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Drop X-Mid 2P Tent Designed by Dan Durston
Showing 1 of 181 reviews about:
Drop X-Mid 2P Tent Designed by Dan Durston
Cardamomtea
588
Jul 25, 2019
A palace! This tent is a palace!  ...That was my first reaction when I set it up in my yard.
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For the past month I have been testing out the Dan Durston designed Drop X-Mid 2P. I'd like to share my experience with this tent, so you can figure out if this is the right tent for you. This tent checks all the boxes for me:   * It is spacious. I could actually camp with another person that I was not on intimate terms with. I can stretch my arms, change clothes, hang out and read a book etc, without feeling claustrophobic.   * It is durable. I broke a 10 year habit and stopped using a footprint. **unless camping on sharp granite** * It is lightweight. At just under 39oz / 1.1kg for fly + inner, it weighs a little more than my Hornet, but carrying those extra ounces is so worth it. * It is affordable. You CAN get a lighter, similarly spacious tent, but you are going to pay for it. Dyneema ain't cheap. The value presented here is outstanding! * It isn't fussy. No seam sealing required. Also, I have no patience for fiddly set ups. I know others don't have this issue, but I like to get to camp, set up my tent quickly and take it easy. I was worried since it isn't freestanding this wouldn't be possible, not an issue! Setting up the X-Mid is a breeze. Now for a little more detail (...grab a cup of tea because I write a lot...) I'd like to share a little bit about my background, to provide context for this review. I primarily camp solo or with two dogs. My backpacking experience is limited to the Cascade Mountains in Washington, the badlands in North Dakota, the Black Hills in South Dakota, and northern Minnesota (hot & humid summers, cold & dry winters). I typically bring trekking poles with me. My first tent was a 2007 MSR Hubba Hubba (~4lb 11oz / 2.14kg, 2P, freestanding), my second was a 2016? Nemo Hornet 2P (2lb 5oz / 1.05kg, 2P, semi-freestanding). I loved the spaciousness and durability of the MSR tent, but I switched to the Nemo to shed over two pounds from my kit. There is no way I could have switched over if I wasn't a solo camping; the Hornet 2P is just not a two person tent. I longed for the headroom of my Hubba Hubba, but I wasn't willing to pay the weight penalty. I found spacious, lightweight tents, but either the lack of durability or the cost turned me off. Surely there was some middle ground... Enter the Drop X-Mid 2P!
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This tent has a lot in common with the Drop X-Mid 1P, being that this is the two person version. It has the same durable 20D polyester fabric, which means it won't absorb moisture and sag like nylon does (no getting up at night to tighten the fly). With nylon, if you don't have a chance to let your tent dry out after a night of rain, you will be carrying that water weight. I think nylon tents "show" better when dry, and that's great for marketing, but I want a tent that puts function over form. I love how durable the X-Mid fabric is. My Nemo Hornet is 10D and I accidentally zipped the fly one day and now I have a hole in it. The X-Mid's fabric is thin, yet strong. I didn't use a groundsheet while testing the tent because I wanted to see how it would fare. No punctures! No wear! I would use a groundsheet when camping on sharp rocks of course, but it was fine in the pine cone forests of the Black Elk Wilderness. Lastly it's the same color as the 1P, which is a nice inconspicuous pale sage.
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As for the inner, it's the same mesh as the 1P, which when you look at the 1P reviews, you will see mention of blemishes in the noseeum mesh. I did encounter that on mine, which concerned me (we have a lot of bugs here in Minnesota). 
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However, upon closer inspection, the "snag" is just cosmetic, and can be fixed by running a fingernail over it.   The structure and shape of the tent are the same: the fly is a staked out rectangle held up by your two trekking poles, and the inner a parallelogram which creates dual vestibules. They did move the peak vent to the side of the tent, allowing for a longer door zipper.  
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Before setting up for the first time, I watched Dan's video on how to set up the X-Mid 1P. As this is my first trekking pole supported shelter, I was really concerned about my ability to set up a tent that relied on being staked out properly. My worry turned out to be unfounded: even in places where I could not use my stakes (solid rock with an inch of soil), I was able to find rocks and logs to secure the tent to. The only downside to it being non-freestanding that I can think of, is if you do a lot of setting up in the dark on solid granite, you will need a decent headlamp if there's no moonlight, in order to gather heavy rocks or branches to "stake out" the tent.  
