Coleman Popup

Great little tent – Was a great tent,,, brought it for the eazy use on the road side when traveling 5 days from Perth WA to Qld Australia .. popped up instantly, was a bit of a pain to pack up first time, but the watched video on you tube how to do it and was easy after that... great little tent for the price, can see the stairs at night through the open top. 5 years later and im still using it with the kids in the back yard. Show details

Coleman Popup 4 man - MUST READ – Discontinued but still see them for sale in stores Aug 2108. Noting I have added a lot of cons about this tent, but I still recommend this 4 man tent for x2 people max and for someone not wanting to spend up big on gear just to get a taste of camping - spend big on mattresses and sleeping bags!. These are great tents at the price point. All the… Read more

cons I've listed are manageable - just thought you should know this info prior to purchase - especially about the zippers.

The wife and I bought x2 of these for a low-cost entry into camping for our family of 4. If we tried to fit the four of us into the tent, I don't think we'd still be camping - way too small.

Since we had x2 of these tents we were able to buy x4 nice thick comfortable self-inflating mattresses (Dune 4x4 singles). x2 of these mattresses fit inside the 4man popup with no worries. When it comes to camping you MUST be comfortable when it's bedtime otherwise you'll simply hate camping - this was the best purchase decision and probably one that has kept the wife keen to continue camping too. Lastly, a note on the mattresses - these are entry-level price point but super comfy, 10x warmer than air mattresses and less hassle, cons are that the x4 mattresses take up nearly half the Prado 120 boot space! But they are bloody comfy so well worth the space in the boot they consume - we're now looking at upgrading to better quality thick insulated self-inflating mattresses as x2 the Dune mattresses now have slow leaks (but we've used them on 10 trips and at home with kids sleepovers - plenty of use etc.) - but even with the leak, they are still bloody comfy :).

Anyway back to the tent!

We've used these Coleman popup tents on around 10 camping trips so far ranging from 1-5 nights.

Pros:

Super fast setup, cheap tent, lightweight, simple to pack down, Floor mesh roof with a removable roof fly for awesome star gazing at night. Mozzy mesh seems to do the trick, simply hassle free tent setup - no poles no hassle. Pack up is easy, I made the Rays Outdoors sales rep set up and pack away the tent while I filmed him doing it (with his permission of course) This made the pack up process so easy referring back the video.

Cons:

*Light continuous rain ok. Rain with heavy wind might see you get wet inside the tent as I feel the removable roof fly doesn't go down far enough on each side of the tent (see the green roof fly in the picture above, well just underneath it is a full length mesh roof!), so with windy rainy conditions I think you may get a bit wet - fortunatley we never camped in high wind/rainy conditions.

*The roof fly is attached to the tent with black elastic and hooks for ease of removal and after our 10 or so trips the elastic has stretched and now it doesn't hold the roof fly as torte as it could/should be - reasonably easy fix though - juts haven't bothered.

*The zippers - damn those zippers - they often catch on the inner or outer weather strip when zipping up the tent. With a little forethought and being careful, they zip up ok.

*You cannot peg down this tent and expect to be able to zip the tent back up once you've unzipped it. With a bit of assistance and pulling the tent closer so the zipper it can be done, but expect the zipper or stitching to break very quickly. On our very first camping trip we decided not to peg down the tent at all - noting the weather was fine. This is a design flaw, unfortunately. With all of our gear inside the tent, the tent isn't going anywhere - if really it's windy you can peg it down at each end only and this works fine. The guy ropes are fine to peg down. So whatever you do don't peg this tent down at the recommended points otherwise say goodbye to your zippers. Maybe quickly peg down when leaving for the day but remove when returning.

*This tent needs an awning - even a small one would be better than none. You simply can not get into this tent when it's raining or while the tent is still wet without getting water inside the tent. - We pack a spare micro-fibre towel to wipe up water ingress - small annoyance - no issue in fair weather camping of course.

With all this being said, and you're looking at a cheap tent to test out camping, then I do recommend the Coleman 4 man popup, simply due to its ease of setup/pack up and it doesn't take up much room in the car. Again, buy a cheap tent if you're just testing out camping and spend up on bedding!

