ive not tried them but my opinion on this would be if last year first drop got slated to shit for product durability you would think they would try and do something about it as things like that can put a whole company out of business. they have said this on their site " this year we have new factories, refined sizing, new designs, and improved fabrics and materials." so you would expect an improvement otherwise why bother saying that. If they really care about their customers they will replace your pants if they fall apart in days as that is clearly a product fault and not really yours.