User Review: Sierra Designs Comet CD (1998)

Reviewed July 2, 1999 by an anonymous hiker

Rating:
Design: 3 season, free standing
Sleeps: 3
Ease of Setup: Easy
Weight: 7 lbs
Price Paid: $250 thru REI-outlet.com

I was significantly underwhelmed by the quality of this tent. I admit, my two prior tents were The North Face tents, but I've heard good things about SD tents, needed a bigger tent and wanted to give SD a try.

First, the good points, ventilation is pretty good. There could be more mesh on the side panels, but unless it's really humid out, you won't be fogging this tent up. Also, set-up is a easy. Same-length poles and color-coded clips are a help. Second, for weight of the overall tent, the floor space is huge. You could easily fit three full-size adults in this tent, but it doesn't weigh a ton.

But part of the reason for its relative light weight is that the fabric is pretty low-quality nylon. It's thin, and importantly, all of the seams are maybe 6 stiches per inch, which I saw as being a sure indicator that I'd be dealing with blown-out seams in the future.

The tent is advertised as being factory seam-sealed, and I guess that maybe SD has opted to factory-seal their 1999 tents, but other than the middle seam on the floor, this pup wasn't factory sealed at all.

Another thing I really didn't like about this tent was its height. It was too tall. Hardly low-profile, the tent would be painfully obvious to anyone hiking anywhere near your wilderness campsite. On cold nights, the height gives you a lot more air to have to heat up. The tent isn't wind resistant because it stands so high. And the extra height doesn't add value- -it's still too short for anyone taller than about 5'0" to stand up in, so why do you need all that extra head space when you're just going to be sitting, lying down or crawling around a bit? Seemed to me to be a glaring design flaw.

Guy lines are just 1/8" nylon cord again of marginal quality, no helpful little plastic guy line tighteners. Metal zippers, again of lower quality, would give you a nice windchime effect on a windy night....

My read on this tent is that it's overpriced for the quality. I guess it's ok for car camping in warmer, non-windy areas. But for serious backpacking, you can get a similar (or slightly better) quality tent by buying an REI brand tent for less money, or you can spend a bit more and buy a Mtn Hardware or TNF tent on sale. Granted, by buying over the internet, I didn't get a chance to check out stuff like fabric weight and strength, zippers, height and seams before I bought the tent. I guess I just had higher expectations of SD, who tends to make good quality clothes and gear overall.

So, I spent $10 and mailed this tent back to REI.com

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