The Coleman Instant 8 person 14- by 10- Foot tent is perfect for the family that is looking to get their campsite set up quickly to start enjoying the outdoors. This is an 8 person, two room tent that has straight walls that make standing up in this tent easy with plenty of head room at 6’5″ center height. Fully taped seems with 150D fabric allows Coleman to provide the keeps you dry guaranteed without the need to install a rain fly.
The tent boasts a roomy interior with sleeping space
$ 199.99
Great tent, would be worth 5 stars with one minor modification you can make yourself,
We got this tent this spring to replace an OLD Coleman external frame tent that used to leak on us like a seive, even when all we had was a heavy dew. Anyway, this tent has performed like a champ for the camping we did this summer.
First of all, the plusses…and there are plenty:
1) This tent is EASY to set up. The external frame and tent never come apart, so you don’t have a chance to lose anything. I have set the tent up on my own, but, frankly, it’s easier to set up when you have the help of one other person.
2) The set up goes like this…after you have the tent out of its bag you reverse the bend of the corners of the external fram so the poles extend out and down rather than down and up (the way they are stored). Next, extend the four telescoping poles that go from the center of the tent to the four corners until they snap into position at their maximum extension. After you have done that you extend and vertical poles (I recommend doing the corners first) until they snap locked at their maximum extension. Then do the same for the side poles, and you are done with the basic set up. Lastly, use tent pegs to secure to corners and sides of the tent in place.
3) Our first outing it rained, but we stayed nice and dry (be sure to use a ground cloth or tarp under your tent). Thanks Coleman!
4) There are plently of windows in the tent, and the tent can be divided into two rooms – front and back.
5) The engineering of this tent is such that it is able to give and sway a bit in the wind, and that’s nice.
6) The tent is made of good materials.
The minuses…
1) The carry bag that the tent comes in seems a bit too small when you try to put the tent back into it when you break camp, but with some grunting and impolite shoving it finally will go back in. (Why do tent engineers always make the bag always do this!?)
2) This is NOT a back-packing tent…i.e., it’s HEAVY. That’s OK for us, since we camp in campgrounds where we can drive close to where we set up camp.
3) The metal L-shaped tent pegs are inadequate for high wind conditions…and if the gusts are heavy enough the tent will slip out of these pegs and partially collapse…not what you want to have happen to you and your family at night..which leads me to the part of the review where I tell you how to make this 4-star tent into a 5-star tent.
Here’s how to make your 4-star tent a 5-star tent. It’s easy. The one significant weakness of this tent is that the tent pegs are not substantial enough to hold up to prolonged exposure to wind (and in Idaho where I live it can get mighty windy). So, to correct this flaw simply repalace the light-weight metal tent pegs with more substantial tent pegs, such as COGHLANS Tent Stakes / Pegs 9″ ABS Tent Pegs Md: 9309. or Coghlan’s Ltd Tent Pegs 12In Abs 6Pk 9312. A half dozen of these pegs will do the trick, and viola, you have a 5-star tent!
The last time we went camping (last week) I had the impression that I should throw some of our old tent pegs in with our gear, and I’m glad I did! They worked wonders.
I hope this review and suggestion was helpful to you.
So, without the alternative tent pegs, 4-stars.
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|Great tent for the price,
UPDATE: We’ve now camped with this tent for 3 seasons and have experience with weather resistance. It rained the entire week, with some serious downpours, this last camping trip in August. Ours was the ONLY tent that didn’t flood out. We kept the doors & windows zipped up and had no water leakage at any of the floor, window/door, or side seams. We had a tarp over the tent & camping area so can’t attest to the resistance of the ceiling but have no doubts it would perform as well as the rest of the tent. Another commenter gave some information regarding vents in the ceiling that we didn’t know about & will definitely check out next summer so that eliminates my ventilation con. And now that we have some experience setting up & taking down the tent it is MUCH closer to a minute than our previous 15!! So the only con that remains is the lack of ties or toggles to help keep the windows rolled up neatly when they are zipped open. Minor annoyance!
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
We just returned from our 1st camping trip with this tent. We usually camp once a year, for 4 nights/5 days, at a campground. Our family consists of my husband & I and our 3 kids, aged 13, 14 & 17. Our must-haves in a tent when we were looking were a room divider and a non D-shaped door (D-shaped are too vulnerable to zipper blow-outs with lots of not so gentle use…). We bought this tent based on those requirements, the dimensions & # accomodated, the ease of set up & reviews.
Our two cents:
PROS
1) this tent definitely is easy to set up. My husband & his mom (I’m 8 1/2 months pregnant) set up the tent straight out of the bag for the 1st time in about 15 minutes. I read the directions but it wasn’t even really necessary, it was that simple.
2) take down was just as easy.
3) plenty of room for our family of five. It would be 8 man as long as everyone was very comfortable with each other! It fit our family on 2 queen and 1 twin mattresses with space for our gear and our boys gear. My daughter is too particular & kept her stuff stored in the car! We’re going to have to store more gear in the car next year when we add the pack & play though!
