A spacious 6 man tent, the Coleman Sundome could tick a lot of boxes – is it the best tent for your camping trip? Find out with our Sundome 6 review.
The Coleman Sundome 6 has been around for a few years now, but it is still one of the top-rated tents on Amazon, which is a pretty good guide as to its quality. We wanted to check it out for ourselves though, and have compiled our findings in this Coleman Sundome tent review.
We’ll take a look at Coleman the brand, the specifications of the Sundome 6 and then record our findings when we put it to the test – a weekend away with my young family. Let’s get into it.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Great value
- Spacious for a family of four
- Simple to pitch
- Plenty of head room
Cons
- No porch
- Not enough inner pockets
About the brand – Coleman
Coleman have been making camping gear for over a century, starting out on gas-powered lanterns before moving into camping stoves which were utilised by soldiers during World War Two.
They started out in Oklahoma, but are now based in Chicago. That doesn’t stop them being at the cutting edge of the Outdoors industry though – they are leading producers of almost any product you would need for a camping trip – camp chairs, tents, sleeping bags, stoves, coolers. It is no surprise that they have built up such a solid reputation. That doesn’t count for everything, of course, so let’s take a closer look at the Coleman Sundome 6.
Coleman Sundome 6 – Specifications
Let’s start off with the size – the ‘6’ in the title refers to the fact that this is a 6 person tent (also available are the Coleman Sundome 4, 3 and 2). I decided to opt for the Coleman Sundome 6 because I was going away for a break with a family of 4, and I wanted to have the extra space. I felt the 4 person tent might be a bit tight for us all.
This is a big tent, with a maximum height of 6 ft. Obviously, as this is a dome tent, you won’t have the same headspace near the tent walls, but 6 ft is decent compared to most of the competition, and more than enough for most families. One thing to note, though, is that tents on the cheaper end of the scale (which the Coleman Sundome is) tend to have tent walls that slope more than others, so the headroom decreases rapidly from the centre. This shouldn’t be a problem for most people, but may make some taller campers a little uncomfortable.
The tent floor space measures 10 ft x 10 ft, which again is pretty huge for a tent in this price bracket. It should be comfortably big enough for a family of four – plenty of room to fit an air mattress in for two adults, and enough room for two children (and probably a dog too).
There is no room divide within this tent – just one large sleeping space. For this reason, I think it will work best for a young family where you don’t mind all being in there together – as children get older you might want a tent with separate rooms.
The tent has a bathtub floor, which means that the floor material is attached to the walls about six inches up from the ground. The theory here is that it will prevent any water leaking into the tent body. There are welded corners to aid the leak prevention.
In terms of ventilation, the Coleman Sundome 6 has a floor vent, a mesh door, a partial rain fly and two mesh patches on the ceiling – all of this is designed to get plenty of air inside the tent.
Now let’s wet weather performance – the rain fly doesn’t fully cover the entire tent body, but should offer decent protection, while the whole tent is made with Coleman’s WeatherTec system. This involves a coated polyester fabric, protected and inverted seams and rain fly seams to help protect against wind and rain.
The Coleman Sundome 6 weighs just over 10 kg, which rules it out being a backpacking tent. You really want something a lot lighter if you are on the move a lot -it’s best used for car camping.
You get two storage pockets in this tent, which is just okay. To be honest, I don’t know why they don’t put more in, as they can’t cost that much to install and they do make things quite a bit easier when you are camping.
Anyway, that just about covers what you get with the Coleman Sundome 6 – now let’s take it out on a camping trip!
Using the Coleman Sundome 6
I took my small family (in every sense of the phrase) out for a weekend break in the Cotswolds with the Coleman Sundome 6 – we arrived on the Friday evening and I was keen to get set up as quickly as possible, anxious to get my boys fed and settled in.
I needn’t have worried – it was an easy setup. I have used a Coleman dome tent before, so I knew what to expect, but it was all incredibly straightforward. The fiberglass tent poles were simple to fit – made easier by the fact that there are only two tent poles and they are identical, so you can’t really go wrong. We were car camping, so I didn’t need to carry it very far at all. I’d say from parking to having the tent fully set up was about 15 minutes – not bad with two very excited children running around!
There was plenty of space in there for the four of us – it was bigger than I expected inside. The centre height was comfortably big enough (quick note – I am only 5 ft 6!), and we managed to have an air bed plus two little camp beds for the kids – and plenty of space to spare. I was very impressed with how spacious the Coleman Sundome 6 is. The tent shape didn’t impact on this at all, even with the sloped walls.
I missed having a porch, I have to say. When we had finally got the boys to sleep, we sat outside to have a drink and I felt a little exposed without something to sit under. However, for a tent in this price range, we could probably afford to buy a porch on top and still save money.
We had two pleasant night’s sleep. The Saturday was particularly hot, and so the good ventilation that this camping tent offers really came into its own. The bathtub floor with a ground vent, coupled with the large windows and ceiling patches meant that it didn’t feel too stuffy in there when we went to bed.
Unfortunately, for the purposes of this review, we didn’t have any rain for the weekend, so I couldn’t properly review the wet weather protection. I was a little concerned about the fact that the rain fly didn’t cover the entire tent exterior, but we got away with it. Since returning home, I have looked at other customer reviews to get a better idea, and it seems that generally the Coleman Sundome 6 performs well in the rain, just as long as it doesn’t get extremely heavy. I would be wary of using this tent in very heavy winds as well, just because I don’t think it has been built to withstand extreme conditions.
I would have liked a bit more storage – the two pockets were not really big enough to store anything other than keys etc, and this led to a bit of frustration looking for my youngest’s favourite teddy before bed! A few more pockets would have been very useful.
All in all, though, we didn’t have many complaints at all from our weekend with the Coleman Sundome 6. We had as much extra space as we needed, it was cool in warm weather and it was incredibly easy to pitch.
Coleman Sundome 6 Verdict
The Coleman Sundome 6 is a good tent that will provide you with everything you need for the odd weekend away with the family. When you take into account the price – it is an excellent tent. You won’t find many better, with this amount of space, for under £200.
The thing I liked the most was that it kept things simple – it’s just one big room for you to sleep in at the end of the day. It will offer you some protection from the wind and rain, and it’s so easy to put up.
Of course I’d like to have had a porch and a bit more storage space, but you can only expect so much from a budget tent, and this represents excellent value. If you are looking for a casual camping tent for a few weekends away, then you will do well to find a better one in this price range.