You also get a zippered mesh door and back wall along with a floor vent located at the back of the tent. 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.
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 coleman sundome 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.
I measured my poles and I did find some aluminum poles online that are the exact size to fit my tent for $36 for the pair so that’s an option I would take if I break a pole. With two people there is enough room to set up a queen size inflatable mattress, and still have room for extra gear you may want to store in the tent with you. There is a mesh gear pocket to store things like you wallet and phone in to keep them off the ground. You’ll also find a zippered opening near the door to run an electrical cord through so you can run a fan, or C-PAP machine in my case. The 4-person version of the Coleman sundome tent is affordable and easy to set up, making it a fantastic option for new campers. Much like with all Coleman tents, their main selling point is often the overall value of the tent rather than special design features that make it stand out.
At almost 10 pounds, it would be too heavy for carrying over long distances. In addition to the various capacities, Coleman also makes the unique and rather intriguing Dark Room Sundome. Built using the same structure as the standard model (it’s only offered in 4P and 6P sizes), the design utilizes a special fabric on the tent body and rainfly that blocks a claimed 90% of light. For one, it has serious potential appeal among late sleepers or parents that are hoping to enjoy an uninterrupted cup of coffee in the morning. The dark fabric also helps keep the tent cooler, which is a nice plus in the hot summer months. Cost-wise, the Dark Room will set you back approximately $30 more (depending on current sale prices) compared with the regular Sundome.
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 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.
If you’d like to ensure even further waterproofing, consider getting Coleman’s seam sealer to spray on the seams of the tent. Also, the design of the rainfly allows wind (and even breezes) to blow right under the rainfly and through the mesh. This caused the fly to flap incessantly in the wind (very noisy) and brought that cold wind stright into the tent. While we were eating breakfast Sunday morning, the winds were picking up, and it eventually fractured one of the poles. I’ve owned this tent for 3 months and have 12 nights of camping in it (including 4 days of rain in this tent with no leaks at all). I have a couple 2-person tents that have a lot of camp time on them but wanted to try something a little bigger.
Last but not least, Coleman offers another intriguing budget option in their Montana tent. Stacked up against the Sundome, the Montana 6P is smaller with 84 square feet of floor area, shorter with a 68-inch peak height, and costs a little more at $117. Where the Montana gets the edge is livability with an included coleman instant tent awning and taller side and end walls. In the end, we prefer the 8-person version of the Montana ($220 at the time of publishing) for families wanting to spread out, while the taller Sundome is the better budget choice among 6P options. From within Coleman’s own lineup, we also like the Instant Cabin 6.
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 screen tent 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.
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.