I do think the Pelicans pull handle is the lowest on my list of the three. As far as color options go, you can purchase this in one of two colors, Greystone which is the one featured in this article and a lighter grey. The constant color feature among the two are the orange rimmed wheels which I don’t love but, it is not a deal breaker. Cracking this thing open sounds like you are opening the airlock on a spaceship. You can tell there is a serious seal established when you latch this shut. The Ozark Trail 45 Qt Rolling Thermocooler also comes with an internal tray, which the other two do not.
The legs are locked into place with old school metal push button locks, something you won’t see on many modern pop up tents now-a-days. These push locks get very difficult to use over time, especially if the tent is used on the beach and exposed to sand and saltwater, causing rust build up. Many newer tent brands like EZ-Up use revolutionary thumb lock sliders or larger easy to release ozark trail wagon buttons, which are a much better user experience when setting the canopy up or taking it down. With the push buttons you need to worry about pinching fingers or not being able to release the button when it gets rusted, which is never a pleasant experience. The legs extend to give the top peak a height of about 8’10” which will be plenty of headroom for anyone underneath.
Others, like the Sun Ninja, are lighter because they employ less expensive materials. So it is important to distinguish that not all lightweight and portable products are equally high in quality. The Eureka Tagalong scored slightly lower but still boasted an impressive score.
However, once on the ground, their roller bags make it extremely easy to pull them over concrete, dirt, and grass. At first glance, the setup for the Quick-Set Escap appears quite daunting. However, it became our favorite canopy to set up after conquering a slight learning curve. Despite its size, it amazingly ships completely assembled and pops into place with just a few pulls and pushes.
Once setup is complete, simply twist the crank a few times to lift the center pole to its maximum height. This feature also tightly stretches the entire canopy fabric into place, giving it greater resistance to wind and rain. Our second grading metric involves how fast and easy it is to set up and take down each shelter, but it also considers how simple and intuitive both processes are. While we recommend a minimum of two people to set up most shelters, the ease of this process can vary drastically depending on the design and quality of materials. While being timed, we set up and took down each product a minimum of 10 times.
The Tagalong sits a little low and isn’t adjustable, which affects the user’s ability to alter the canopy’s height or angles as the sun’s rays change. Still, the lightweight and portable design makes up for this, especially in the right use ozark trail wagon cases. Our experts teamed up to develop a rigorous test plan, which we applied to every canopy tent in this review. We learn a lot about each model by testing in varying environments, including mountains, forests, lakes, beaches, and dunes.