4 of my 14 Coleman tents
The 4 Best Hinged Door Tents (Bought & Tested!)
I spent about $1,000 buying these 4 tents with hinged doors, and a good couple of months testing, filming, editing and putting together this blog post and the YouTube video.
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The Podium
Quick Summary
Here’s everything I recommend.
Coleman WeatherMaster 10
The best hinged door of the four — and the tent with the highest peak height and the biggest base area of all 14 Coleman tents I own.
7.7/ 10 overall
Best for Hot Days
Coleman Instant Cabin 10
7.7/10
- 1 hinged door · 2 doors total
- Phenomenal dark room tech
- Humongous windows
- Great hot day ventilation
Best Budget Pick
Coleman Montana 8
6.8/10
- 1 hinged door · 1 door total
- SUPER inexpensive
- Front porch (103 by 32 in)
Jump to: The Rest of the Best ↓ All About the Hinged Door ↓ Why You Can Trust Me ↓
The video
If you prefer watching to reading, check out my video here instead.
Camping Guidance
30K+
Table of contents
Best Hinged Door Tent Overall
Coleman WeatherMaster 10
Test scorecard
Coleman WeatherMaster 10
7.7out of 10
Ease of Use4.5
Spaciousness10
Features8.9
Ventilation8.5
Rain Protection7
Quality7.4
Portability4.5
Key info
- Hinged doors1
- Total doors2
- Peak height80.5 in
- Base area143.6 sq. ft.
- Weight30.6 lbs
- Set up (1P)19 mins
Pros
- Highest peak height, biggest base area
- Lots of features (2 angled windows, room divider, 2 doors, 1 of the doors is hinged)
- Great rainy day ventilation
- Good quality and durability
- Reasonably priced, great value for money
Cons
- Carry bag a bit tight
TL;DR
The WeatherMaster 10 has the hinged door I reach for most — and it’s easily one of my favorite Coleman tents, full stop. My Best Hinged Door Tent Overall.
Its hinged door sits on the front length for easy access into the tent. The door at the back length is just your regular door that needs to be zipped open and shut.
Beyond the door, I love this tent because it has the biggest base area of all the tents on this list at 143.6 square feet — I could fit 10 single sleeping pads in it, with space left over for gear — and the highest peak height at 80.5 inches, a good 6 to 7 inches more than the rest.
It also has 2 huge angled windows that can be kept open in even moderate to heavy rain, making it one of my best Coleman tents for rainy day ventilation. And its body poles are higher quality, sturdier steel, unlike most other Coleman tents, which get fiberglass — over the last few years none of my steel poles have broken.
As for the negatives, there honestly aren’t many. The biggest one is that the carry bag is a bit small for how much stuff there is to pack away — though rip the strip off the bottom of the bag and it gets a lot roomier.
Check out the Coleman WeatherMaster 10:
Best for Hot Days
Coleman Instant Cabin 10
Test scorecard
Coleman Instant Cabin 10
7.7out of 10
Ease of Use6
Spaciousness9.5
Features10
Ventilation7.5
Rain Protection6
Quality7.6
Portability3.5
Key info
- Hinged doors1
- Total doors2
- Peak height73.5 in
- Base area135.7 sq. ft.
- Weight32.0 lbs
- Set up (1P)16 mins
Pros
- Fast set up and take down
- Phenomenal dark-room technology
- Great hot day ventilation
- Lots of features
Cons
- Small rainfly
- Minimal rainy day ventilation
TL;DR
The Instant Cabin 10 pairs the hinged door with phenomenal dark room technology — my Best for Hot Days pick.
Its hinged door is on the left width of the tent, with a regular zippered door on the right width. Take note: the smaller 4, 6 and 8-person versions of this Coleman instant tent don’t come with the hinged door — you have to get this 10-person version if you want it.
The dark room technology is phenomenal — not only is it a lot darker inside during the day, it’s also a lot cooler, so it’s great for sleeping in. Open everything up in the morning and you get plenty of ventilation through 7 windows of massive mesh panels.
On top of that, the instant mechanism makes it pretty easy to set up — I’m only 5’3” (160cm), and I set the whole thing up on my own in 16 minutes, which is 30% to 90% less time than any other similarly sized 10-person tent with a conventional set up.
Its biggest con is rain. The rainfly is pretty small, so there’s not a lot of rain protection, and there’s minimal ventilation when it’s raining — no vents, and no windows that can be opened. If you’re expecting moderate to heavy rain, at minimum seal the inverted seam between the flooring and the tent fabric.
Check out the Coleman Instant Cabin 10:
Best Budget Pick
Coleman Montana 8
Test scorecard
Coleman Montana 8
6.8out of 10
Ease of Use4.5
Spaciousness8.5
Features7.7
Ventilation5.8
Rain Protection7
Quality7.1
Portability6
Key info
- Hinged doors1
- Total doors1
- Peak height74 in
- Base area103.5 sq. ft.
- Weight23.4 lbs
- Set up (1P)22 mins
Pros
- SUPER inexpensive
- Comes with front porch
Cons
- Only 1 door
- Ventilation can be improved
TL;DR
The Montana 8 is the least expensive tent on this list — my Best Budget Pick.