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The other thing to know is if you camp on a slope, which I almost always do, you might need to adjust one pole to be taller than the other, instead of just blindly setting them for a set height every time. The nice thing about it being a trekking pole shelter, if you come from my background of fixed tent pole tents, is that you can exchange a few inches of peak height for tent width, if you want, merely by adjusting the poles or the inner-to- rain fly attachment clip. So, if you're camping with a buddy, you can lower the poles, which lowers the fly & inner, which widens the floor. If you're solo, you can pitch it higher. It would be nice if Drop would offer for sale, as a convenient add-on, adjustable poles for people who do not use trekking poles, like bike-packers. Just like the 1P, you can set up the fly separate from the inner during the rain, keeping your inner tent dry. The inner clips in the same as the 1P. Some 1P reviews mentioned too much tension on the line connecting the inner to the fly, but fortunately I didn't run into this on the 2P. Perhaps this depends on the height you set your trekking poles? Also, I would recommend attaching the inner four corners to the corner grosgrain and not the plastic (like it came shipped), because it's a small PITA to unclip the mitten hooks.  
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If I could recommend a change, it would be to change that piece of hardware into something easier... maybe something open on both ends? The other change I would recommend is the location of the pocket. I believe on the 1P it was a ridgeline pocket, and it was moved to the side for easier access. However, I find that it is too high up to be useful to me (I use the pocket when I'm laying in my quilt, so I like pockets that attach to the side of the bathtub floor). My arms are shorter than the average backpacker, so maybe this is just an issue for me.  
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There's ample space between the inner and the fly, so no worries about condensation migrating from the fly to the mesh, as happens sometimes in my nylon tent. Speaking of condensation, I've only had that in Minnesota (it's hot and humid.. something about 11,000+ lakes, not to mention the countless unnamed bogs, marshes, etc...), and I LOVE being able to change in my tent without knocking the netting into the fly and transferring moisture to myself. The other thing I appreciate is the set back from the outer fly. This design allowed me to enter and exit the inner tent without rain falling inside the inner. I also have room in the vestibule to remove my wet jacket before unzipping the inner to get inside. This brings me to.... Storm hardiness. Most tents work well enough in pleasant weather, but it's the storms that we need to prepare for. We had a severe thunderstorm warning while I was at home, so I thought that would be a great opportunity to test out the X-Mid 2P! 
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Unfortunately, we didn't get any hail, but we did have high winds and driving rain. I was able to set up the tent quickly under pressure, and then noted its performance in the storm. Honestly, if I had a video it wouldn't look that impressive because the material is taut enough that it wasn't dramatically flapping in the wind. I attribute this to the polyester material, which since it doesn't sag when wet, doesn't create excess fabric to catch the wind. Also, because the tent fly goes so low to the ground, you don't get the kind of splashback inside the vestibule that you see in most tents. I really appreciate this, because sometimes I like to store my backpack in the vestibule, and firewood if I'm planning on making a fire. In short, the X-Mid performed like a champ in the storm, and now I feel very confident in trusting my safety with it.  Related to the vestibule, if you want to increase your sheltered area, you can also guy out one of the doors to create a sun shade. I haven't tested this in rain, but I would imagine for non-windy rain it would work well too. I used two guy out points for this:
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As for the specs, they are listed on the Drop description, but here's my personal experience: Drop lists the dimensions as 47" x 92" -- I REALLY hope they will change the description to 50" because there are people who are going to read that and think you can't put two 25" x 77" pads in there. Yes, yes you can!  Here's proof:
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I mentioned earlier that you can adjust the width of the inner by adjusting the trekking poles or the length of attachment of the inner to the fly, so you probably could raise the inner enough to shrink the bathtub to 47" but in most pitches there's going to be plenty of room. I had a few extra inches even after putting in the two 25" pads. It's TRULY a two person tent.  Weights from my un-calibrated kitchen scale: * Package right out of the shipping box: 42oz / 1190g * Tent + Inner: 38.9oz - 1103g * 8 titanium stakes: 2.3oz / 65g The packed size is a little larger than the Costco down blanket, which I think most people are familiar with. Forgive me for not using the standard Nalgene bottle ;-) 
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Also, a bit random, but for people who are sensitive to odors, like myself, I can happily report no obnoxious odor! I wish this were true of all new gear! I'm not good at being succinct, but I'll do my best here...  I LOVE this tent! I love not having to compromise on anything: weight, spaciousness, price, features, durability, storm-hardiness, set up ease, tent color. I love how durable the fabric has been; I would feel comfortable loaning this tent out to a friend, something I would NOT do with my 10D Nemo Hornet. I love how much space, ***genuinely usable space*** you get for the weight, and I love the weight you get for the price. It's an incredible value.  I look forward to many more adventures in this tent :-) If you have any questions, just ask! I'll do my best to answer them.
