Its time someone took Coleman to the mat.
Written: Dec 11 '99 (Updated Dec 20 '99)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It floats so you can send this thing down the river
Cons: Poor padding, narrow and short, poorly designed, bulky
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| firefly's Full Review: Coleman self-inflating camp mattress |
Coleman? Have you ever heard the phrase " well let's sleep on it and maybe we will feel differently in the morning." I tell you what if they had slept on it this product would have never made it to the shelves.
This is one item that needs re-thought and here's why.
I was the victim of an total shoulder reconstruction this summer of '99 due to multiple sports injury's. Well I was not going to let a little thing like the fact that my left arm drug behind me in the dust stop me from taking an annual week long camping trip with friends. So the night before the trip I ventured out to my area super store to grab a mat. When I got there I realized the selection was horrific and I was faced with the Coleman self-inflating mat with or without the pillow. I instinctively reached for the cheaper of the two and checked the initial quality. Yup it looked like a Coleman, bulky. Well I allowed myself to believe that I, the consumer, had no choice. I left it in the bag so as not to break the thing before I even got to the camp site. Time to set up camp. I twisted the valve and the mat began to inhale. If I had a brain in my head I would have choked the life out of the mat right there and never given it a chance. I left for 20 minutes and returned to find the mat ( I'm guessing) inflated. I sat upon it and lie back to realize I had been scammed. I deserved it you say? Well hey Colman may make their share of junk but come on how hard can it be to make a camp mat. I would have been better off neatly placing the 40 one dollar bills it cost me on the ground and sleeping on them.
Two make a long week short I super inflated the mat to try to get some padding and got bucked off every time I climbed on. To top all that off when it finally came time to put my new mat away one of the compression straps ripped right off.
The principle of a high memory foam inside the mat inflating the pad for you sounds good in theory but Colman sure dropped the ball on this one if you ask me. I have since borrowed a 1/2 inch thick foam mat and it works terrific. Don't be fooled by the size which these Colman mats appear to be in the factory wrapper. They are vacuum sealed to suck all the air from the mat a task not easily achieved in the out of doors.
Note: If your stuck with one of these; a Shop-Vac or similar vacuum can be used over the vent to vac the air out for compact storage.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
firefly
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Member: Joe Lamey
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 92 members
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