Coleman Cobra 2 Two Man Lightweight Tent Review

My go-to tent for camping is normally the Coleman Rocky Mountain 5. It’s a spacious, brilliant and feature filled tent that is awesome for camping holidays. It is however pretty massive – inside and sometimes you just need something a little lighter. Well the Coleman Cobra 2 Two Man Lightweight Tent is actually more than six times lighter.

The Coleman Cobra is a lightweight tent that comes in both a two and three man variations. I’ve got the Coleman Cobra two-man which is perfect for any adventurer! It is an uber compact tent that when packed down comes in at just 2.3kg and is just 48 x 18 x 15cm. The carry sack has the instructions sewn in like other Coleman tents, I absolutely love this as it means you never loose them. Although after you have pitched this tent once, you’re unlikely to ever look at them again! The bag has been intelligently designed and has a wide opening and two compression straps to make it even smaller.

Inside the bag there is the standard peg bag, pole bag and the rolled up tent itself. Although this is pretty normal for modern tents, I really like how Coleman have improved on what you normally get with tents. Instead of a little piece of ribbon to keep the pegs and poles in their bags, they both have elasticated fastenings at the top which are fixed so you can’t misplace them.

The Cobra 2 has just two poles, one long pole and one very short pole, they’re pretty hard to confuse but just in case they have been colour coded. The shorter pole is red and matches the red section where it is fitted at the back of the tent. The poles are an aluminium construction which is one of the ways that Coleman have made the tent so light. After sliding the poles through the tent, there are then just a couple clips on each side of the largest pole to pull the fly sheet tight.

Coleman have also managed to shave weight off the Cobra with aluminium tent pegs. Not only are they super light but they are also very strong. I’ve pitched this tent several times and have not had one bend on me, this was even when pitched the tent on rocky ground.

Another thing I was really pleased to see in the bag was a handy patch for repairing the tent. Going even further, Coleman have included an aluminium section to fix any of the poles if you should have a breakage.

A great little piece of design which I like appears on the guy ropes where the plastic fasteners used to tighten the lines have been given toothed grooves which grip and hold the lines much tighter than the standard figure of eight loops you get on guy ropes. All of these great features make the Cobra very easy and fast to pitch. It’s easily a 5 minute job for a couple people and you could easily pitch this solo if you pegged out the back first.

When pitched, the tent has a wedged tunnel shape, this design along with the nice features on the pegs, poles and lines mean that when the tent is up I have found it really great in windy conditions. They also allow the tent to be pitched very tightly and well which makes this an excellent tent for windy weather.

As you can see in the photographs below it is much narrower at the feet and much wider at the head end, because of this you wouldn’t be able to top and tail in this tent. As with all two man tents this style, you do end up very close together – because of this I’d recommend it for pairs that know each other well or adventurous activities when sharing some personal space aren’t an issue. As a one man then it is very spacious and you can easily fit yourself and all of your gear inside.

If two people were hiking with this tent they would need to store their packs in the porch areas which are on both sides of the tent and are surprisingly large – an 80L pack would easily fit on each side of the tent with plenty of room to spare – you can see one of the large porches in the photo above. Even though the tent is lightweight and cosy it doesn’t suffer from condensation problems like you may imagine. This is due to the breathable inner and clever vents which are used on the Cobra. Each of the two doors (on each side) has a zip-able vent complete with insect mesh.

There is also a large vent which is above your face while you sleep. This takes away that warm breath that often causes the dampness on the tent walls when you wake up in the morning. This larger vent is covered by a large flap which stops the rain from coming in – you can see this flap on the photograph below at the top of the tent.

In conclusion the Coleman Cobra 2 is a very lightweight and technical tent which performs amazingly well considering it’s excellent value. Not only is it a brilliant tent for backpacking as it weighs in at just 2.3kg and can happy house two people and their gear, but it is also a great tent for short trips away either solo or in a pair.

Over the summer, Vicky and I even chose to take it away to a little festival (That’s why in the photo below you can see Vicky looking even more glamorous than she usually does when we go camping!). We did this because it’s very small and lightweight, taking up less room in the car than a bag of shopping! It is also very quick to pitch and pack down. Sometimes you just want a tent that is small, lightweight, practical and easy and the Cobra 2 fits the bill.