(Edited)
Recommends this product? Yes
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dandurston
5116
Dan Durston
Jul 25, 2019
CardamomteaThanks for the review! I’m glad you’re really liking the tent! And yes I emphatically agree about the floor width spec. It’s a true 50-51” floor so I wish the spec communicated that instead of indicating to people that two wide pads won’t fit. Whenever a review is posted I’m nervous it’s going to show an atrocious pitch, so thanks for doing a nice job with your pitches and showing the tent in general. I’ll have to try that porch mode. For the corner clips, I clip to grosgrain too when I think I’ll probably remove the inner in the morning. The downside is that if you shake out the tent (e.g. to get rain off when packing it up) then they can come undone and it gets awkward to pack it with the inner partially falling out. So I clip to the D rings for a secure connection when I probably don’t want to disconnnect it, or clip to the grosgrain when I’ll probably will.
(Edited)
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UL_Product_Manager
141
Jul 25, 2019
CardamomteaThanks for the great review. Regarding the pocket position: we had prototypes out and most folks testing preferred the pockets further up as they where worried about moisture on their phones or other electronics being close to the floor so we decided to have them a little further up.
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rivrwind
25
Jul 27, 2019
CardamomteaGreat review, thanks
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T4Deals
334
Aug 21, 2019
CardamomteaGreat review! Although I have to say, you may be the only person in history to have written, "unfortunately we didn't get any hail"
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Cardamomtea
588
Dec 13, 2019
T4DealsHahaha, you might be right! I'm also the same person who says, "Unfortunately, it didn't get down to -40 last night." I like extremes ;-)
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dandurston
5116
Dan Durston
Dec 18, 2019
Cardamomtea"Drop lists the dimensions as 47" x 92" -- I REALLY hope they will change the description to 50" because there are people who are going to read that and think you can't put two 25" x 77" pads in there. Yes, yes you can!" Drop has finally updated this spec! It's now 50" as it should have been.
(Edited)
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jaar
0
Jan 3, 2020
CardamomteaIf we can exclude weight and price difference, which tent would you prefer: xmid 2p or Hubba 2p in terms of comfort and ease of pitching? Maybe you can rate both from 1 to 10 :)
(Edited)
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dandurston
5116
Dan Durston
Jan 3, 2020
jaarI’m not @Cardamomtea but to give this a quick attempt, these tents are quite different in several ways. The similarities are that they are both nicely sized, double wall, 2P tents but the trekking pole vs traditional pole structures cause quite a few differences and the X-Mid 2P is far lighter. The Hubba is uses traditional poles with the advantages of being able to pitch easily even on ground unsuitable for staking, so will be easier in that context but on good soil both tents will go up quite fast. Advantages to the X-Mid are the fly first pitch so the inner stays dry during setup, and the no-sag (poly) fabric won’t expand in the rain and cause the fly to go loose and sag/stick to the inner and the lack of traditional poles saves a lot of weight. Thus the X-Mid 2P is far lighter at 39oz vs 54oz. Quality would be similar since they are both from the same factory, but Hubba is quite a bit more expensive. 
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jaar
0
Jan 3, 2020
dandurstonI agree it looks like comparing apples to oranges. My question was more about the subjective feelings. I'm trying to understand, how much comfort and ease of pitching of Hubba is traded for shaved weight. Actually I'm comparing not the original Hubba, but its clone - heavier (4 lb. 10 oz.) and much cheaper Naturehike Mongar 2 (130€ ). My biggest concern is about X-MID inner room and staking, but I can't remember the situation in my experience, where the ground was so bad. In my eyes the biggest advantages of X-MID are ability to pitch both layers at once and low weight. I'm mainly motorcycle camper, but I like UL gear. I think it's a big bonus that X-MID 2P suits not only for motorcycling but for section hiking and bikepacking too. If the difference in liveability ant pitching time isn't noticeable, then possibly the price of X-MID 2P will give me the final answer - can I afford the try or not.
(Edited)
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dandurston
5116
Dan Durston
Jan 6, 2020
jaarMy guess is that the space/liveability is quite similar. I don't think there's a penalty there. In terms of ease of pitching, they are likely pretty similar most of the time. As long as the ground is decent for staking the X-Mid is going to go up quite quickly since it is a simple tent. Where there would be a disadvantage is on ground that doesn't lend itself well to staking. If you're camped on rock or ice then you're stuck piling anchor or coming up with some other staking solution. So in those rare cases there can be a substantial pitching disadvantage but 90% of the time they're both going to up quite similarly.
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michael.smith
11
Mar 12, 2020
dandurstonOne of the things I like about you Dan is you are all over the place in terms of forums. If the talk is X-MID or your pack you are there commenting and answering questions. You know your products well and have experience with many other products. My 2P should be arriving Monday!
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dandurston
5116
Dan Durston
Mar 12, 2020
michael.smithThanks Michael! I hope you like it.
(Edited)
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cturnbull
83
Mar 13, 2020
dandurstonHeck yeah! These are shipping way sooner than expected! I'll actually get to use it when section hike North Carolina next month! Thanks Dan! You're the man! Haha
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