Its front door is the hinged one, and it’s also the only door on this tent. Take note: the 6-person Montana doesn’t have the hinged door — if you want the Montana with it, get this 8-person version.
On top of the hinged door, the Montana comes with an awesome front porch area measuring about 103 by 32 inches. It gives quite a bit of shading from the hot sun — it kept my flip flops cool instead of superheating them — and it’s my only Coleman tent to come with a porch. I paid slightly over $100, but definitely much less than $200, for this tent.
Its biggest con is ventilation. There are only 3 windows, on 3 of the 4 walls, and they aren’t very large at all — the fourth wall is one entire block of fabric with no windows. Take the rainfly off and there’s a decent amount of ceiling mesh, but with it on in the rain you get nothing. The other gripe: 1 door on a tent this big. It’s hinged, but I expected at least 2.
Check out the Coleman Montana 8:
Everything else I tested
The Rest of the Best
Above are my 3 Top Picks. Here’s the fourth hinged door tent, plus the two Coleman tents people most often buy expecting a hinged door and don’t get one — my full reviews of all of them stay up:
The fourth hinged door tent
- Coleman Elite Sundome 6 (7.9): The highest scoring of the four, and easily the most feature-rich — hinged door, auto-rolling windows, a room divider, and pre-attached lighting with a lantern and a light switch by the door. But it was already pricey for a 6-person Coleman tent, and Coleman has since discontinued it, so it stays on the scoreboard as tested data only. For the same footprint, the WeatherMaster 10 is the pick I’d point you at instead.
Same model, smaller size, no hinged door
- Coleman Instant 4 (7.2): The small version of my Instant Cabin 10 — same instant mechanism, but no hinged door, and it’s too short for me to fully stand up in.
- Coleman Sundome 6 (7.8): The regular version of the Elite Sundome — a genuinely good, very inexpensive tent, but you lose the hinged door, the second door, the auto-rolling windows and the lighting.
- The other 8 Coleman tents I own don’t have a hinged door either. If it isn’t a must-have for you, my full review of all 14 Coleman tents has every one of them.
The hinged doorAll About the Hinged Door
Everything below is from my own use of these 4 doors over several years — how you put one up, how long it takes, how much faster it is than a zip, what it costs you, how it holds up, and which Coleman tents actually come with one. None of this is in my 14-tent Coleman roundup — that post scores the tents, this one tests the door.
How to Set the Hinged Door Up
If you buy a Coleman tent with a hinged door, you get 2 extra fiberglass poles to set it up — a shorter one for the straight side of the door, and a longer one for the curved side. Both have rounded black tips at each end that seat into rubber gaskets.
- Assemble the shorter pole and push it through the sleeve running straight down the door.
- It pops out the far end and seats into the rubber gasket at the bottom.
- Bend it a little, seat the other end in the top gasket, and zip the sleeve up.
- Unzip the curved-side sleeve, push one end of the longer pole through, and seat it in the top gasket.
- Assemble the rest of that pole, curve it gently, and seat the other end at the bottom.
- Ease it into the sleeve and zip it up slowly.
How Long It Takes to Set Up
I’ve done this dozens of times now, so here’s what installing just the hinged door costs me, set against the full set up time of each tent:
| Coleman Tent | Hinged Door (1P) | Hinged Door (2P) | Whole Tent (1P) | Whole Tent (2P) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instant Cabin 10 | 1.5 mins | 1 min | 16 mins | 7.5 mins |
| Elite Sundome 6 (discontinued) | 1.5 mins | 1 min | 16 mins | — |
| WeatherMaster 10 | 1.5 mins | 1 min | 19 mins | 10 mins |
| Montana 8 | 1.5 mins | 1 min | 22 mins | 11 mins |
*Hinged door timings are the same across all 4 tents — it’s the same 2-pole door.
- About 90 seconds on my own, and at most 1 minute with someone helping — so it doesn’t actually take very long once you know how to do it
- It’s a small slice of the set up: 7% to 9% of the tent’s total single-person set up time
In and Out: Hinged vs Zippered
A hinged door works just like a regular door at home. It swings open and closed, and comes with a handle on both the outside and the inside — so you grab it, pull, and walk in.
That is the part that actually matters day to day, so I timed getting in and out of the tent through the hinged door, against doing the same through a regular zippered door:
| Door Type | In and Out | What You Do |
|---|---|---|
| Hinged door winner | 5 seconds | Grab the handle, pull, walk in, it closes behind you |
| Zippered door | 15 seconds or more | Unzip, duck through, turn around, zip back up |
*The zippered timing depends on how snaggy your zippers are — 15 seconds is my best case.
