Comments about North Face The North Face Trailhead 4:

Love it. This review only applies to the 2009 Trailhead 4 which is a little hard to find right now for some reason.

General description: as good as a basic 4 person tent gets. It doesn't have multiple rooms, cup holders, or other fancy things. It's a box. But, it's a beautiful box. The light color for the 2009 is light and makes the interior of the tent a nice place to read a book. The Windows zip up and it has a full coverage fly. For a 6' tall tent, that is as snug and warm as you're going to get. The roomy front vestible comes with it's own pole and really extends the feel of tent (it is so large I put it over a small 3' tree on it's first run), so I had a tree in my tent.

Pros:
* Very easy to set up, two big poles and 5 minutes
* Warm, most of the other 4 person tents have huge open panels that don't zip up or close. This tent has 2 big doors , two windows and a top vent and all of the side openings can be battened down on cold or rainy nights. I would trust this tent in a windy downpour completely.
* Really well designed front vestible, makes the tent much larger. Nice rear vestibule for gear.
* Light color (tan?) walls and fly make the tent really bright and nice to be in, not at all cave like
* 6' tall means anyone who doesn't play basketball can stand up to change.
* Fits a queen size bed plus room for gear. Get the gearloft as well for nicknacks (unless your the aformentioned basketball player)
* Roomy for 2 people, comfy for 2 people and a child. Like all 4 person tents, if 4 people are in there that is it.

Cons: None that would make me regret getting it. A couple of minor comments.

Floor: don't fully trust the floor material, although no problems yet. It's heavy duty nylon, while most companies are going with polyesters now that just feel more durable. Definitely get the footprint, I am bringing a hefty tarp to throw under it if the ground is at all sketchy.
Boxy: Throw in a cup holder or the tiniest bit of sex appeal and this would blow some of the new fancy tents off the market. How about putting an optional screen and a floor on the vestible to create a porch? I would have paid another 50+ bucks for that and it would have basically doubled the size of the tent.


How It Compares, REI Kingdom 4:
I first purchased the new 2009 REI Kingdom 4 Tent. There were a lot of great design features to that like all REI products, but it had two critical flaws 1) the rain fly only extended a couple of inches below the screens 2) none of the huge open panels closed. One night in the Redwoods in Spring of near bone breaking cold (the tent was colder than outside) and with the slightest breeze blowing straight through your soul: I returned that and went for The North Face Trailhead 4.

Note: This review pertains to the 2009 Trailhead 4 Tent, the 2008 is a different (darker) color, so disregard those comments if it's not this year's.

Happy Camping