Patagonia Nano Air Hoody - Women's Review

This is a breathable and lightweight mobile-faced jacket with simple comforts and features. While it's not as featured as other contenders that present a higher value, it offers a more breathable design with a little less overall warmth. This is a favorite for climbing, hiking, and backcountry ski touring.

Performance Comparison

Looking good! The Patagonia Nano Air keeps you warm while hiking up, skiing down, and enjoying drinks afterward. This all-around awesome jacket is breathable and a top performer.

Photo: Amber King

Warmth

Constructed as a lightweight jacket, it has a surprising amount of stand-alone warmth that provides insulation on cool days. In the winter, be sure to layer it under a shell, as the 60-grams of insulation won't be enough to keep you warm on a super cold day while you're standing still. That said, it offers the warmth that you'd want when you're on the move, hiking, or climbing up hills or mountains.

Amber wears this jacket while skinning up and down the hill. We appreciate its breathability which keeps us dry to make the colder transition process comfortable and warm.

Photo: Amber King

Weight & Compression

This jacket is quite light and offers a decent amount of compression. Weighing in at just 10.5 ounces for a size small, it packs down to the size of a small book. While it's not the most compressible option out there, it's not hard to stuff into your pack, especially if the day heats up. It doesn't have its own stuff sack, nor is it our first choice for ultralight missions.

This is a lightweight jacket...

Photo: Amber King

...and it's quite compressible!

Photo: Amber King

Comfort & Coziness

We love the new construction of this jacket. It is lighter, more breathable, and it just feels so good to slip on. The soft face fabrics articulate nicely with even the grabbiest of mid-layers, making it very easy to put over or under other insulative pieces. The hood is helmet-compatible, warm, and light, but doesn't have any cinch cords for a specific fit.

It has three pockets, two hand warming pockets, and one external chest pocket. While the pockets are large enough, they aren't as big as other soft-shelled contenders, making this jacket one with the least amount of internal storage.

The handwarmer pockets are large. Below, you'll see the smaller chest pocket.

Photo: Amber King

The pull strings are nice, but almost a touch too small to open easily with a pair of gloves. Aside from that, we like the tapered wrist that easily fits underneath a glove.

The tapered cuffs that we love.

Photo: Amber King

Wearing this super light jacket all day is no problem. It is comfortable and cozy, without any additional bells and whistles.

A look at the interior liner.

Photo: Amber King

Weather Resistance

The lightweight and thin design offer a surprising amount of protection from the elements. The 1.7-oz polyester construction is quite durable, and not as porous as you'd expect for a mobile, breathable jacket. It does good work to cut the wind, but the thinner design doesn't protect from it, like a thicker jacket might.

We test the Nano-Air while the snow is wet and blowy on our local work-out road in Colorado.

Photo: Amber King

While skiing and hiking, we also learned that the finish on this jacket offers good water resistance! To confirm these observations, we stood under a shower for two minutes. For the first 10 seconds, it beaded up the water, until it saturated through the first layer. After these two minutes, we were surprised to see that the second layer offered protection, and the water didn't saturate to the back of the jacket.

After some beading, the jacket saturates after just a little bit of passed time.

Photo: Amber King

Only through the zippers did water leak through. Overall, it's water resistance is okay, but doesn't compare to the thicker mobile (or softshell) jackets tested. We'd be okay wearing it in the winter during snow and rain, but for extended periods of time, we'd recommend wearing it with a heavier shell if you're in a wet climate.

The interior of the jacket is still dry, except for a small line of water where the zipper was.

Photo: Amber King

The jacket absorbs quite a bit of water but is squeezed out easily.

Photo: Amber King

Breathability

This model offers some of the best breathability of any soft-shelled jacket tested. When skiing on a warm day in the Fall, we hiked uphill, wearing this jacket for the first two tours of our ski tour. It wasn't until temperatures really started soaring that we felt the need to finally take the jacket off. While it's not as breathable as our Top Pick in this category, it is comparable. The thin construction, in addition to the pockets that offer ventilation, make this a perfect stop n' go piece. It'll keep you warm when you stand still, and cool when you're on the move.

While we did need to unzip this jacket, it never had to come off, even after logging about 1000 feet of vertical gain in 35-degree weather in Colorado.

Photo: Amber King

Style & Fit

We love the simple style of this jacket. It comes with many beautiful color options that provide great contrasts for your personal flair. While some would say this jacket seems outdoorsy, it looks less technical than most of the options tested.

When reaching arms up, the jacket arms get short, but the torso stays in place. This jacket might be shorter for those with longer limbs.

Photo: Amber King

It has a continuous face fabric look, without any fancy stitching patterns. The seams are stitched in a flattering way, that is quite plain but beautiful. Overall, we love the style and fit of this coat. The fit is true to size, offering a slim profile that you can put layers under easily. Our tester is 5'6, 145 pounds, with a medium build, and wears a size small.

A look at the fit and style of this small jacket on our 5'6", 145 lb, medium build tester.

Photo: Amber King

Value

Equipped with a lifetime warranty, amazing craftsmanship, and wonderful performance, this is a high-value product. The warranty alone, which allows you to send it throughout its lifetime for any reason (including busted zippers), is worth the price. While the initial price might be a bit of an investment, this is a product that has lasted us, year to year, retaining its great performance. We think the price is worth the performance. It'll offer the most value to those seeking a breathable jacket that doesn't need quite as much warmth.

We take a break to make a snow sculpture! This jacket is built to breathe, offering warmth while you're in motion and standing still. Hike, ski, build snow things and have fun in the wintertime with this awesome layer.

Photo: Amber King

Conclusion