The Coleman Octagon 98 Full Fly Tent is a well-constructed 3-season 2-room cabin tent with a hinged door and a full coverage fly for total protection.
Key features and advantages
- Fly with full coverage.
- The door is hinged.
- The tent is very comfortable.
- The layout consists of two rooms.
- 2 doors.
- Doormats are provided.
This is what kind of tent it is.
This standard cabin tent has steep, flat walls, a tall structure, and little headroom. This is yet another tent with a hinged door on my list of tents with hinged doors. With such a door, you can use a different zipper, and I mentioned the tent in this content in my separate text.
This is an incredibly livable and pleasant tent for family camping with all these features and large mesh openings.
This complete double-layer design has an inner tent (shown below) and a freestanding full-coverage fly.
Because there is a removable divider inside, this is formally a two-room tent. Combined with the divider, each room has its exterior door, making this a very livable configuration.
Who is it intended for?
Size-wise, assuming an occupancy of 8, you have 15.25 ft2 (1.41 m2) per person. The tent’s structure is octagonal, which is inconvenient if you have to sleep on the ground. To fit the pads on the floor, you’d have to play Tetris with them. The tent capacity was calculated using a backpacking principle, which makes no sense given that this is a heavy camping tent. So this is an excellent tent for 4 – 5 people only, ideal for two couples or parents with two children.
Because you don’t have any external storage, reduce the number of users, as suggested above.
Season-wise, The full coverage fly should provide excellent weather protection in a typical three-season use. However, the tent is very boxy, and I would not expose it to high winds. Stake it down anyway.
The packed size of this tent is adequate but heavy, as evidenced by the comparison table below. This is a camping tent designed for use in areas with motorized access.
The tent is large enough to fit two queen-size Coleman cots with mattresses. As a result, you can pair them with this tent from the same brand.
Construction
Poles
The main poles here are thick steel tubes, and there are 16 total for the walls and the roof. The top hub element and the joint elements on the top of the walls connect them.
Even though you have two additional thin fibreglass poles for awnings and two for the hinged door.
The interior of the tent
The upper portion is entirely made of mesh, as is most of the ceiling. Polyester taffeta 68D and polyester mesh 68D are used. The floor is made of polyethene 1000D, bathtub type, and is completely sealed. So you have 6 inches of floor material extending above the ground, which is a good job.
There are two doors, one of which is hinged. The other is a standard zippered D-shaped door. They are made of the same material as the rain fly.
To have privacy, you must have the fly on, as shown in the image, which shows the fly unzipped at two points, creating lovely windows:
The fly
The fly extends to the ground with six vertical zippers for rolling it to the sides. This creates panoramic views, one of the tent’s best features. Awnings above the doors are made of two additional fibreglass poles.
So the fly is very well done and provides complete protection. The fabric is 68D polyester taffeta. They didn’t say anything about the water-resistant evaluation.
Ventilation
You should have no problems with ventilation in this tent. Vents on the fly provide vertical air circulation, and the ceiling is almost entirely mesh. Because the space between the fly and the inner tent is ample, air can circulate even when the zips are closed. Take note that there is some space between the ground and the fly, allowing air to circulate from below.
However, you cannot open or close the vents once the fly is attached to the tent. They are too far and too high to reach from the inside. The two awnings, on the other hand, are designed in such a way that you can keep the upper sections of the doors open (with mesh only) even when it is raining. Some floor vents would still be beneficial.
The transport bag
The bag is well-designed and has wheels. You’ll need them because it weighs 49.3 lb (22.4 kg). However, some have complained that returning the tent to the bag can be challenging.
Other characteristics
There are two sets of pockets, which are small for a tent of this size. More could have been added. The divider clips to the wall and the ceiling, but it is removable if not required. There is a lantern hook but no electric cable outlet.
Specifications
- Capacity: 8 people.
- Weight: 49.3 lb (22.4 kg).
- Diameter: 13 ft (4 m).
- Floor area: 122 ft² (11.3 m²).
- Area per person: 15.25 ft² (1.41 m²).
- Peak height: 82 in (208 cm).
- Packed size: 34 x 13 x 12.25 in (86 x 33 x 31 cm).
- Two doors for entry from either side of the tent.
- Steel poles.
- WeatherTec system with patented welded floors and inverted seams.
- Full-length zip-on fly for better ventilation.
- Colour-coded pole attachments for easy set-up.
- Storage pockets with cup holders.
Final thoughts, rating, pros, and cons
Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please use the comment box below if you have inquiries or comments. Have a wonderful day.
