Gear

Microlight is too small, Voyager is good, others to look at are Hilleberg Nallo 2 great tent but expensive, Macpac Minaret, not as expensive, also have a look at Lightwave tents.

Ive had a Nallo 2 for about 8 years and nothing has tempted me yet to upgrade its a spacious 2 person tunnel tent easy to pitch, however if you are a light sleeper you might want to look at a geodesic design like the voyager for example. hope this helps.

I think the Spirit 200 is a similar design to a Nallo but a bit smaller and cheaper

Good deal here  http://www.theoutdoorshop.com/showPart.asp?part=PN57001

I prefer two entrances: the Saunders Sapcepacker Plus, for example.

Pete.

Don't forget Lightwave

www.lightwave.uk.com

Vango Spectre 250, my mate's got this and it's a brilliant tent, easily carriable between two people, you can fit 3 in at a pinch. It was however defeated by the weather in Keswick at the very start of septemer last year and a pole snapped, bear in mind the weather was that bad that everyone else had left the campsite and gone elsewhere for the night!

Now some advice on a tent not to touch with a thirty foot stick:

Omega 250, the sleeping area doesn't actually fit a 5ft11in bloke in if there's anoyone else in the tent, MUCH MUCH too much porch space, also heavy and has a packsize more akin to a 5 man tent.

I looked at that a while back, but couldn't find out things like the HH and pack size online. Preferably I'd like something upwards of 3000 HH

The fabric used (for the Mk1, the lighter) is a high tenacity ripstop nylon with a silicone elastomer coating.  It's about as good as tent flys get, about the same as Hilleberg and Lightwave use.

No idea what the hydrostatic head of the groundsheet is, I do know that my Spacepacker is still completely trustworthy after many years.  Camping on thawing snow in Norway once I woke up to find the inner where I wasn't holding it down with my weight was literally afloat, and the only water inside was condensation.  My dad's Plus is about 20 years old now and still fine: they're good materials.

The pack size is good: don't have a plus handy to measure, but it goes down small, comparable to the other things mentioned above.

MUCH MUCH too much porch space

Tastes vary: that sounds like a contradiction in terms to me!

Pete.

Pete, there is more porch than sleeping area, it just seems like a really badly designed tent, I guess that the design team was having a bad week or so when they designed it and dropped the ball.

there is more porch than sleeping area

That was the case with my old Saunders Snowcat (similar to the current Galaxy, or the old Hilleberg Stalon), which I thought was a cracking tent.

The inner only needs to be big enough to sleep in, cut down from that and you save weight, while keeping plenty of party/cooking etc. space.  On one trip with 3 pals sea kayaking round Shetland I'd unhang the inner each evening and we'd all come in and cook and eat and plan and blether with loads of space, then back up with the inner for bed for 2 of us.  Alternatively you could park a bike in each porch while you had the inner up, and it still only weighed 3 Kg (less without the optional ridge pole).

It's unusual, but it's not intrinsically bad or stupid for everyone.

Pete.

Hmm, fair point, I guess I just detest the tent for reasons of not fitting in the bloody thing and having the second worst night's sleep in my life in it for length reasons! Maybe I've been spoiled by the spectre!

Sadly the case that if the Nallo is looking a bit pricey, the Allak won't be worth a look (ditto the Kaitum, my personal choice for this job if the money's there).

Pete.

I have a spectre 200 and its a good long tent (3pole tunnel) and has some good details and features but I'd not call it a 4 seasons personally. I'm not sure if the spectre 250 is any different other than bigger. Although I do think 4 seasons is relative to what and where you intend to use it. There is a big difference in the top of the Cairngorm plateau in a winter storm and the nice sheltered spot in a southern campsite sheltered by trees. I've camped in pretty much every month of the year in my old Jack Wolfskin pocket hotel (2;6kg, 2 man tunnel from about 15 years ago). I've survived some very heavy storms on the side of a hill (in a sheltered spot), snow, floods (although survive that is questionable as the water went over the top of the bathtub ground sheet and flowed out the other end apart from 6 inches of water in the foot of the tent) and numerous nights when friends in their high spec 4 season geodesic tents getting up in the calmer morning to look out with shock that the tent was still up.

I've been on events where 4 season tents have been wrecked and blown into hedges miles away from the campsite yet my 3 season tent had given me a good nights sleep and with no damage at all.

My point is the spectre 200 is a cheap tent and being a tunnel tent (with side entry) it is quite a nifty tent (£90 RRP or £50 if you shop around). It should survive a lot of weather but you do need to pitch it well to do that. Tunnels work well because of the flexibility of their poles and the structure but the spectre 200 and oerhaps the 20 is not quite a 4 season. It is a D of E tent though so that says a lot (usually that it is cheap and has some cost based compromise somewhere in its design or materials.

Check out the Lightwave website as they have a clearance page (in a downloadable excel file) that sometimes sells off tents. If you are lucky you get a real bargain just an older model, prototype, ex demo, etc. I think there are several ppl on this forum whop have bought well like that. Crux do the same being a sister company but their stuff is very expensive and very high spec. Alternatively wait until there are some good tent shows on in the spring / summer. I nearly picked up a crux tent for £100 5 years ago. A returns that had been checked by Crux and re-guaranteed after a new flysheet and poles were added. Somehow that escaped the shop staff buying it and ebaying it for twice the amount later. I wished I had done that.

As TTG says, some people (including me) benefitted from the lightwave clearout... but I think that is not likely to be repeated anytime soon as it was part of the preparation for handing the distribution over to DMM and clearing out the lightwave warehouse.

I'd still vouch for their tents as a amongst the best and you can find them below rrp if you look around. They are also modular in design so you can swap inners, poles, outers to make up variants to suit your needs. I've got a t2 tunnel with both standard and extended flysheets and a set of carbon poles for the standard configuration. A t2 ultra would fit the bill IMO.

And they are well backed by great customer services.

I have an REI Quarter Dome.  See here for details:

http://www.rei.com/gearmail/gm0321_18/cm?cm_ven=email&cm_cat=gm&cm_pla=na&cm_ite=03_21_gm

It is rated as a 3 man tent, but given its light weight, I find it works well as a 2 man with a bit of extra space.

OK, you have to import it from the US, with the customs charge on top of the purchase price, but it still works out quite reasonably on cost.

I've used mine in very wet/windy conditions, and a couple of times in heavy snow, and been pleased with its performance.

Only real downside is the stated interior size if optimistic.  I'm 6ft and my head and feet touch the inner at both ends lying flat.  No great hassle, but it could prove irritating.