UKC

While visiting Go Outdoors today with my brother, I came across the Altitude tent from 'North Ridge'.

The tent is basically an exact copy of Terra Nova's Quasar, which has been on the market and continually popular for twenty or so years. Nothing but a few tiny changes in the overall design and some obviously lower quality materials separate the two, with the exact shape and size of both the inner and the outer remaining identical.

The RRP of this knockoff is a hefty £299.00. How has the company got away with this?! (I'm not angry, just surprised).

In reply to MarkRoe:

It's a popular, strong shape and it's out of patent. Quite a few outdoor companies have done similar shapes to the Quasar, including Alpkit at one point.

In reply to MarkRoe:

The whole North Ridge range bears an uncanny resemblance to other tents.

Not sure what the patent situation is but all geodesic tents have common roots in the early '70's work of Buckminster Fuller with the VE23 and the VE25.

Wintergear in the UK produced the 'Sapphire' which is the original 'Quasar' design. Wintergear became Wild Country which in turn became Terra Nova.

There have been numerous 'clones' over the years from companies such as Cairngorm, Blacks and probably many others.

In reply to MarkRoe:

of £199 + a £5 "discount card" purchased at the till.

As said above, they aren't the first and probably won't be the last.
the coleman Phact X3 is the same.

In reply to gethin_allen:



...and even cheaper.

Modern materials and manufacturing methods are a lot cheaper and quicker than they were 20 years ago.
How much real world difference is there between a 'copy' and an original?

In reply to cuppatea: Probably not much until something breaks and you put in a warranty claim.Then you see how helpful the manufacturer is, or isn't.

In reply to NottsRich:

Good point. Customer Service can only be measured when there's a problem.

GO have the Terra Nova Quasar on special offer at the moment as well.

It must be the season of our discountents.

In reply to cuppatea:

Nice mangling. You're meant to wait until winter!

In reply to NottsRich:

Terra Nova don't have a very good track record in that respect when a pole on their 'bombproof' mountain tent folds up on a calm campsite. The usual response to everyone I know who this has happened to was "you must be misusing it".

In reply to MarkRoe:

I get the impression from the Vango thread that poles are treated as consumables.

In reply to cuppatea:
Van go were very good to me when I had a pole problem, they even sent me too many in various sizes because they couldn't work out from my ramblings what bit had broken.
All for free too and not even for an expensive tent.

In reply to gethin_allen:

That was good of them

In reply to cuppatea: My cheap vango hasn't had a problem in high winds.

In reply to GrahamD:

Fair enough, I hadn't heard of that.

In reply to NottsRich:

i've had a similar experience with TN - i thought their customer service was pretty crap when i had a pole go.

they didn't even pretend to be sorry that a 'bombproof' pole somehow failed in the middle of june, or be interested in why it had gone - their attitude was genuinely 'that'll be £40...'.

astonishingly, i went elsewhere for my next tent.

In reply to MarkRoe:

Are you implying that what they have done is illegal? Which law(s) have they broken?

It seems that they have just produced a competitive product at (I assume) a lower price. It's up to you to make a judgement whether the 'lower quality materials' and any possible difference in after-sales service is worth the price difference and then buy whichever suits you.