Terra Nova Argon 800

I am doing some research on replacing my Terra Nova Laserlite: it was unfortunately vandalised by the nice people at New Zealand Customs last year.

I was surprised to see the Terra Nova Argon 800 and 900 tents going fairly cheap on www.gear-zone.co.uk. Have these tents come out of nowhere? Why wasn't I informed? They seem very similar in weight and style to the Laserlite and Competition, except the poles are optional and they are primarily intended to be suspended from trekking poles.

When I went back and had a look at the TGO Christmas gear review, I noticed that Chris T had listed the Argon. Apart from this, it doesn't seem to officially exist. Terra Nova certainly doesn't have it on their website

I was wondering if anyone knew where the Argon had popped up from and if it is any good? I also noticed that the ME AR Ultralite is now available in a one man version from Hike Lite. Does anyone know how these 2 compare and if the new ME tent can also be suspended from poles taking the weight down still further.?

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ME AR1 Ultralite is in this month's TGO, you can use trekking poles instead of the normal poles with it. It's 1080g with the poles or 950g if you use trekking poles.

And a replacement laserlite is £150ish from Terra Novas factory shop.

I recently bought a ME AR Ultralite and decided that it would be lighter to use normal poles with it rather that trekking poles.

So I contacted ME (and various other shops) to buy a set of poles and was told that they have none in stock and were not intending on restocking.

My next phone call will be to Terra Nova as the poles for the Argon look as if they are the same size as the ME ones.


Would be interesting to hear what ME would say if you accidently broke an AR pole a week after buying the tent!!!!

Thanks for the advice. I will check out the Terra Nova Factory store, which often gets favourable mentions in these pages.

Anyone actually seen an Argon in action? An exhaustive internet search really turns up very little information. It might be that the few internet stores that stock them have prototypes ahead of an official launch. If not, it makes me wonder how Terran Nova expects to shift any product at all with zero publicity.

Hike Lite has a good price and additional information on the the new AR Ultralite.

Rob, could it be you bought the old model AR Ultralite? I notice the 2006 version, described on Hike Lite, comes with poles included.