However, the tarp-style floor becomes a little hot in the sun and tends to collect dirt, sand, and water. The Easy Up is a self-contained product with no assembly required, making it easy to set up, take down, and store in your garage, coat closet, or car trunk. Five large-weight bags attach and can be filled with sand to keep everything in place. Overall, this is a fun beach accessory that is great for guarding gear and valuables and offering periodic shelter from the sun.
But as you look at different slant leg tents, you’ll also notice the frames use less steel and have fewer plastic connection points. Here’s a sketch one of our engineers made to explain the slant leg design. That team is also pretty helpful to have when our marketing team needs to explain why a straight leg canopy has more structural integrity than a slant leg canopy.
This shelter employs high-grade, collapsible aluminum poles for its frame and comes complete with built-in guy lines and sandbags to help keep it sturdy. The polyester canopy effectively dampens the sun’s rays and is double-stitched and weather-taped to keep out the rain. The E-Z Up Pyramid is our favorite canopy for outdoor sports enthusiasts. From youth football and soccer fields to motocross tracks and cross-country meets, this canopy fits the bill. If you spend much time on the sidelines, we think the E-Z Up is the perfect way to catch some shade while you cheer on your athlete or team.
The Caravan V-Series scores a bit lower and isn’t as beefy as more expensive models, but it feels roomy and is easy to move around thanks to a lower weight. It’s worth noting that the Pacific Breeze Easy-Up scored lower due to a very low interior height, but it has extra built-in features like storage pockets, roll-up windows, a built-in floor, and attached sandbags. This metric considers each shelter’s floor space and height and any design element that may limit or enhance accessibility and maneuverability. We erected each model and measured the height and floor space compared to the other tents.
It offers impeccable craftsmanship and is even graded as “Entry Commercial” by the manufacturer. Likewise, the roller bag is made from commercial-grade components and fabrics, and the frame is thicker and heavier than other canopies. At first glance, the setup for the Quick-Set Escap appears quite daunting. However, it became our favorite canopy to set up after conquering a slight learning curve.
Digging our toes in the sand under one of the best full-overhead coverage beach tents on the market. “There’s less scissor material, which means less total metal – and that’s why some of these companies can sell a tent for under $100,” Gemmell said. “When the legs are slanted, it’s completely dependent on those connection points,” Gemmell said. You may want to compare the Easy Up against the Qipi Beach Cabana, the Eureka Tagalong Shelter, and the Neso 1.
In between trips, we turned a neighbor’s large, flat yard into an ad hoc camping-gazebo testing ground. We erected our shelters just in advance of a 24-hour rain and checked for leaking and rainy-day ambience midstorm. We also timed setup ozark trail chair and breakdown times for each shelter, and we repeatedly zipped and unzipped doors and windows, looking for annoying snags. In early March, we took our second trip to the oceanside Sycamore Canyon Campground (PDF) near Oxnard, California.
If you can spend a bit more and want a more traditional cathedral shape, the Caravan V-Series is a good choice. We are also very impressed with the overall value the Coleman 10×10 Sun Shelter brings to the table. Still, we feel its price point is nearly perfect considering its quality and performance, specifically its extra features and beefier design. On hot, sunny days, we don’t think we could remain inside the Easy Up for long periods.