Also thanks Ken. I was on the verge of buying a Katadyn, but this has made me think again. I draw much of my water from tarns, and it contains a relatively high proportion of suspended matter.
Like others, I was getting a little tired of the Sawyer Mini's flow rate, but at least it's reliable. As long as you take the backflushing syringe in your pack as well, that is. Originally I would leave this behind, thinking I could just backflush between trips, to save 32g. This summer, however, I had virtually no flow by day 3 of a hike so learned my lesson! Thereafter I took it, and I was surprised to see just how much gunge was expelled on the initial backflush when used during the hike.
I'm therefore satisfied that on anything more than a simple day hike for one person (when weight's not such an issue anyway), the backflushing syringe must be carried, which raises the true (dry) weight of the Sawyer Mini from 40g to 72g.
It takes me 15-20 minutes faffing to filter the 'evening supply', which in my case means filling a 2L platypus bottle (dinner, breakfast, and associated drinks) plus another litre bottle for 'extras'. Not brilliant, but when you remind yourself of what the system actually enables, it's pretty amazing.
