Get a Sawyer-Mini. Seriously, I have used Both on camping trips. You need jaws of steel to suck water through a Lifestraw. With a Sawyer or other filters with pump/squeeze action, you won't rip out your fillings trying to get water. Also, you have to lie on the ground, whereas other filters come with collapsible pouches AND a straw if the pouch breaks.

Before everyone down-votes this post, you Really need to watch actual videos of people who use these routinely. Everyone switches to a filter with a pump or squeeze method of filtration.

Lifestraws are fantastic concept, but unfortunately, it is just too dang hard to use.

Got what we ordered. Happy with this product already as I've used them in Afghanistan when I was last deployed there

This is not a terrible filter. I keep it at the bottom of my pack, and often will use it here in WA when I've run out of my primary water and need to fill up off a stream. I just fill my bottle and use the straw to drink out of it. Lots of photos of reviewers sticking their face up to the stream like a deer and sipping, hey, you can do that, get in touch with your wild-side, but not quite practical to stop at every minor stream and take a few sips. I need serious hydration when I hike.

The few issues I have with the filter:

(A) The neckband / string is poorly secured to the straw by tiny plastic clips -- whom can easily pop off. I don't recommend primarily wearing this around your neck, as if you travel this way, it'll fall off. It's better to use the string around your neck while you're sipping, and then put the entire thing away. Or, replace string with something of your own that is more secure (likely easily accomplished, I've just dealt with the faulty neck string for now).

(B) As other reviewers noted, you have to give a fair bit of suction to get the water to flow. I've found in a few scenarios my suction ceased entirely, by which I have to blow the water out of the filter and start again. This seems to occur when too much water gets into the filter, as I'm using clear water without any objects in my bottle when it has clogged up. Tiny sips are less likely to jam things up, like I've noticed.

(C) It has a 1000L life, and will simply stop working when it has reached its max capacity. Be sure to keep a rough log or estimate of how many liters you've drank using this little thing (another reason I prefer to fill up a bottle and filter out of the bottle than just drink from a stream). You don't want to have it in your pack when it has 1-2 L left and find out the hard way its not working.

Overall, I tend to like MSR's Gravity Filter much better (also a 1000L) -- granted is heavier but is such a solid and amazing system. I may swap out the life straw again in my system for my MSR gravity filter just for peace of mind and higher volume filtering / not having to constantly deal with the straw. This being said, it does work. It is light weight. At the bottom of my pack I don't even know it's there. It's cheap. It's a great entry point to have a filter in your pack. Is it going to meet everyone's functional needs, or is it going to be best used as a primary water filter? Probably not. But will this give you clean water if you need it? Yes. So I give it an A overall. But in my personal opinion this is best used not as a primary use filter but as a backup system / for day hiking. Long backpacking trips I know you'll prefer to pre-filter your water and have it clean in your bottle, rather than having to bust out your straw with every sip. Regardless, the sort of heavy usage I am describing is not likely its original intention anyhow -- overall, it is a cool product and worth having in your kit for more options. I would recommend others buy one, but with the understandings I've tried by best to highlight.

I've used these both in Iraq & Afghanistan. Works as advertised. Extremely reliable and genuinely safe to use filtration system. We now use it as a SOP to have one in everyone's ruck when we deploy! Semper Fi.

I drank out of a steam. I've become a hippie. Rejoice in my transformation.