At only $136.99, the Coleman Sundome 6 offers a budget alternative to its high-end competitors, while still managing to squeeze in a few bells and whistles. With 100sqft of interior space, it would appear at first glance to be the largest tent in our 2021 review, however its slanted walls and lack of a vestibule give it quite a bit less interior space than you might think. And although it has a rather durable floor and a decent choice in materials for the canopy and rainfly, the vulnerable fiberglass poles give cause for concern. In addition, Coleman’s somewhat infamous build quality gives the Sundome a questionable lifespan. However, for occasional use this tent should serve its intended purpose.

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Comfort

The interior of the Sundome 6 measures 10’x10’ (100sqft) with a peak height of 6’ in the center. Although these numbers by themselves would make this tent quite appealing compared to other 6-person tents, the dome-style structure of the Sundome means that there is limited verticality in the wall. As a result, the headroom drops off dramatically if you’re standing anywhere but in the center of the tent. Most campers will find themselves hunching over when traversing much of this tent. There are four rather simple pockets lining the inside of the tent, which is far from ample but still double what you’ll get from Coleman’s Instant Tent 6. There’s also a bit of ventilation thanks to a ground vent at the back that you’ll need to stake for it to remain open.

In terms of windows, you’ll find two large mesh panels on the upper half of the side walls as well as smaller, closeable windows on the back wall and at the top of the front door. The panels provide excellent views on cloudless nights, but these will be lost with the attached rainfly. Although there is only one doorway on the Sundome, it is quite large and should allow for easy entry and exit for one person at a time. There’s no room divider for the Sundome, nor is there a vestibule. We can certainly live without the former, but the lack of a vestibule means that there’s no mudroom to store your dirty stuff, which can come in particularly handy when the weather gets wet. The pole that holds up the rainfly offers very little protection from the rain outside the tent, really only enough to keep it from getting inside the door.

Ease of Setup

Although not nearly as streamlined as Coleman’s Instant Tent or Fast Pitch setups, the conventional setup for the Sundome 6 has an advertised pitch time of 10 minutes, which we actually found to be a rather conservative estimate. With practice, this tent could easily be put together in a little more than half that time, and this feat can definitely be accomplished by only one person. Coleman kept things pretty simple thanks to the dome setup, which enables the main tent to be erected using a two-pole, crisscross setup wherein the two poles are fed through sleeves that line up with the four corners. Although sleeves do make it easier for one person to erect the tent, they tend to wear out with age. The poles lock into the corners using a pin-and-ring setup. This method isn’t particularly high-tech compared to many other tents, and it does have the potential to slip out, but we did not encounter any issues with this tent specifically. The Sundome is freestanding, so you won’t need to stake anything out while getting the tent erected, and you can take your time between setting up the tent and adding the rainfly.

Once you’ve put together the main tent, adding the rainfly is a fairly simple process. You’ll run a single pole through the center of the fly to create your front and rear overhangs; these are also helpful when figuring out the fly’s orientation, rather than spinning the fly repeatedly until you get everything lined up correctly.

All packed up, the Sundome 6 weighs 16.6lb, and the packed size of its travel bag is 28”x13”x8”. Although we were pretty pleased with the reasonable weight of the tent and the size of its travel bag, we actually would have preferred if the bag were just a bit larger, because you’ll need to make sure to roll everything up rather tight in order to squeeze it into the bag.

Weatherproofing

For its reasonable price, Coleman does a respectable job in this department. Although it can’t be set up in the rain as easily as their single-layer tents, the same can be said for many of the camping tents in this year’s review. We would certainly hesitate to opt for this tent if the forecast calls for torrential downpours, but it can absolutely hold up to the occasional spat of rain. The rainfly should even be capable of repelling anything beyond sideways rain. In addition, the bathtub floor means there are no seams too near the ground, and your stuff should be well protected if a puddle forms near the edges. Finally, there is a large vent on the back of the tent that can be staked out to provide a small degree of airflow.

Durability

We had mixed feelings about the overall durability of this tent. The 1000D polyethylene fabric used for the floor of this tent is highly rugged, the canopy material is made of 68D polyester mesh, and the rainfly is 75D polyester taffeta—presumably to save on weight. This did not raise any alarms since these sections of the tent shouldn’t be taking much abuse. What did give us cause for concern was the fiberglass tent poles. Although we cannot cite any breakages with these poles, we are always hesitant when they are utilized since fiberglass is much less forgiving than aluminum. Whereas aluminum can be bent back into place when sustaining too much pressure, fiberglass will simply snap and be rendered unusable. This can be a serious vacation-ruiner. A few features on the tent had somewhat questionable build quality, such as plastic clips and less than elegant zippers.

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.

Other Features

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. However, we did find a couple of things that piqued our interest. Those of us who like to bring along some electronics for the sake of creature comforts inside the tent will be happy to know that the Sundome 6 has an e-port in the corner that enables campers to feed wires into the tent. One thing we also found particularly interesting about this tent is the number of versions available. Along with the 2P, 4P, and 6P sizes, the 4P and 6P also come in a Dark Room version (costing around $30 more) for those who like to keep their interior space both dark and cool (this is also appealing to, presumably, vampires).

The Bottom Line

With 100sqft of interior space, the Coleman Sundome 6 would appear at first glance to be the largest tent in our 2021 review; however, its slanted walls and lack of a vestibule give it quite a bit less interior space than you might think. Although it has a relatively durable floor and a decent choice of materials for the canopy and rainfly, the fiberglass poles cause concern. In addition, Coleman’s somewhat infamous build quality gives the Sundome a questionable lifespan. For occasional use, this tent should serve its intended purpose, but we’d recommend you prepare yourself for potential issues down the line.

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