- Velcro tabs hold it shut: each hinged door has them running along the door to keep it closed when not in use
- You can still zip it up at night: and you can do that with the fiberglass poles left in place — no taking them out first
- Storm flaps snag zips: most Coleman tents have a storm flap covering the zips to stop leaking, and it gets in the way of the zippers, which is a bit frustrating if you’re not used to it
- Latching a zippered door open isn’t a fix: you can roll the fabric up and latch it to the side, but that costs you privacy and lets in a whole lot of bugs
The Trade-Off: It’s a Smaller Door
The hinged door isn’t free. Because fiberglass poles have to hold the whole door rigid, and the bigger the door the more tension goes on those poles, Coleman made these doors a little smaller than their regular ones:
| Door | Length | Width |
|---|---|---|
| Regular door (Skydome 4) | 48 in | 39 in |
| Hinged door (all 4 tents) | 47 in | 29 in |
*The hinged doors on all 4 of my tents came out at about the same size.
- 10 inches narrower than the regular door on my Skydome 4 — and the Skydome is just a small 4-person tent
- The poles are the thinnest on the tent: the hinged door’s fiberglass poles are probably the thinnest tent poles you’ll ever handle
Lifespan of the Hinged Door
Because of how thin those fiberglass poles are, be gentle putting the door up — especially bending the longer pole for the curved side. Don’t bend it more than it needs to be bent. Here’s what has actually gone wrong on mine:
- A cracked pole after about a dozen campouts: one of the curved-side poles on my WeatherMaster 10 cracked a little — not a serious issue, I taped it back together with duct tape and it still works fine
- The black tips dropped out: on both ends, and got stuck inside the rubber gasket, which is kind of funny. I never bothered to fix it, and it still works fine
- If a pole snaps clean in 2: I’d just buy a couple of inexpensive pole repair splints to repair it
Which Coleman Tents Have a Hinged Door?
The hinged door is patented by Coleman, and only some Coleman tents come with one. I checked all 14 that I own, and only 4 have it:
| Coleman Tent | Hinged Door? |
|---|---|
| WeatherMaster 10 | Yes |
| Instant Cabin 10 | Yes |
| Montana 8 | Yes |
| Elite Sundome 6 | Yes |
| Red Canyon 8 | No |
| Evanston 6 | No |
| Sundome Dark Room 6 | No |
| Sundome 6 | No |
| Carlsbad 4 | No |
| Instant 4 | No |
| Skydome 4 | No |
| Pop Up 4 | No |
| Pop Up 2 | No |
| Sundome 2 | No |
*Every other tent uses a zippered door, which you zip open and shut to get in and out.
- It’s a big-tent feature: a hinged door only turns up on the bigger tents in Coleman’s range — nothing 4-person or under has one
- And not on every size of the same model: the 4, 6 and 8-person Instant Cabins skip it, and so does the 6-person Montana — so check the exact size before you buy
- Where it sits: on all 4 of mine it’s the front door, and the second door (if there is one) stays a regular zippered one
Is the Hinged Door Worth It?
Yes — the biggest pro is that it’s incredibly user-friendly, and 90 seconds of set up buys you three times faster access for the whole trip. The cons are real, but the fixes are pretty simple, so I still highly recommend it. The honest split:
- Worth it if you go in and out a lot, camp with kids, or hate fighting a storm flap over a zip
- Skip it if you need the widest possible doorway — a regular door is 10 inches wider
- Budget for the poles: they’re the thinnest on the tent and they do crack, so be gentle and keep a splint handy
- Check the size before you buy: only 4 of my 14 Coleman tents have one, and never the smaller version of the same model
The scoresAll Test Scores
These 4 tents were scored as part of my full 14-tent Coleman test, on the same 7 tests: ease of use, spaciousness, comfort and features, ventilation, rain protection, quality and portability. Every measurement, table and finding behind these numbers is on that post — here are the results for the 4 tents with hinged doors.
The scoreboard
Weighted 20% ease of use, 25% spaciousness, 10% comfort and features, 15% ventilation, 15% weather protection, 15% quality and 0% portability.
- Elite Sundome 6 (discontinued)7.9
- WeatherMaster 10Best Hinged Door Tent Overall7.7
- Instant Cabin 10Best for Hot Days7.7
- Montana 8Best Budget Pick6.8
Highlighted rows = my 3 picks above. The Elite Sundome 6 scored highest of the four, but Coleman has discontinued it — its score stays here as tested data, minus the buy links.
See every sub-score and test weightage
The methodWhy You Can Trust Me
Unlike all the other “Best Tents with Hinged Doors” product reviews that you’ll find on the internet, I actually bought, own, used and thoroughly tested all the tents on this list. Yup, every single one.
$1,000
The first part is buying all 4 of these hinged door tents with my own savings — no free or sponsored gear, ever.
2 months
Next came the testing and usage: I set up and took down each tent at least half a dozen times, rain tested each one, and slept in all of them.
14 tents
These 4 were scored alongside the other 10 Coleman tents I own, on the same 7 tests, so the scores are directly comparable.
30,000+
I also run a YouTube channel with over 30,000 subscribers that focuses just on reviewing camping gear. It’s my jam 🙂
If you want to see how I tested and analyzed all of these Coleman tents in much, much more detail, check out I Bought & Tested the 14 BEST Coleman Tents!.
Every figure above is from my own testing – measured by hand, bought with my own money.
