“Anyway, so I was thinking of the … Katadyn Hiker Pro...

Does anyone have any experience with these guys? Any side-by-side comparisons out there?”

I’m a drink-instantly-turn-brown-water-to-clear type of guy and have grown to love my First Need filter. The Hiker Pro fails miserably at turning green lake water clear—as also some ceramic filters I have tried; not that this is bad; I just have a phobia with drinking brown/green water.

If you want to see if your filter- filters out largish organic molecules try this:
From http://www.generalecology.com/first%20need%20original%20instructions.pdf

“A simple test to assure that the canister has not been damaged internally, either during use, transport or backwash is to:
1. Add a couple drops (no more) of ordinary red, green or blue food coloring to a glass of water
2. Pump this solution through the canister.
3. The filtered water should be colorless.
If the filtered water is still colored, even faintly, the internal canister matrix has most likely been damaged and THE CANISTER SHOULD NOT BE RELIED UPON UNDER THIS CONDITION AND MUST BE REPLACED.”

There’s a lot of good stuff at their Q&A: http://www.generalecology.com/qa.htm
-Barry