Coleman once again proves that they are a go-to brand for budget camping with the Evanston Screened 6. The $159.98 Evanston is the most expensive of our three Colemans (even if it is only $13 more than the Instant Tent 6), but its enormous vestibule gives it a great deal more square footage than the others. At first glance, the Coleman Evanston 6 appears to have a lot going for it; the 90sqft interior and 50sqft vestibule make it seem like a two-room tent at one-third of the price of high-end brands. However, dig a bit deeper and you’ll find some fairly noteworthy drawbacks. It’s far from simple to set up, its 5’8” of headroom will prevent many campers from standing up straight, and the vestibule lacks sufficient waterproofing, plus the materials do make it feel a bit “cheap.” For families on a budget, the Evanston could certainly fill a void, but it may warrant a replacement tent with moderately heavy usage.

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See Our Best Camping Tent Review 2021 HERE!

Coleman once again proves that they are a go-to brand for budget camping with the Evanston Screened 6. Of the three Coleman tents in our 2021 review, the Evanston is the most expensive (even if it is only $13 more than the Instant Tent 6), but its enormous vestibule gives it a great deal more square footage than the others. As you might expect, there are some notable drawbacks with this tent that may have some opting for our other two picks.

Comfort

The dimensions of the Evanston Screened 6 meet the general standards for a 6-person tent at 9’x10’ (90sqft). However, its peak height is only 5’8”, making it the shortest 6-person tent in our review by 4”, and it’s also only 4” higher than our smallest tent, the Marmot Limelight 4P, which is more of a crossover tent than a true camping tent. For a great deal of campers, those missing four inches are the difference between standing up straight and hunching over while inside the tent. On top of that, the Limelight’s pre-bent poles give it much more vertical walls. The Evanston’s structure is much more dome-like and thus the interior space feels much smaller than camping tents like the CORE 6-person and the Coleman Instant Tent 6, which are cabin-style and boast nearly vertical walls.

You’ll find a large window on the left and right sides of the tent as well as two smaller windows in the front. The placement of these front windows would lead you to believe that there is a double door, but in fact, there is actually only one half-door that can make it difficult to haul things in and out. You’ll almost definitely need to inflate your air pad inside the tent. While the windows do allow for a decent amount of ventilation, there are no clips to hold the window coverings when unzipped, so they’ll simply be swinging underneath the windows. These flapping coverings are made even more obtrusive by the slanted walls. There’s also very little storage to speak of inside the tent, with only two mesh storage pockets on the inside walls. We would have expected more storage options for a tent that’s marketed to families.

One of our favorite features of the Evanston Screened 6 was the spacious vestibule at the front. At 5’x10’ (50sqft), it’s large enough to serve as a sitting area with room for a small table and two chairs, where you and your camping partner can take in the sights and sounds with a cup of joe. The Evanston was also one of the few tents we came across which had a vestibule with an attached floor, which can be great on a dry day but quite a pain if the raindrops start to fall; your screened-in porch will quickly transform into a swimming pool, and any gear stashed in this room is almost certain to have a soaked bottom.

Ease of Setup

Setting up the Coleman is not what we would call a simple process, but with some practice, it should take roughly 15 minutes. There are four total poles, with two for the main body. These will crisscross from corner to corner using a combination of hooks at the bottom and sleeves at the top. The antiquated pin-and-ring system that holds these poles in place at the corners is vastly inferior to the grommets used by other brands. The rings at the front corners will also be shared by a third pole that forms the roof of the vestibule, and the last pole will run through the middle of the rainfly to form the awnings over the side windows. All of these poles are made of fiberglass and do have a tendency to snag when feeding them through the sleeves, which was a bit of a nuisance. Thankfully, there is no need to stake anything down during the setup process, with the exception of the corners of the screened room. All packed up, the Evanston weighs 20.9lb, and its travel bag dimensions are 27.4″x14.8″x10.31″.

Weatherproofing

The included guy lines, when deployed, provide the Evanston moderate wind protection—Coleman claims it can withstand winds in excess of 35mph—and its partial rainfly should allow for full protection from raindrops. It also has a bathtub floor to eliminate any chance of groundwater seeping inside. The screened room is another story. The mesh doors on the vestibule are slanted, and the rainfly only extends to the top of the door. As a result, roughly the front half of this area has zero protection from the rain, and as mentioned earlier, the integrated floor will double as a bathtub if water finds its way inside.

Durability

Although Coleman’s build quality can often be questionable, most of the fabrics seem decently rugged. The floor material is made up of WeatherTec polyethylene that has a tarp-like feel, while the canopy and rainfly material is Polyguard 2X double-thick fabric (75D polyester taffeta). One of our main issues with the Evanston’s durability was its poles, which are made of cheap-feeling fiberglass with metal tips. Not only do these snag on the sleeves during setup, which could lead to tearing down the line, but we simply didn’t feel confident that they would hold up to several seasons of setups without eventually suffering a fracture.

There were also many plastic features on this tent, such as the hooks that hold the poles in place, and one reviewer even noted that one of the interior storage pockets was sewn on backward, which does not speak well to the quality control in this tent’s production. The travel bag for this tent is not particularly rugged, and you may need to trade it out for a third-party duffel since it’s liable to tear after being loaded and unloaded multiple times. Finally, there is no footprint included with this tent, so you’ll most likely need to shell out an extra $20 for a 10’x10’ tarp to place underneath it.

Other Features

Like you’ll find with most Coleman products, this tent is marketed as a budget alternative to tents that will typically come at two to three times the price. It’s certainly a family- and dog-friendly option, so long as the family size doesn’t exceed four and the dogs aren’t Newfoundlands. There is a hook at the top of the ceiling to hang a lantern but no e-port in the corner like we’ve found with other budget camping tents.

The Bottom Line

At first glance, the Coleman Evanston 6 appears to have a lot going for it; the 90sqft interior and 50sqft vestibule make it seem like a two-room tent at one-third of the price of high-end brands. However, dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find some pretty noteworthy drawbacks. It’s far from simple to set up, it lacks the headroom for many campers to stand up straight, and the vestibule lacks sufficient waterproofing, plus the materials do make it feel just a bit “cheap.” If you’re camping in a dry climate and on a budget, the Evanston could certainly fill a void, but it may warrant a replacement tent with moderately heavy usage.

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