I used a Vango Banshee 200 last week for a 4 day trek across the NW Highlands and thought I would recommend it on here. Lots of places have them for £90 at the moment (I also saw some in a shop in Hay on Wye a couple of weekends ago for £75). It seemed ideal for 1 person (although they call it a 2-man tent) and weighs in at about 2.1kg. I'm used to carrying a Quasar which is 4.6 kg, so it was nice to lose the weight. It is a recommended tent for D of E.
Firstly a few criticisms:
1) The supplied pegs are poor quality and bend too easily (I used my Quasar pegs instead).
2) The porch is quite small and it might be hard to cook in there in high winds, as the stove would be too near the flysheet. In low winds you can peg out the porch as a tarp using a walking pole, which I did each day in rain with no problems (it has a ring as an attachment point). I guess in high winds if it was too blowy to pitch the porch as a tarp you could probably just un-clip some of the inner tent to create a bigger cooking space in the porch.
3) It might be hard to pitch in rocky terrain as you need to use the pegs to support the structure (although I guess this is the case with most lightweight tents). As opposed to eg my Quasar which is self-supporting. I found grassy camp spots each night with no rocks on my trip, so it wasn't a problem.
Some good points are:
1) There is enough space for a person, a large rucsac and kit inside.
2) It only weighs about 2.1 kg.
3) It packs down small.
4) The materials seem to be high quality for the price.
5) There is enough headroom to sit up and move around for most people.
6) You can pitch and unpitch the fly and inner together, saving time and hassle.
7) There were absolutely no leaks over 4 days of continual rain.
Anyway, this seemed like a bargain for the price, and I had a comfy 4 nights, despite almost endless rain! I guess you can get lighter and better if you are willing to pay triple the price, but I was on a budget, and this suited me perfectly.
Hope this is helpful.
Chris
