For $69 this is an affordable entry level tent for a someone new to camping in mild conditions (more on that in a sec). The power port is pretty convenient and the vent window located near the ground allows for air circulation. Sundome 2 has a good sized carry bag and it holds the tent coleman screen tent with room to spare. In the bag, you’ll find the tent body, two long poles for the tent body, one short pole for the rain fly, a small “welcome mat” and (9) stakes. Setup instructions are sewn inside the carry bag, though I was able to figure out how to set it up without reading them.
But then in view of this, it is hard to understand why they did not make it larger. There is not enough space for 2 people and equipment, and you may not be able to leave your stuff outside. Note also that it has only one door and this is the side door, in fact, therefore not so convenient for 2 people. The patented keepsake pouches always came in handy for car keys and wallets in the past. There’s no included footprint with this tent, and we’d recommend purchasing a 10’x10’ footprint, which you’ll need to find from a third-party supplier since Coleman does not make one. Alternatively, you can save a few bucks by opting for a tarp, which can also be cut to size if the measurements aren’t a perfect fit.
Note that you really do not have any vestibule like in the other tents which I mentioned in the table above. The small awnings on the front and on the back look great, but they only protect the windows and do not give any extra covered coleman ice chest space for the gear. The rain fly covers only the top section of the tent, basically protecting only the mesh openings, as you realize from the picture. So you can only pray that the lower portion of the tent body is indeed waterproof.
Furthermore, the walls had soaked through and wetted out. Our best guess is that the water ran down the rainfly, made contact with the tent body, and then coleman sundome proceeded to leak through the seam where the wall is sewn to the bathtub floor. All in all, we were pretty disappointed in its wet weather performance.
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. Here I’ll detail some of the pros and cons of the Coleman Sundome 4 Person Tent. Once the tent was pitched, I did a walk around and noted any prior damage from the previous user. Tent poles are constructed of fiberglass, which is heavier than their lightweight aluminum counterparts. The Coleman Sundome 2’s tent body and fly material seemed fairly durable. The bathtub floor is thicker and more rigid than floors of other tents I own.
Because of the basic setup, you also won’t have to struggle with poles or the rainfly in the hot sun for long stretches of time. This 4-Person dome tent also comes with guy-lines to support the fiberglass poles. We think this approach makes more sense for new campers. The products are low-cost but like the Coleman sundome that doesn’t mean they are low-quality. All in all, unless you have very specific requirements for your tent, Coleman’s Sundome is a great option for the everyday camper. I mentioned earlier that there were only two fiberglass poles for this tent, the old tent used four plus small ones for the rain flap.
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’. Plan C was to venture out beyond the bounds of our campsite for a little stealth camping and maybe some smoother ground.