Hi gear tents - cheap and cheerful or crap?

[froggydoo]

HI all

so DH and I are going to buy a tent for us and the DDs ( 4 &7 ).

We were in go outdoors today and their own brand hi gear stuff looked great for us in many ways ( price, size etc). But I'm wondering if it would just be a false economy to buy it.

We went camping last year ( canvas hols) and loved it, so are looking for a tent to do more ourselves, but at the same time we don't want to spend loads just in case it ends up being less successful.

I don't mind if the tent only lasts a few years, but I don't want to buy something which will only last a few days....

Any advice greatfully received......

Have you been to a shop like Cotswold? You'll get good advice there and an excellent range. All their tents come with a spec of the tent (weight, waterproofing etc...)
In my experience, too cheap is never great but then again at the time when I bought my own tent (a Vaude) the North Face (which was more expensive) tent had a bad review. The key is to buy it in a shop where people know what they are talking about hence my advice to try Costwold.
I had a look on the Which website, there was nothing useful.

Ask on ukcampsite.co.uk they have tent reviews and people who are really into tents. You'll get people who own the tents actually telling you what they're like.

We were new to camping last year and bought the hi gear Zenobia 6, for me, DH and DS. We wanted something cheap in case we didn't like camping, thinking we'd buy something better this year if we did.

Well we love the tent. We got the tent, footprint and carpet for around £200. We camped in some pretty bad weather and the tent was brilliant, totally watertight. Loads of space, we could all stand up in it, easy and quick to pitch, lots of little pockets for storage. We are going to buy the porch this year.

i think that HIgear is just a rebrand of gelert.

We have the HiGear Kalahari 10. It's a bit of a pig to put up because it's enormous, but once it's up it's fantastic. We've never had any problems with stability or leaking or anything quality related, and we've used it in some vile weather.

This was our "starter" tent:
www.gooutdoors.co.uk/hi-gear-atakama-5-5-berth-family-tent-p143499
and certainly helped us to become smitten.

You see enough HiGear tents when you're out and about , which I think speaks volumes for the brand. We never had any problems and are in Scotland, so rain almost guaranteed! We only upgraded as we wanted to camp for longer and were a family of 6 in 5 man tent, which had worked ok when DDs were tiny, but they keep doing that expensive growing thing.

Thanks for the replies - we went out and bought a hi gear voyager 6. You get a lot of tent for your money.

Decision made in part after DH and I decided that if it was blowing a gale / tipping down we would probably just go home as we are a couple of lightweights.....

I have a Hi Gear Gobi 4 and it's a fantastic tent :) Happy camping.

We have the Kalahari 10 too. It's bloody enormous - more like an aircraft hangar than a tent but it works well for us.

I still have cravings for a bell tent, but I'll have to wait for this one to wear out first.

I like the fact we have four "bedrooms" as it means the kids have their own space to fall asleep in so they don't distract each other.

@ 5ofus

The opportunity to 'divide and conquer' was a huge draw for us too!

DB has a Voyager 6 and loves it. I love it, too. I would buy one if I needed a tent! Hope you have lots of fun with yours.