User Review: Hilleberg Nallo 3

Reviewed June 1, 2006 by T

Rating: rated 3 of 5 stars
Design: 4 season hoop style tent
Sleeps: 3
Ease of Setup: easy- 5 min
Weight: 5 lbs
Price Paid: 350

Okay, so I researched all of the light weight 4 season tents. Read the reviews, spoke with guides, talked to various companies and finally selected the hilleberg Nallo 3 tent on not a drop of reservation from the above sources. The tent was supposed to be a light weight 4 season tent that was hand crafted to withstand whatever could be thrown at it. Well I was excited with the tent when it first came, it was hand stitched with excellent attention to detail and amenities.

Well that is until I tried to put the Dac poles in to set it up. Now I have been pitching tents for some time so to my amazement when 2 sections snapped on the second pole, I was shocked and angered. I called the company and they were agreeable enough to send a new tent pole. Excellent customer service. Well I get the new pole set up the tent and find the netting and stitching was torn on the inside zipper to the large front door. I promptly packed it up and sent it back for not one problem but 2 problems. My reasoning. Spend this amount of money and get a lemon? I think not.

Hilleberg is a great company, I am not disputing that. They were agreeable and and responsive to my needs before my trip to Alaska. They have excellent attention to detail in most of their tents from what I hear. My personal experience was greatly distorted by this flawed tent. I hope that the other hilleberg users speak up because the ones I talked with loved their tents. I just caution those of you looking to spend good money on an expensive lightwieght tent to make sure the nallo is in working order. If I had it to do all over I would order the Nammatj that is supposedly a more heavy duty tent.
There are great features on the Hilleberg tents
1) Light weight
2) Easy set-up
3) Thoughtful design features -
a) rain fly attached for easy set-up in rain
b) stitching
c) bright yellow inner tent color-cheery
d) pockets in inner tent
e) Lines easily secured

Disadvantages
a) little ventilation
b) some what difficult to remove fly- not too difficult just a bit time consuming
c) need to buy additional supports to make it free standing if pitching without rain fly
d) my particular tent had flaws as mentioned above

Summary: I would still consider Hilleberg for serious expedition or all season tents. They are lightweight and the overall manufacturing appears to be second to none. That said I had problems- emphasis on problemS. A more well known company such as black diamond, marmot, sierra designs, Bibler, etc...may help to avoid problems encountered with a smaller tent. Just a thought on this tnet experience but one I felt needed to be shared.

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