strap and no panel. Our only gripe is that the panel flips up, making it tricky when there’s a wall in front of you, or if the top end is right at the end of the bed; it’s just a bit hard to reach this way.

The compression panel itself has a compartment you can access from either side. Ideally, this is where you’d put a dress shirt or any clothing that must remain wrinkle-free. We’re not much in the habit of that, so in goes a packable hat and other smaller articles of clothing. Alternatively, you can remove the compression panel entirely, leaving you with just the straps to utilize. It saves you a bit of space, though, in our opinion, not so much that it’d be worth losing the compression functionality.

The bucket space underneath the compression panel is where we packed a pair of extra shoes and the chunkier pieces of clothing we traveled with. These included three pairs of pants, a rolled-up jacket, and a compressed packable backpack. A noticeable gap between the wheels at the bottom remains after we pack. We don’t really have anything to fill that gap, and it feels like wasted space once you notice it’s there. There’s also a zippered pocket on the right side. It’s fairly small and out of the way, so we never got much use out of it. You could put extra toiletries here or store your smart tracker so it stays hidden. Otherwise, it’s just extra storage space.

It’s also worth noting that the left bucket space is recessed, giving you about an inch or so of extra overhead for the right bucket space to spill over. That said, the left bucket space is still pretty spacious underneath the mesh cover. In total, we fit six shirts, a tech pouch, a packing cube of underwear, and a toiletry bag. There’s also another zippered pocket off to the side, though, again, it’s not something we used since we have pouches we can utilize for organizing gear.

In total, we could pack a week’s worth of clothing and gear into this bag without any fancy packing techniques, such as compression cubes or having to push down on the compression panel very hard. If you swap out some of our clothing choices for thinner ones, or swap out the extra shoes for even more clothing, you could stretch the capacity out to two weeks. However, the interior feels a bit shallow, so some strategic packing is required to make the most out of it.

That said, the H5 Pro has many of the solid features and build quality we expect from a piece of luggage carrying a “pro” moniker. However, for around 370 bucks at the time of review, it doesn’t have a substantial lead in terms of functionality compared to the Aer Carry-On or the Bellroy Transit Carry-On. They’re similar in size and build quality, yet both slot into the roughly $300 mark at this time. For further context, for roughly the same 370-dollar price, the Monos Expandable Carry-On Pro expands from a base 35.5-liter capacity to 47.4 liters and has a laptop compartment. It’s a bit hard to justify the H5 Pro Cabin outside of a vacuum, though some of the attention to detail tries to make up for it.