So quick to set up and pack away – We bought this in an emergency when my brand-new oztrail 6p failed us. Not only was it a godsend to erect in the wind when the poled tents struggled and tore holes in the fly, but with the swag in this wasn't going anywhere. I was worried it would be tricky to pack away, but this definitely wasn't the case, and I was happy to see that I could… Read more

infact do it myself very easily. The instructions are in the form of pictures and handy hints on the label of the bag.

A great tent for the kids – What a great little tent!! I bought it for my daughter for ease of setup and packup, and it sure hasn’t disappointed! One can nearly lose an eye setting it up as it’s very springy, but I’d rather that than have to join pointless poles together. The only bad point I can see is that the seam on the back lets water in. It was light rain last week… Read more

and my daughter slept in a pool :-(

That aside it’s great!

It’s been put up and packed away over 30 times in the 2yrs we’ve had it. Strong and durable, but not completely waterproof.

Great tent - 4 stars!

Underwhelming performance, very unimpressed – This review is for different coloured tent (reversed colourway to the tent pictured) but very similar looking 2 person pop up tent. It has green side walls and white fly cover. I was told in the store that it was an improved and updated model to the one pictured on this review. Purchased it for weekend trips in summer or finer conditions. Took… Read more

it to the coast to a beach camp site for 2 nights. At home when I checked if it would open up and zippers functioned immediately after purchase, and doing this inside to keep it clean incase it needed to be returned, we were unable to peg it down. The zippers seemed ok. But when the tent is pegged down to the ground, there is a lot of strain on them due to the shape of the tent in that case, and I found both the zippers on the fly and the inner door jams badly and repeatedly. In more than one place along both the zippers too. I was not even sure it would zip up at all the second day of the trip.

Setting up however is super easy and fast. The slowest part is putting in tent pegs and that takes only a few minutes. Also its very easy for one person to do.

Pack down is awkward. It is more difficult for one person to manage. Having shorter arms may have been a disadvantage. I needed a friend to help. There is a fair bit of tension on the pole system and it really wants to spring back out as you are packing it down.

Condensation was an issue even with some of the fly flaps open. Moisture pools near the entrance so when you open it up in the morning it puddles into the tent. :( I had barely 10 degrees one night and 14 another.

The tent design internally is barely ok for one person. Maybe better for shorter than average people or kids. Because the design has curved edges, the space for storage of small items is limited.

The bug mesh that was used appears to exclude insects. Apart from oh yes, the part of it with a hole in it, that was there in my brand new tent :(

I purchased it on sale, and it still feels like I was completely ripped off. I won’t be using this tent ever again because I don’t trust that the zippers will not blow out. Very unimpressed.

Overall I am underwhelmed and there is no way I could ever recommend it to anyone, due to something as important as zippers unable to properly function. They need to work for a reasonable amount of time, such as the expected life of the product. In this case the life of this product for me was exactly one weekend of camping.

Discontinued for a reason obviously! – Coleman say that these have been discontinued, but there seem to be plenty for sale out there still... I bought one a few weeks ago for a quick camping trip in Barrington Tops. To sum up: The good: its a great design, big on the inside (if a little low, but that's ok), stood up well in the rain and creates a lot of discussion around the… Read more

campsite. Very easy to put up, easy to pull down if you practice a couple of times.

The bad: the zips are very low quality and I expect will only last a couple of trips. The floor is also very thin. Overall, this is not a tent that you'll have for a long time if you use it regularly and can't repair zips and floors. Which is a real shame because its pretty cool otherwise.

So far so good! – I take my 3 little kids camping without my husband so I needed tents that are easy to put up and down. I've taken the 2 person tent away a few times now and I have been really impressed. It literally takes a few seconds to put up. You can pin it down with tent pegs but once there are some heavy items in the tent it isn't going to go anywhere. I… Read more

have only been to "glamping" spots where the ground is relatively clean and there hasn't been any harsh weather. It hasn't rained heavily so can't comment on how waterproof it is. The main thing for me is that if I arrive in the dark with kids running around everywhere, asking for food etc I can just let it out of the bag and there it is.

