Reviews > Shelters > Tents > Coleman Exponent Krypton 2 Tent > James Triplett > Initial Report

Initial Test Report:

Coleman® Exponent
Krypton 2 Tent

Four-season, two-person tent

By: James E. Triplett
October 12, 2005

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Product Name: Coleman Exponent Krypton 2 Tent
Model #:  9870-240
MSRP:  $199.99 US

Upon Arrival:
The Coleman Exponent Krypton 2, four-season, two-person tent, arrived with shipping labels attached directly to the outside of the standard retail display box.  No outer protective box was used.  The box was heavily taped with clear packing tape.  The contents, consisting of a packing slip, a brief Coleman catalog, and of course the tent itself, were all undamaged.

Initial Impressions:
Based on the information on the website, I expected a less than eight pound (3,600 gram) tent, which would be black and white with an orange rain-fly.  What I found was a tent which was neatly rolled up and packed in a nylon storage bag, and seems to be a less than eight pound (3,600 gram) tent, and is dark grey (light black) and white, with an orange rain-fly.  Pretty much what I anticipated.  Before even setting up the tent, or rolling it out for that matter, I wiggled the tent stage bag out of the roll, and then the tent poles in their bag.  What amazed me is that there are 26, yes 26, tent stakes.  The stakes are the standard "J" hook, round aluminum stakes, and 26 of them makes for a hefty little package.  Most of what I could see of the tent at this point was dark grey in color, and the glimpse of the rain-fly peaking out showed that it is a very vibrant orange.  I did not remove the poles from their bag at this point, but instead packed everything back up so that I could go to the post office and weigh the tent and its components.  This data can be seen in the table above.

Initial Inspection:
As mentioned above, I was pretty impressed with the quantity of tent stakes.  I removed the four poles from their bag, which although more than the number of poles I have for any of my other tents, is what I expected.  They are slim, shock-corded poles, and nice in that each pair of poles is a different color.  Red for the corner-to-corner poles and silver for the side-to-side poles.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  My initial inspection found that the tent and fly were rolled up together, and that inside the roll were the poles and stakes in their own separate bags.  The whole tent kit fit nicely into the tent bag, and the way it came packed from Coleman, there was a substantial amount of unused space at the top of the bag.  The diameter of the tent bag seems appropriate for the tent, and having removed it and re-bagged it twice I found no difficulty in getting the tent into the bag.

Tent Configuration:
It often amazes me that different tents designed for the same purpose (in this case four-season camping) vary so much in their design and construction.  Not that one design is necessarily better than another, but I am intrigued by the different approaches to solving the same issues.  The Coleman Exponent Krypton 2 Tent is a very interesting design.  The tent is attached to the poles using a sleeve system, which I have found to provide uniform tightness across the tent fabric.  On the Krypton 2 these sleeves are mesh (see image above), which is designed to facilitate airflow between the tent and the fly and help reduce condensation.  At each of the four corners of the tent there are short pieces of webbing with metal grommets in them.  The poles are marked with Coleman's logo, and interestingly the tips slip off to expose the end of the elastic where the shock-cord is secured (see image below).  The red poles are straight, and the silver poles are slightly curved at the center sections to accommodate the tight radius they form when the tent is set up.  The red poles slide through the sleeves with the red trim and are secured in the corner grommets.  Additionally, there is similar webbing with grommets on the sides of the tent.  The two silver poles slide through the remaining sleeves and are anchored in the side grommets of the tent.  I learned that if the red poles are installed first and placed in the grommets, it is impossible to install the silver poles later.  All the poles must go through the sleeves before raising the tent, which on the first and second try was challenging.  The poles add tension to the tent at the ends and the sides, and with the four-pole design the tent appears to be firmly stretched in every direction.

If you are keeping count, so far I have mentioned four poles and eight grommets.  The webbing holding the grommets also has a loop at the end which is the method for staking out the tent.  Eight stakes are used around the perimeter of the tent floor, with one at each corner, and two on each side.

Inside the Coleman Exponent Krypton 2 is a spacious cavern for spending the night.  The highest point in the interior is directly in the center of the tent.  The four poles cross each other in seven places (at each corner, both sides, and the top) making for an interesting pattern when viewed from inside the tent.  Extending from each corner along the sides of the tent are four pockets, which as a result of the crisscrossing poles are irregular in shape (see image below).

The floor of the Krypton 2 is tub-shaped, as the black material runs across the floor and up the sides.  However, there are seams in the floor where it switches from the floor to the wall.  This design appears to make the floor lay nice and flat, unlike some tub floors which tend to curl as they transition between the floor and the walls.  At five locations on the ceiling of the tent there are loops for hanging things.



The doors on this tent are at the ends, rather than the sides.  They are semi-elliptical in shape, and interestingly, unzip along the curved portion of the door, leaving the straight edge along the bottom as the hinge, or area where the door (or door and screen) is rolled up and secured.  This means that climbing in and out of the tent requires crossing over the unzipped door material in the threshold.



To further evaluate the configuration of the tent I installed the rain fly.  I did not stake out the guy-lines, but set up the tent far enough to evaluate its design.  The fly has eight attachment points along the perimeter and ten guy-lines.  Wow!  And did I mention that the fly is "vibrant orange"?  It is really bright.  The color is more that of a plastic Halloween jack-o-lantern than that of a real pumpkin.  On each side of the fly there is a big black X indicating that this tent is part of Coleman's exponent line of products.  At any rate, I wasn't sure from the images on the website if the tent was symmetrical or not.  Setting up the tent I discovered the tent and fly, are both symmetrical, with the highest point directly in the center of the tent, and the fly extending past the ends to create uniform vestibules.

The instructions for the assembly of the tent say to place the fly over the tent, and then clip the buckles of the fly to each strap on the corners and sides of the tent.  Well, I clipped the fly to the tent at each of the four corners, but surprisingly there weren't any buckles on the sides of the tent or fly.  Not to worry.  There are plenty of stakes, so I staked out the fly on the sides using the loops which are in the locations where the buckles were reported to be.  Each of the two vestibules also get staked out with two stakes each.

The openings in the ends of the rain fly are intriguing.  The trapezoidal vestibules house trapezoidal doors which unzip along the sides of the trapezoid and can be rolled up to the top of the opening and secured there.  Kind of like a garage door.  The top of each door is covered with a small awning, and the door attaches at the top with a strip of Velcro along the entire top edge.  This makes it possible to unzip the doors from the top for ventilation.  By the way, there are no windows or other ventilation capabilities other than through the doors of the tent and fly.

Observations:

• Four-pole design makes the tent incredibly stable
  
• The Krypton 2 is long and linear, which may allow it to be setup in narrow areas
• Roomy interior
  
• Interesting door design requiring that they be crawled over to enter and exit
• LOTS of tent stakes
• LOTS of tight-outs for the rain fly
• There is no ground cloth (footprint) provided or available
  

Respectfully submitted,

-James T.

Reviews > Shelters > Tents > Coleman Exponent Krypton 2 Tent > James Triplett > Initial Report