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Before Mike and I’s recent camping trip to Letchworth State Park in Upstate New York, I was looking to purchase an affordable but durable tent for us to use. After some heavy research, I landed on the Coleman Sundome tent. Coleman is a tried and true brand that’s been around for over 100 years and I own several other Coleman products. Since the 4 person size was on sale, I decided to go for a bigger tent even though it would only be the two of us on our trips. My purchase ended up being a great decision. Here I’ll detail some of the pros and cons of the Coleman Sundome 4 Person Tent.
Coleman Sundome Tent Rating Criteria
Any good review requires specific rating criteria. I have decided to score the tent in 5 categories on a scale of 1-10:
- Size and Weight
- Durability
- Easy to Assemble
- Waterproofing and Ventilation
- Cost
Size and Weight
The Coleman 4P Sundome dimensions are listed as 9 x 7 feet with 4-foot 11-inch center height, however at just over 5 feet tall I felt I could stand pretty comfortably in the absolute center of the tent. The most important part of the size for us was that the tent is big enough to fit a queen-sized air mattress. The only caveat is that you will need to blow up the air mattress inside the tent since an inflated mattress won’t fit through the door. If your campsite doesn’t have power, you can use a car power converter to blow up the mattress along with an extension cord, or use a battery operated pump.
While this is advertised as a 4 person tent, realistically if you have someone over 6 feet tall it may be difficult to lay across the width of the tent due to the dome. The base is 7 feet, but the sloped sides quickly encroach on that space. With the air mattress you would only reasonably fit two adults and gear, which made it perfect for us, but perhaps something bigger would be needed for a larger family. The tent also has two small pockets for storing additional items, but adding anything of considerable weight pulls the tent inward, making the space smaller.
The one other thing that surprised us about the size was the tear-down of the tent and long-term storage. Typically once you pull a tent out of it’s storage for the first time it is difficult to get back in the duffel once you finish camping. In this case it was actually quite easy to wrap the tent back up into the storage duffel that is 2 feet long and 6 inches square. It weighs about 8 pounds so it’s relatively light for a 4 person tent as well.
Durability
Although the base of the tent is strong enough on its own for basic campsites, I recommend also purchasing a camping tarp for your tent to sit on. This was immensely helpful in keeping our tent clean when it rained and was an extra layer of protection for keeping the tent in good condition. The rods holding up the tent are decently strong, but we didn’t face any major wind during our stay to comment on how it would withstand very windy weather. If you want to improve the durability you may also choose to purchase longer stakes to keep the tent in place, although the ones provided with the tent worked fine for our purposes.
As far as ventilation is concerned, the front and rear zip up windows offer mosquito screens to allow air to flow through the tent. Two panels of the dome are also screened in, leaving you exposed to the open air without the rainfly on. There is also a small vent at the rear of the tent to provide additional ventilation. The screens kept the tent from getting too humid in the rain and created a bit of a cross breeze to keep things cooler. The only problem with leaving the rainfly off is that there isn’t any privacy in the tent from your campground neighbors.
Easy to Assemble
The Coleman Sundome is super easy to set up including the rainfly. It took us less than 10 minutes with two people to get everything together and ready for our use, which meant more time for enjoying ourselves.
Assembly steps
- Lay out tent on a flat surface (preferably on a tarp or other ground covering.
- Assemble long poles and thread through the top of the tent in an “X”.
- Slide bottom of poles into the metal rings at the base of each corner of the tent.
- Slide the short rainfly pole through the center of the tent and into each of the peaks.
- Apply rain cover over the top of the tent with peaks facing the front and rear of the tent.
- Stake tent into the ground and ensure all clips are attached to poles.
Once the tent is up you can add in some accessories like a mini lantern to hang from the clip at the apex of the tent, inflate a comfy air mattress or set up a cot, lay out your sleeping bags and you’ll be right at home.
Waterproof and Ventilation
Coleman’s WeatherTec system with welded floors and inverted seams can keep you dry in rainy weather as well. Unfortunately during our first night using the tent it rained quite a bit, but the interior of the tent was bone dry despite our tarp and underside of the tent being wet for the entire weekend. I attribute this to the fact that the floor seams are several inches above the ground, making it unlikely for the water collecting under the tent to enter. We also used the small mat that comes with the tent to place our muddy shoes inside at night and keep the tent clean and dry throughout the weekend. If you’d like to ensure even further waterproofing, consider getting Coleman’s seam sealer to spray on the seams of the tent.
Cost
It’s hard to get a quality tent for under $100, but Coleman packs in a lot of value for a very inexpensive price. If you are not planning to camp in extreme conditions and looking for a camping tent that meets your basic needs, you really can’t beat the Coleman Sundome series. Check out current Coleman Sundome 4 Person Tent prices on Amazon.
All in all, unless you have very specific requirements for your tent, Coleman’s Sundome is a great option for the everyday camper. It won’t necessarily be top of the line in durability or weight since there are special (and more expensive) tents that focus on those qualities, but the value and quality you get for the price of the Coleman is well worth the investment.
Interested in the other equipment I recommend? Check out my gear page for everything I use on my adventures, from camping equipment, hiking accessories and camera gear.