You don't have to deal with the fly going over the top etc. I had another tent with poles etc and myself and a friend had to ask a fellow camper to help us because we couldn't manage. The only problem is with putting it down. I have practiced at home many times so I am quite confident in the way it has to be put down but by myself I am not strong enough as the tent just wants to keep opening up. I need another adult to force it into the fold down. Anyway I like it so much for the convenience that I have just bought the 4 person version also. It's not big enough for 4 adult mattresses but I can easily fit me and 3 kids in.

Coleman 4 Pop Up - Good for a summer tent - no good for cool/cold weather due condensation – We bought 2 of these Coleman 'Pop-Up' 4 Person tents ($150 each) in early January from Rays Outdoors to use for a summer family camping trip to the beach. They are VERY easy to put up - they literally Pop-Up out of the bag and just need to be pegged down for security. This whole ingenious Pop-Up concept (used by quite a number of small tent… Read more

manufacturers) is based on a very flexible, curved hoop design of the supporting poles - which also gives a basically oval footprint on the ground. These tents do not have a fly - it is a 'single walled' tent. We always use a separate ground sheet under any of our tents to provide extra shielding from ground moisture, sticks, stones, dirt, etc. During our summer camping trip we had 2 days of significant rain and the fabric of the tent did not appear to allow any ingress of water through the thin nylon membrane.

Now the drawbacks of this tent.

Size: As in most small tents the claim that they are '4 Person' is very optimistic - I would say perhaps 4 children or 4 dwarfs - otherwise 2 teenagers OR 2 adults would fit comfortably - anymore than that and they would have to be literally shoehorned in like squashed sardines! There is no way you'll get 4 standard sleeping mattress/air beds into this tent.

Shape: Because the footprint of the hooped tent design is oval it does not allow 2 rectangular stretcher beds to be placed side by side because of the curved side walls. Perhaps one stretcher bed and one air mattress squished in along side - but that's it.

Door: Having the door on the side of the tent rather than the end means people will be climbing over each other to access the back bed/s of the tent - not good in the middle of the night. I have seen other Pop-Up tents with the door at the ends which is better. Now the other problem with the door is the shape. When the door is unzipped even slightly and/or carefully, the door immediately sags inwards also creating a narrow vertical channel in the fabric of the door. Not a problem in dry weather but when the door is covered in static rain drops or moisture on the outside and the door is opened - even slightly - the door immediately sags inwards and all the droplets are immediately funnelled down the outside of the door and immediately drain onto the inside of the tent - either onto the floor, sleeping bags, mattress or whatever is inside the tent! Happens every time - can't really be avoided!

Fabric: We found the single walled Pop-Up tent in warm weather was generally fine and in wet weather it kept out the rain well - apart from the major problem with the door mentioned above. In cold weather it's a completely different story though. We've just returned from a trip up into the High country where it was 5C or less at night. Due to the cold air on the outside of the tent fabric/membrane abutting the warm, humid air on inside of the tent fabric/membrane - created by sleeping bodies breathing there is MAJOR condensation created on the inside of the fabric throughout the whole tent! The condensation was so bad the whole inside of the tent fabric was sopping wet with water drops falling down overnight and gradually wetting everything inside. To make it worse if there was even a little wind shaking the tent - even slightly it was like rain falling inside! I guess there's a reason other tent designs incorporate a fly into their design - to avoid the whole condensation problem.

Packing Up: These tents require a special twisting/folding technique and practice to pack up. Practice at home before leaving on your first trip with one of these tents. Even after packing it about 10 times I still get it wrong 80% of the time and end up faffing around for 10mins to get it right. You have to get it right otherwise you just can't pack the tent up at all. There is a step-by-step picture in the instructions provided but I found these useless - more helpful is the Q-Code link to an on-line Coleman video which is much more helpful in learning the correct technique to pack up.

Many of the criticisms listed above are not unique to the Coleman brand of Pop-Up tent but to most/all similar 'Pop-Up' tents on the market - purely because of the nature of the curved, hooped pole and pop-up structure and the single walled design.