Narrowed it to 2 tents - pole or air?

[Sausagis]

I've narrowed my selection to 2 tents and it's killing me. Vango Winslow II 500 pole tent, or Vango Odyssey Air 500 for an extra £100.

Husband says Pole tents tend to be more reliable in bad weather, and the Odyssey has some reviews of it leaking (and others say it doesn't). I want to be able to put this tent up with just my (teen) kids helping and I'm not a fan of putting up tents. WWYD?

(Both tents identical size and height)

Not the same 2 but points I would make:

I had a vango beta xl450 as my first proper tent of my own, and we have beta xl550's for our Cub scouts. Poled tent very like your top one. Good tent. But no shelter for cooking outdoors or sitting if there is any rain. (Mine is 4 man, Cubs are 5 man). But the positive for me is I can do my 4 man solo if I need to - but 5 man does need 2 people for part of pitching.

I got a vango padstow last year to have a bit of a covered porch area like your bottom version, although much smaller. And tall enough I can stand in (I can in the 5 man beta but need to crouch in the 4 man bedroom). That definitely needs 2 if not 3 people to pitch. But the porch is really useful to have - I was well protected from rain on Cub camp this year while the leader who borrowed my beta had a lot of rain come in the door (he may have pitched it facing directly into wind/rain and also not been diligent in keeping door closed....).

Pole. Every time.

We've got the coleman octogan tent and it is the easiest tent I have ever had, 8 man and I can put it up myself with no help whatsoever. Life changing!

I came on to say air all.the way but see you've bought a pole. Enjoy it- all first times are a bit tense! But i was going to say air as they're so easyvto pit up, do pack down easily. But if you go air, do get tubes that can be isolated so if one goes the whole thing stays up. I'm writing this fron my outwell air tent so a bit biased!

I was going to say air too! We just switched this summer. So far (in 2 trips) it's weathered hail, thunder/lightning, strong winds, heavy rain and hot temps (an important consideration when pumping up).

Super easy to put up and pack away. I can easily do both on my own. A consideration not just for the camping trip itself, but for when you have to re-pitch at home after a wet end to a trip...

Ours doesn't take up any more space in the car than our old pole tent, and weighs about the same. I'm very glad we made the switch.

Air. Our pole tent died a death as we tried to erect in driving wind and rain off the coast of North Wales. We had two choices, driving home for 4 h, or buying a new tent. Quick trip to the nearest town and we bought our Air tent, went up no problem, and more importantly, it stayed up. Easy enough for me to put up myself.

We didn't use it last year though, and now I'm terrified we'll unpack to a dissolved tent, thanks to a PP!

We camp annually and have had our current pole tent for a number of years. We did have a broken pole which DH fixed with duct tape and it survived another year until he eventually bought a new pole.
Last year we were camping when 80mph winds were forecast. We tied some of the guy ropes around the alloy wheels of the car for extra protection. The tent survived the storm!

We've looked at air tents but they are so much bigger than pole tents - we'd never fit all our other clutter in the car.