Stormbreak 1

27 lb is ridiculously no weight at all if you have a proper backpack which puts the weight on your hips. You'll barely feel it. Ignore the super-light extremists on this one.

On the upside, it's polyester, dries faster! Doesn't get so impregnated with water from outside or condensation from inside.

Holy crap that zipper and the stupid flap and the velcro on the door is such a massive pain in the ass!

Yeah, the zipper is SO BAD.

That zipper and flap design is absolutely so shitty in practice! I'm fairly cramped in mine at 5"10 even with the inner taut. 6" will be two inches less fun lol

Hey, I have the Stormbreak 1. It's tiny (I'm 5"10). But because it's tiny and because it has two proper poles crossing and no hub system, it's pretty strong and low profile to the wind. Replacing the insane massive pegs with a mixture of Groundhogs and Mini-Groundhogs immediately removes 100g of weight (approx lol). As for the footprint, I suggest you're going to question the decision to buy one once you see how THICK the tent floor is. It's thicker than any tent floor I've seen in the past 30 years. Also, it's polyester so dries quickly, WINNING. If you have inner-tent sagging issues on your head when you put it up, get back to me, I worked out by trial and error how to get the inner tight. Lastly, I lost my poles on a train a couple of weeks ago, and the North Face literally doesn't sell replacement poles, it's such a joke. I mean, the tent is cheap, but still, not very ecological to have to buy another whole tent when you lose the poles... May I ask where/website? you bought the tent? I will probably be in my Stormbreak (with replacement poles? tent?) also in NZ in the South Island in January...

For a wet NZ month, the headache isn’t strength, it’s that the inner pitches first. In real rain, your mesh gets damp while you slap the fly on. Add 3.2 lb you’ll feel by week two, a small vestibule, and only “fine” wind unless you beef up guylines and nail your site.

The storm breaks are good tents, just heavy. Good for short backpacking trips, long ones too if you dont mind the weight.

I'm also own a NF stormbreak 1 and a stormbreak 2. I love my stormbreak 1, it is small (cozy and easy to find a place to pitch) and very sturdy. The downsides are that it's small and very sturdy (aka heavy), my head touches the top when I sit straight up in the tent and it weighs roughly 3.3 lbs which is not that much less than a lot of budget 2 person tents. I would never even consider taking the stormbreak 2 backpacking.

I love both my Stormbreak 1 and Stormbreak 2 but even the Stormbreak 2 I'd consider very heavy for backpacking, it would be great for car camping though.

Love mine. The only mild complaint I have is that the rain fly zipper catches, but as long as it's staked out tight enough and you use 2 hands it's not a real problem.