Nemo Dragonfly Osmo 2 Review

With 25.6 square feet of floor area and a reasonable peak height of 41 inches, this tent is comfortable for your average adult. However, it's 88 inches long, which makes it a particularly great option for taller backpackers.

Livability

The Dragonfly Osmo 2 isn't the roomiest tent, but it's plenty comfortable for two. However, it's a little narrow, and the taper from 50 inches at the head to 45 inches at the foot is definitely noticeable. The two large side doors make it easy to get a bit of extra room if you need to spread out into the vestibule area.

The two-tone canopy is unique. The black on top barely obscures the stars at night, while the white up the sides provides a little more privacy if you need to change while other folks are roaming around camp. If the weather doesn't cooperate, there are struts that prop the fly zippers open for extra ventilation.

There are two massive mesh pockets — one at the foot and one overhead. We loved being able to stash bulky items like rain jackets up there, keeping them accessible but out of the way. They also make great “drying racks” for damp socks that need airing out. Each side has a small accessory pocket for a phone, glasses, or gloves, and there are two light pockets for a headlamp to cast overhead light at night.

Weather Resistance

Instead of just one stake point, each vestibule has two, making it super easy to get the fly taut during set-up and ultimately preventing it from sagging in the rain. The dimensions of each vestibule are generous, and because of their shape, they do a better job of actually covering gear rather than leaving half of it sticking out of the bottom and exposed to the elements.

The Dragonfly uses a proprietary Osmo ripstop nylon fabric for the tent and fly. We were initially skeptical, but after testing, we noticed that the fly sagged less than other models with regular ripstop nylon – this is noteworthy for anyone who has tried to enter or exit a tent on a rainy day and gotten soaked by a floppy fly. The fly doors also have small built-in kickstand vents designed to facilitate airflow while keeping the fly mostly closed.

On the flip side, the cutout in the fly saves weight but exposes part of the tent body. During a particularly heavy rainstorm, water pooled in a crease by the floor. Although it never seemed to work its way inside on this occasion, we noticed that spot often felt damp.

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Weight

The Dragonfly Osmo 2 weighed 3.4 pounds on our scales. It offers slightly less floor space and headroom than some similarly sized 2-person tents, making it a bit heavy for its size. However, dividing up the weight – with the fly and tent with one person and the poles and stakes with the other – makes for an even split and a very reasonable load.

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Packed Size

This tent includes a compression storage sack that packs the tent body and rainfly down as tightly as possible. (Just make sure you take out the poles before squishing the stuff sack down!) The Dragonfly is far more packable than similarly lightweight tents – by placing the poles and stakes directly against the back panel of our pack, and squishing the tent body and fly into the open space around it, we could easily pack the Dragonfly into a pretty small backpack.

Durability

The Dragonfly toes the line between delicate and durable. We love the triangle-shaped stakes, which can take quite a beating from a rock if you need to drive them into hard-packed earth. Like many of the tents in the review, it comes with fairly standard 8.7mm diameter DAC Featherlite poles. Its sturdy fly geometry keeps everything from getting wind-whipped and frayed. Despite this design, an unexpected gust of wind during setup caused a broken tent pole. Even though the Dragonfly comes with an emergency splint to fix this type of break in the field, the folded pole was too wide for the splint to slide over.

Should You Buy the Nemo Dragonfly Osmo 2?

The Dragonfly is a high-end, lightweight tent with an equally expensive price tag. If you don't think you will use it multiple times a year for multi-day trips, there are more affordable options. But if you have a big trip planned and need an all-star tent to go the distance, this one offers an excellent balance of weight and comfort.

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