I saw Decathlon advertising pop up tents for £20 or £30. Has anybody used one and are they any good for general low level use?
They weigh about 3.6kg and the pack length I believe is almost 3ft so they are presumably not backpacking tents.

I saw some on the NT site at wasdale and had to laugh because its meant to be a windy site and they dont look like they could take too much,think it had for pegs innit!!and no guy ropes..

buy a cheap vango or gelert for that money...

Skinjob
PART 1
This forum is festooned and cursed by gear snobs (don't necessarily mean you, diddy, because you only wrote a brief opinion) who will basically rubbish anything that doesn't conform to their own little internal world of gear fetishism and conformity, frequently treating objects with different function and purposes as though they're the same, and giving every appearance of only being interested in the great outdoors in order to pour scorn and ridicule on other people's choices, presumably because it makes them feel superior. (Have a look at the thread on Buffs if you want a scary example). So don't expect too much objective advice about an extremely cheap tent which look a bit weird on this list.

Rant mode over, and that being said, I'm happy to share my own experience with my Quechua 3 second Air tent, which I bought from the Outdoor Show a few weeks ago for £59. It's the largest of the series, but they are all based upon the same principal of an unfeasibly large, flat pack oval disk (about 100cm in my case) which you unstrap, throw in the air and it lands free standing and fully erect. Four pegs around the base plus four more for the guys and that's it - about a minute from thinking about it to jumping inside. Inside it is cavernous - truly a tardis. I've had astonished and admiring comments everywhere I've pitched it. People are genuinely curious about it, and most seem pretty impressed and even more so when I tell them the price. Putting it away also takes only a minute or so, but you need to learn the knack of how to do it, otherwise you will be there for hours! (it's a counter-intuitive twist of the wrist at the vital moment which makes it collapse in on itself an back into the flat disk shape.

In terms of durability, it's doing very well so far. Clearly this is not a backpacking tent - for a start even the smallest version when packed is a relatively large disk - it's fundamentally a 2 season car camping tent. That said, despite it's shape and size, in use it has proved remarkably resistant to wind (provided it is staked out properly, simply deforming and springing back to shape in gusts - I've used it in probably 25 - 30 knot conditions so far and it's been fine. It's also waterproof - longest it's been wet was about 2 days of continuous heavyish rain and it remained bone dry. It's also very well ventilated and whilst I've not been out in freezing temps (it's a car-camping tent, don't forget) I've had zero condensation issues. It seems well made and well stitched and reinforced in the right places too.

Last Autumn an entrepreneur in Paris, trying to embarrass the French Government about street-homeless people, bought 100 Quechuas and lined a couple of streets in a posh district of Paris with them, inviting the homeless to occupy them, which they soon did. I know they were still there a good couple of months later, because my friend saw them and phone-texted me a photo. I don't know if they're still there, but I do remember seeing people being interviewed on the news in and around their tents, and the tents looked in much better condition than the occupants!
Part 2 follows in next message

PART 2
The reasons I bought this tent were:
I wanted an instant tent for car camping - when I'm knackered at the end of the day, sometimes I don't want to faff around.

I already have a Rolls Royce tent - a venerable NF VE-25, which I use in more rufftytuffty situations. However, there are a number of situations when I wouldn't want to use the VE-25 anyway - my mate had his uber-expensive three man tent plus contents completely stolen at Glastonbury a couple of years ago, for instance. I could handle £59 going walkies, though, at a push.

Believe it or not, although some people on this list write as though every trip out of the front door is a potential extreme drama of survival, we do have reasonably reliable weather forecasts in this country, and there are some days and weekends when you can be pretty certain it's not going to blow a gale, or piss down with rain. And even if it did, since I use it for car camping anyway, what's the big deal - I can sleep in the car if that unanticipated tornado arrives - I'm not going to pitch it on a ledge at 20,000 feet somewhere, or anytime in India in the monsoon season.

