If you’ve never been camping before but want to give it a go, looking for your first tent can be intimidating. Finding a low-cost, reliable tent with a simple design can be a challenge for newbie campers. All packed up, the Sundome 6 weighs 16.6lb, and the packed size of its travel bag is 28”x13”x8”. Once you’ve put together the main tent, adding the rainfly is a fairly simple process. As such, the front of the tent doesn’t offer quite as much rain protection, and water started seeping into the flooring seam here after 15 minutes. There’s also a third ground vent in the Sundome Tent, but it’s pretty small and doesn’t do as much for ventilation.
The Sundome is freestanding, so you won’t need to stake anything out while getting the tent erected, and you can take your time between setting up the tent and adding the rainfly. The exclusive WeatherTec system is guaranteed to keep you dry. Inner tent has a mesh vent for increased ventilation as well as a rugged floor with inverted seams. Unfortunately, the lack of storage options continues to the exterior of the Sundome 6. Unlike most other camping tents, such as Kelty’s popular Discovery 6 model and its full-length rainfly, the Coleman’s partial design does not create any vestibule space.
Because of the no-frills approach to this tent build, pitching the Sundome only took 5 minutes and 43 seconds. Coleman chose not to use grommets like the rest of the tent world and instead attached a pin on every corner that slides inside the pole. Though not ideal, it is fairly easy to get used to doing. Packing the tent back coleman sundome up into the bag isn’t very hard either. There is a removable extension on the bottom that we assume helps keep the bag small for shipping but, once removed, allows a little more breathing room. The packed size of the 4-person dome tent would be too bulky for backpacking, but is conveniently sized and shaped for car camping.
I used duct tape to keep the poles from splintering more. This quick fix bought us one more summer of fun with our old Coleman tent. As I packed our Coleman tent away after our last camping trip I knew it was time to part ways, we couldn’t find any replacement parts for it. I’ve owned this tent for 3 months and have 12 nights of camping in it (including 4 days of rain in this tent with no leaks at all). I have a couple 2-person tents that have a lot of camp time on them but wanted to try something a little bigger.
So, keeping in line with what Coleman calls a four person instant tent, I went along the same lines once again while choosing our new tent. I’m not quite sure of what four people the company was referring to when they say it ‘sleeps four’. The upside, it still looked brand new and cosmetically didn’t really show any wear at all. The downside, the poles that support it are made of what appears to be a fiberglass material that with age have started to disintegrate.
It’s easy to set up and pack up, and has a few nice features as well. If the Sundome is more of a beginners tent than you want, the Hooligan (also from Coleman) could be a good alternative. This tent comes with a vestibule for storage and a rain fly which provides much more coverage from the weather.
Two poles run diagonally between corners to give the body of the tent it’s dome-shape. The would have been a GREAT option for a trip I recently took. I needed a tent that was going to be comfortable for a weekend car camping trip. My backpacking tent is great, but a little on the small side for casual weekend camping trips. I know the Skydome is supposed to be a quick pitch in under 5 minutes, complete with these pre-attached poles, fast-fitting feet, and pole clips instead of pole sleeves.
The metal tips clipped to each corner were easy to insert into the base of the tent poles. Using our back yard as a test site, I proceeded to test its set-up time which is set at 10 minutes. Silke watched from the edge of the deck as I deftly maneuvered my way around the laid out tent and proceeded to stake off the corners. It was very similar to our old tent in layout and design so I had an unfair advantage to setting it up the first time. Even though Coleman uses an inverted seam to sew the tent body to the tub floor I still went around all four sides with seam sealer before I took it out on its first camp. So I’ve spent 12 nights in the tent and with a good steady rain on 4 nights and no leaks yet.
According to Coleman, the tent’s frame is built to withstand winds of up to 35 mph. While I wouldn’t recommend this tent for winter (it’s a three-season tent), it has enough ventilation for hot summer days, and is warm enough for mild autumn and spring nights. Now as for the fiberglass poles I think they are the weakest point on this tent.
However heavy rain in bad weather might cause the tent to leak. The bathtub floor that comes with welded corners and inverted should keep small rain showers out coleman instant tent of the tent. Whilst the tent does come with two storage pockets (which is an improvement on the smaller models), there is still no vestibule with the Sundome.