Recently after a mishap with my old 1 man tent’s groundsheet being punctured I decided it was time to invest in a new one. I specifically wanted a 1 man tent to save weight and pack space, as I have to put rather a large part of my weight to carrying cameras and photographic glass, it pays to make as much weight saving as I can elsewhere.
Some of the things I was looking for was a quick pitch, light weight, storm proof (gales) and at £109 from Go Outdoors it was not necessarily the cheapest one man tent, but it does have a good pedigree as its made by Vango. This tent, like Vango is famous for its designs for mountain tents and this one is no exception as well as being designed for mountain marathons
The Vango Ultralite 100 when packed up it has a size of 48cm x 18cm and weights in at 900 grams so will easily fit into a rucksack 
or strapped to the top, under the cross bar of a bike, or on the rack, its light enough to carry across the top of a camera bag too. The tent is a nice discrete dark green, (which may attract to much heat in the summer months) and is at least not an eyesore on the countryside, I hate visual pollution. The built-in ground sheet is black as are the storage bags which might pose a problem pitching the tent in the dark. The fabric is made from ripstop nylon which Vango calls Protex 3000 which is a breathable PU coated skin with a hydrostatic head rating of 3000 and the groundsheet a higher 5000. The material is also fire retardant. As the Ulralight tents are designed for lightweight adventurers they have a single skin, there is no flysheet to pitch first in a down poor and crawl around underneath, or getting the inner tent up and fight with the flysheet, at a push you could even use this as a generous bivi bag.
Vango takes great attention to detail and supply a repair kit for the adventurer which consists of groundsheet material and tent material, both self adhesive and a piece of aluminium sleeve for repairing the pole should it get broken during travel; all of which lives in its own little drawstring bag. The Alloy tube I intend to wrap with duct tape and PVC tape, just for the hell of it and may as well stuff the inside with a little sewing kit just to fill the space
The tent obviously comes with pegs and these are dinky folded angle style, nice and light in weight but in soft ground like sand mud you may need them to be longer 
or add an additional dead weight both the peg bag and pole bag has elasticised band to fasten the bag shut, which is again a nice quality touch. #pegs
The poles are shock corded, pre shaped and have built in ferrules where they fasten into the tent, there are two very short ones for each end and are Vango’s Powerlite 7001-T6 Alloy. The largest of which simply feeds through a short tunnel on top of the tent and plugs into a eyelet on each side, with some plastic clips to hold the skin in shape. The second short and shock corded pole lies across this and feeds into two eyelets, the sole purpose of this appears to hold open the vents on top of the tent which incidentally have zips on the inside for control and are covered with a layer of bug netting., but may also be to do with the Tension Bands
The two short poles fit in at each end to hold the foot of the tent and head of the tent up, again each end has a little vent with bug netting, but no zipped covers at each end. The top two being used in hot weather. The whole tent takes only a few minutes to put up and pegging it out is easy, I do have to say and repeat although the pegs are dinky, I am not sure how practical they are going to be in lose soil conditions and may add 4 longer ones to the set. pegging is simply through taped loops so hammering pegs in with a hammer of brick is not recommended This tent does not use guy ropes so there is little to trip over in crowded campsites, but with the dark green skin and its very low profile at each end you may still get some dumpty trip over it, so a Hi-Vis marker could be added on the ends if needed.
As the tent does not have guy ropes Vango uses what it calls Tension Band System Pro what this entails is two cords running to some quick release fittings at the top of the tent. The tension of which can be adjusted from the inside to compensate for strong winds coming from the sides. This also means there is hanging space at top of the tent for a lantern, and if you open the vents a place to dry your socks. However, using a light in the tent will make you very visible; it’s thin fabric and only single skin. Vango say that the internal TBS will enable the tent to withstand the worst gales in the UK and you can soon see why after a little play. With this system if the wind picks up during the night at least you don’t have to go out and adjust the guys.
The tent has a top height of 90 cm and as it is a single skin means it is 90cm, plenty of room for me to sit up and get dressed and at 265cm long seemed to have plenty of space for taller people as well an width ways is 90cm the tent looks like an upturned hull wide in the middle and narrows to either end equally the top of the tent is in the middle of its length, this struck me as a little odd as there is normally a storage space tucked away somewhere inside due to not being able to fit in the body shape. 
The Ultralite doesn't have storage space under a fly sheet, as there isn’t one instead you sleep in the middle of the floor and to either side of you is space to store your gear as well as above your head and feet which makes for easy sorting of gear but so far makes it a little hard to stow a big rucksack. again the vents at the top and bottom of the tent make for ideal drying of socks etc and I may rig a mini washing line up at the ends.
The tent is very well made and as you would expect all the seams are sealed and reinforced where necessary and at each end just under the skin is a small storage space just big enough for some muddy boots each of the ends requires three pegs and although I have concerns over people tripping over the tent you could add some shock cord to the end points to reduce tear damage and i feel you still need to take care on where you pitch the tent as the groundsheet is not the thickest of material, this obviously applies to all tents though.
Getting in and out is a breeze as the door opens up wide almost halt the length of the tent and to almost the top the storm flap is also of course of the generous variety and has a quality zip. There is no second door or bug net, this is not the sort of tent to use for laying about in on a holiday. It is a specialist tent for adventurers the lightweight freak, mountain bikers, mountain marathons and cycle touring and for those who walk run and climb on the mountains and need a serious tent to cope with the weather they may encounter 
Vango also do a two man version of this tent, surprisingly called Ultralite 200 for those who want to share the experience and is probably a better buy for those with a little more experience or a little more hardy who don’t mind going without a bug net on the door, speaking of which sort of limits the tent to Europe, UK and other countries where mosquitoes are not a health hazard that said you could add it at a later date with some one who knows how to do it
The quality is very good; the design also, just a few little niggles like, no inner storage pockets possibly the addition of bug netting on the door, but then I am not one for spending the whole day in the tent and a few pockets is not going to make a huge difference to my comfort and I only use these to keep the tents stuff sack in. There is no way of sheltering a cooker outside the door either, but that is not a practice I have ever been happy with in windy conditions as it is quite often a fire hazard.
The tent as it is has great weight to space ratio and adding in extra netting and pockets could push it up to or over the 1KG mark and although there are lighter 1 man tents they are not intended for mountain use or in storm conditions either and in an emergency this tent will work as a bivi bag/shelter without having to pitch it.
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