Finally, I bought it because as a piece of design, I think it's an absolute classic - it's functional, it's unconventional, and it works really well for me, and for the size of usable tent you get for you money it's a total bargain.

The two-man and one-man versions are even cheaper, and all based on similar designs. For the price of a meal out for two (or just the arm of a Haglofs Oz pullover), and provided you don't expect it to perform like a 4 season tent, which it clearly isn't, I don't think you would have too much to risk just getting one and seeing what you think yourself.

As you say for the price at £20 or £30 it is worth a gamble and if it fails I can go for the cheap Vango.

Hope it works for you, Skinjob - keep us all posted.

Hi SJ.
I have a friend who uses the smallest model, by leaving the inner at home the outer serves well as a two man shelter. He is quite confident the idea is much underrated and, with careful pegging, the tent would tolerate more of a blow than you would imagine. He is under no illusions about the lack of packability.

In Decathlons' house magazine a few years ago there was an article on these tents .
Decathlon are proud of the fact they road tested all their prototypes to this range of tents in Patagonia to put them under extreme conditions before final production models went ahead.
[Nice holiday for the design team!]
If you look at what these tents are meant to do, I think they do it very well. I agree with KK too, most of Decathlons stuff is very good value, especially their marine gear.
I had a chat with Chris Townsend at the Outdoor Show 2 yrs ago and asked him why Decathlons gear wasnt featured in many reviews and basically it comes down to they don't submit it for review, and it isn't cutting edge stuff [a bit like a French Craghoppers I suppose]
I'd have a Quechua tent over a Gelert anyday too

Doc,
you're right about great value from Decathlon; we've several sets of walking poles bought for a tenner a pair years ago plus various boots etc., but unfortunately we don't have a shop here in Scotland.

When I contacted them to ask why not I was told they were first expanding through the regions of England as they felt there was more outdoor potential there, (I'd forgotten about all those mountain ranges in East Anglia!)

Funny attitude.

No mountains in East Anglia but mountains of twitchers.

Hey Fencer

Don't mock the summits of East Anglia - Why.. there are massive faces only feet from most front doors. They are called kerbs :0)

A lot of teams at the World Champs AR are using pop up tents.
Take from that what you will.

Well said KK...

I'm happy to report that the Outwell popup that I mentioned here is performing superbly and withstood loads of wind & rain on the south coast this weekend.

For camping out of the boot of your car in anything less than severe conditions they are in their element.

KK,

I agree that Decathlon stuff can be great value - their Kalenji running kit & baselayers are cheap and effective, and their bikes are a very popular entry level choice. I have no doubt that their tents are a good starting point too. Living in France very close to several big Decathlon shops, I can certainly say they are refreshingly inexpensive.

But, asides from snobbery which undoubtedly exists, the reason that people like to comment on gear is that it encourages informed choice. At a tight budget and for certain uses, the Quechua tent might well be the best choice. But for other environments it could be a dangerous waste of money. The informed buyer wants both opinions.

I commented on the quechua 2 second tent in a previous post, and drew attention to the review here . Note the comments about product recall in the US due to fire hazard...? Anyone else heard this?

Hi John

I appreciate debate and difference in views about gear - it's the reason I subscribe to this list, to hear a range of comments - it's the minority of posters who are contemptuous, dismissive and downright rude about other's opinions, or even questions, that I was having a pop at. It was a 3-second pop, BTW :)

Well about three weeks ago I was on a campsite below Tryfan with my kathmandu 1 and a half person tent TN Argon style tent.

The wind and rain was so bad that I herd people repegging tents around 3 in the morning. I got out to check mine it was still solid in the ground :)

The next morning I saw a family and they had two those pop up ones. Only problem they had was packing them down, or she had was packing them down. Made me laugh watching her struggle while the guy was standing there doing nothing (They were in the open as well no shelter at all).

There were three other Tents on the same campground that had snapped poles or popular brands.

So can't say anything bad about them

Cheers for that pal