4) the room divider was WONDERFUL. My husband didn’t think he’d like it (being separated from the kids) but he admitted he liked having our stuff separated from theirs & not having to paw through everyone’s things & bedding to get to our own.
5) two doors. One was T shaped, which is exactly what we wanted, and the one the kids used. The other was D-shaped, and not what we wanted, but we put it at our end where we were more conscious of the care needed to operate it without zipper blow-outs.
CONS:
1) there is no rain fly and therefore no ventilation in the ceiling. Heat rises. Even with the walls being almost completely screened & open all day to allow air flow the tent was warm. And humid. I was thankful the temps got down to the 40’s & 50’s on a couple nights to allow more comfortable sleeping conditions!
2) there are no ties to secure the windows with when they are rolled down to expose the screens. You roll them down and sort of tuck them into themselves at the bottom. It’s not quite deep enough for them to stay & they wind up falling out. Some ties would be nice to help them stay in place.
We had great weather and a tarp covering the tent & area around it in the event of rain – so we can’t speak to the weather resistance of the tent. We did seal the seams, as one should do with ANY tent anyway. Oh – and get some beefier tent stakes. The ones included are pretty wimpy!
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|IF YOUR BIG AND STRONG, YOU WILL LOVE IT,
This is a great tent! Do yourself a favor and instead of taking it out of the box and trying to beat the 1 minute time for assembly, read the directions and familerize yourself with the proper way to put it up and take it down. After 1 or 2 times you will be setting up in about a minute.
I am 6’3′ so I can easily lift and reach all the moving parts. It is a heavy tent (45lb) and its about 4 feet when in its carry bag. 45lbs may not sound like a lot but when it is stretched 4 feet accross it can feel more like 100 lbs. My wife has a hard time lifting and manuvering it by herself. Keep this in mind if you are short and not very strong. That being said Coleman does clearly state that set up is a 2 person job. I suggest that even carrying it is a 2 person job if you are small.
Taking it down is a slower process but still very easy and I love not having to seperate any parts to do it. However since it is all one piece you will definently want to put a tarp under it to keep the bottom as clean as possible. Remember when I said it is a heavy tent, well rolling it back up is a job in itself and I have used help for this since day one. You will get dirty doing this if the tent is dirty. There is no way around it, you have to man handle this thing to roll it up. Thats not a bad thing (you gotta take the bad with the good) I’m just speaking from my expierence with it and being honest. The bag is very large and you
shouldn’t have a problem putting it away.
It is awesome inside. Its huge and I love that so much of it is screened. The room dividers role up real nice and they are permantly attached to the tent so you dont have to keep track of them if you choose not to use them. The windows/walls role in and tuck into the screen when zipped down wich is convienent and easy. Other reviews have stated that the wind can make them unrole and flap around, I have not had this issue.
I have been through 2 good rainy days with this and so far so good. Make sure the windows are zipped all the way up to keep the rain out, if they are even down a little than the rain will flow off the roof and into the crack. If you have little kids they will not be tall enough to zip the windows if it rains so be prepaired to do it yourself. This is a problem when it is hot because it can get very humid and stuffy in the tent without being able to have any air circulation. Camping fans are the solution I have used for this. Also if it is raining and you go in or out of the tent the rain will flow off the roof and in through the door while it is open making a wet spot on your floor. I have found no solution for this. As stated in the description, there is no need for a rainfly on this tent, nor is there one available or neccassary. That also means there is no screening on the top so looking at the stars while laying down is not an option. This is not a problem for me because I have never in my life camped without putting a rainfly over the roof screen “just in case it rains”.
I have read other reviews stating that the frame rails have got stuck and they couldn’t collapse the tent. I want to comment that. I have had that problem as well but if I twist the stuck pole a little to each side it has loosened it allowing me to collapse it. Once again though I am a big guy and for a smaller person this could definantly be an issue. The poles feel very sturdy to me and I trust the system that Coleman has used but it is inevidable that dust, debri, sand, moisture, ect. are gonna stick to the poles and jam them up a bit. Wiping them down before breaking down the tent may help with this. I also want to add that even with the few stuck poles I have dealt with I am still confident with the system and would not want those comments to take away your trust in this tent, but it is something to conider if you will be lacking man power on your camping trips.
In closing, I love this tent! One night camping trips are know worth the effort becasue there is almost zero setup/takedown time. It is the first and only easy up tent I have used so I cannot comment on what other companies offer in comparison to this. For me the price is right and Coleman is a trusted name. As with every product it has its ups and downs and I tried to be fair and disriptive with both based on my expierence with it.
My suggestions for the next generation of this tent would be –
Utilize the “real door or “D” door as I call it” like many of your newer tents use, that is the number 1 suggestion I have and the greatest progression in tents ever.
Add atleast 1 door on the side, the 2 doors on it now are great but 1 more would elimate having to step over other sleepers to get out when your the person sleeping in the middle of the tent.
It definantly needs more than 2 storage pockets, this is an 8 person tent so there should be 8 storage pockets. A lantern hanger in the middle would be great too.
I would love to see versions of…
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