I was able to secure a set of Planet Eclipses 2010 pants in the digital pattern from SoBe John. Having a few free minutes last night I was able to try them on and to check out the options they've added to the pants. Here's my review:





I pulled them out of the box and found them nicely packaged in a vinyl/polypropylene (seems like polypro is the newest fad these days) zippered bag. The bag offers up a "blue print" of sorts with details of the features the pants have.

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Color/Pattern

Taking the pants out I realized that the pictures shown online didn't do the digi pattern on the pants any justice at all, and actually lead me to believe that it has a greyish hue to them. However this wasn't the case and I found the coloring to be fantastic. In fact I'm pretty sure it's damn near identical to the Etek 2 digi pattern, but I haven't confirmed this yet.All in all I'm pleased with the color, however I'm not to keen on the charcoalish/blackish kevlar knees and believe that for they price they are asking they could have made them actually go with the digi color scheme. Perhaps they could have made them a solid OD green color?

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Fit/Wear

These pants fit and feel extremely well. I did notice that while they were baggy in the front and around the legs, the fit across my butt was snug. Not so much that it caused an issue, as it has a stretchable material right in that area (which that may be why it fits like it does). I've not encountered this before with these types of pants so I was caught off guard by it. The pant legs were a little long for me, but luckily they have a draw string and a velcro loop for the excess string to help fix the longer pant legs. Squatting in these pants was extremely easy and I felt next to no resistance while wearing them.

These pants have built in mesh which will definitely help with cooling, the addition of several strech points is a huge plus, and the inside of the pants feel silky smooth again the skin.

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Protection/Padding

The padding offered up seems to be sufficient. Padding at the crotch area, padding at the knees and partial padding on the hips. Padding on the butt and rear hip areas were non-existant.... which is semi understandable but I felt that some sort of padding should have been in place. The partial padding on the hips is some sort of compressed foam, that's roughly 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. It's very flexible but seemed to actually offer up some decent protection considering how thin it is. Once again the padding is pretty much on par with similar style pants.

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Other Thoughts

The pants offer up a new and unique pod loops built directly onto the pants. I tried out both regular 140 and dye lid lock pods in the loops. This is a pretty cool feature however with the pods in place, squatting is hendered and sliding on the hip/side of the leg is a no go unless you want to smash a pod or worse. In my honest opinion the loops should have been placed where the squeegee pockets are, but then that would leave them with trying to find a place to place the squeegee. I believe however this feature will be a nice addition during final battles at scenario games... but it's two more pods I get to keep track of though. Dispite these minor issues for this new feature, I like idea and implementation.

The pants also have a small ID card sized zippered pocket for a player ID card which is located on the rear bottom of the left leg. While it's a neat idea, the location is such that I'll probably never even use let alone even remember it.

The price for these pants seem a little high, but then again most pants of this type seem a little pricey to me. Overall I'm pleased with the pants, the layout, the stretch points, and especially the digi camo pattern. I can't wait to use these on the field and I'm sure I'll be extremely pleased with them.