We recently purchased an Oztent RX-5 from the good guys at Drifta, up in Gloucester.

We'd read all of the blurbs about the Oztent quality and of course the '30 second tent' marketing blurb and after many different tents over the years and our research led us to believe the Oztent RX-5 would tick a lot of the boxes.  We steered away from the Oztent range on many occasions before making our final decision, and it was due to the price.  Two grand for a tent ain't cheap but after countless attempts to get something affordable but straightforward finally had us biting the bullet.

So what were our main criteria?

Ease of set-up.

Flexibility

Quality of construction

So let's cover those in order.

We wanted a tent that was quick and easy to set-up after a long day behind the wheel.  You know the drill, you've been behind the wheel since first light, the trip metres approaching four figures and you know you've got to back it up tomorrow.

So getting the Oztent off the roof, removing it from its bag and folding out two arms and standing it up just seemed to be too good to be true, we were highly sceptical. Still, after being loaned an RV-3 model, we can categorically state that setting up the Oztent to be sleep ready is as easy as they say.  The RX-5 is slightly bigger than the RV we borrowed and gains the extra floor space by having a peg out section at the rear of the tent, four pegs are required to set this part of the tent up, and if there's no wind forecast, that's all we use to secure it for a quick one night stop.   Sure, the one thing they don't talk about is the time it takes to get it off the roof racks, carry it to where you want to set it up and remove it from the bag, but that applies to any tent.

Packing the RX-5 away is just as easy, and the biggest problem is waiting for it to dry in the morning.

So, onto the flexibility of the tent.  The RX-5, unlike its RV range siblings, comes supplied with a complete wall set and zip in bucket floor to fully enclose the front awning that is standard on the RV and RX range.

Of course, this means that you go from a sleeping only tent to one that enables you to have a dry or bug-free room to while away the evening.  Having more headroom means that it's great for changing without stooping over. Like you have too in the main tent.

The addition of this enclosed room makes the RX-5 super flexible in that it doubles as a quick pitch tent and then also something with a little more room for more extended stays.

The quality of the RV-5 is apparent from the outset with high-quality zips and a distinct lack of lets threads that you see in the seams of a lot of cheap tents.  The pegs and guy ropes supplied are good quality with the ropes having reflective thread woven into them.  We also added the mesh floor protector to our set up, and sadly the pegs that come with it are not of the same high quality as those supplied with the tent, we've bent two already.  Only time will tell how long the tent will last, but at this stage, it looks like it's going to be a keeper.

So, what are the negatives?  Well, two standouts are the packed dimensions and weight.  Given that the RX-5 is 2 metres long when packed, means that for most of us it has to live on the roof.  This leaves the tent exposed to the elements when travelling and of course also to thieving opportunists.

The weight of the whole set-up is more than 35 Kgs.  You put this on the roof, and it substantially reduces what else you can put up there, our vehicle's roof load rating is 100kgs, and if you want to travel rough and corrugated roads then you will need to reduce that.

We've chosen to remove what we can from the kit and put it inside the vehicle to retain a bit more of the load capacity on the roof rack.  So, we put the tent pegs, awning walls and floor as well as the mesh floor taking our packed weight on the roof down by about 10 Kgs.

All in all, we're delighted with the Oztent RX-5, and while we know there is no perfect tent, or indeed camping set-up, the Oztent RX-5 comes close to meeting most of our criteria.

So that's a wrap on our new Oztent RX-5, and we give it an 8 out of 10, losing points for packed size and weight.  We will provide updates on how it fares over time and add it as a footnote to the bottom of the article.