GRAYL UltraPress 16.9 oz Water Purifier & Filter Bottle for Hiking, Backpacking, Survival, Travel (Covert Black)

Original review: I really want to love this water bottle, but I just can’t. To be fair, my use-case is slightly different than what it’s advertised for. The tap water where I live is gross and chemically, so I only drink filtered water. I have a “zero water” filter at home that I love, but I got tired of carrying around a giant jug of water every day. Then I saw this and figured that the ability to filter water anywhere was worth the price premium.The pros: it does filter water. Pretty easily too. It doesn’t taste as good as the water from my filter at home, but it’s probably 90% as good and that’s fine with me. It’s also constructed nicely and feels solid and rugged in the hand. Swapping filters is also easy, and the one way valve that allows me to add sports drink powder without damaging the filter is a pretty smart feature.The cons: this might seem nitpicky to most, but it bothers me that the cap for the drinking spout doesn’t have anything attaching it to the lid. So if you were using this outdoors (which is the use it’s advertised for) and you accidentally drop the cap and lose it, then you completely lose the ability to seal it. You also can’t open and drink from the bottle with one hand because there’s nothing holding the cap on. This seems like such an unnecessary problem for a premium bottle like this.Also it leaks... Kinda. You HAVE to keep it right side up at all times, because if you lay it on its side then it leaks water. Which means you can’t just toss it in your bag or on the car seat without getting everything wet. Basically when you put water in the outer cup and then press the inner cup down to filter it, there’s still some water left over in the outer cup. I’m not sure if this was done intentionally so that the filter doesn’t get crushed/cracked by pushing too hard, or if it’s a limitation of the filter itself, but there’s always about 1-2 ounces of dirty water left in the outer cup. There’s a small seal around the top of the inner cup to prevent that water from seeping out when the bottle is on its side, but it’s not effective. So whenever I filter water, I then immediately remove the inner cup and dump out the excess dirty water and put the inner cup back in, which solves that problem. But I have to completely remove the drinking cap to allow the pressure to equalize, again increasing the risk of losing the cap.So overall, I’m probably still going to use this bottle all the time to have access to clean water. Because I’d rather deal with these minor inconveniences than have to carry around a large jug all the time. But if I ever lose the cap I’m going to be furious. Because having to spend another $90 on a new bottle because a $1 piece fell off is going to be a tough pill to swallow.Also it’s really tall, so I can’t put it in the cup holders in my car because then it blocks the shifter (it’s a manual transmission). I’m not dinging this product for that though because that’s a specifically “me” problem. Just something to note.Edit: my original review was after about 4-5 days of use. It’s been another week or so since then and the leaking issue has gone away. I’m not sure if it just needed to break in or if I was doing it wrong at first, but it’s all good now. I still wish that the drinking cap was attached to the bottle, but I don’t think it bothers me enough to knock off a star. Maybe it’s like a 4.5 now, but I’ll round up.Also the taste has improved over the last couple weeks, and I can now have tasty clean water everywhere!

This is a great product! I used it for 10 days in Mexico. I easily filtered tap water, avoided travelers diarrhea, and didn’t have to buy & throw away a hundred plastic bottles. Other reviewers said it was hard to push down. Granted, I was not filtering swamp water, but over 10 days of use refilling water bottles for multiple people, multiple times per day, I never had any trouble pressing the water through the filter. Other reviewers also mentioned it overflowing. Yup, it will do that if you fill it above the fill line! This was a perfect size for carrying in my fanny pack. I even like the color!

Used this on a trip to the Mediterranean. Used it when water was questionable, and to have purified water to put into a CPAP I use every night.Never had to dip water out of a stream, fountain, or lake, but took it with me for that reason if needed.Taste was always great.Only issue, is this is a bit heavy on a sling back pack when full, but knew that going in. Check your backpack water bottle pocket size limitation before travel. This size is MUCH more manageable and less weight than the full size variant that I also have.Would like to see GRAYL include a carabiner matched to the package for convenience.Great clean water device and peace of mind. love it.

Bought this for my African Safari. I was nervous about the water in our camps, so better to be safe than sorry! These were easy to use (with a little muscle) and I felt safe drinking the water. You have to press pretty hard on the insert to create the filter - but seems to work great. I am not sure I actually needed these - but they were nice to have.

I took this on a trip out of the country. I was unsure on the availability of clean water and wanted this as security. . I used it when the water didn’t smell good or was cloudy. Worked well and I was able to share clean water with my family. Easy to use and affordable.

I am on my second Ultrapress. My first one lasted about a year and a half and in that time I went through about 3 filter replacements for itWhat I love about this smaller model is it holds 16oz of water, which is a very convenient amount for filling other vessels, like canteens and bottles that are 1 Quart, as it just takes 2 pumps to fill it, with nothing left over. With the Geopress, it would still take 2 pumps. but you would have some amount of water sitting around inside the pump with nowhere to go, since it's 24oz, a somewhat awkward amount.The reason I suspect my first one failed was because the rubber seal around the outside of the fill tank wore down to the point that water from outside cup part during pumping would get past seal and started contaminating the water in the tank. I can't exactly explain how this would be the case, but the reason I believe this is because pumping with my first Ultrapress compared to this new one has almost no resistance, and water starts leaking out of the sides when pumping with the old one, where with the new one the seal is super tight, and no water comes out during pumpingNot sure how this could be fixed in a revised design, perhaps some sort of replaceable rubber seal on the fill tank? I don't claim to be an engineer, but it would be nice if there was some way to design around this one small flaw, to extend the lifetime of these potentially life saving devices.Other than that, it does a great job filtering everything out of water, including bad tastes, my stomach is rather sensitive to algae tastes that even come up in some bottled water, and this pump deals with that no problem.

Purchased for use on a trip to Mexico. Easy to use and good quality.

You have to be very strong to use this water filtration bottle. It takes a lot of effort to squeeze the water through the bottle. It takes a lot of effort to use this item.