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Asda Envelope Single Sleeping Bag
by northernlovely
A good sleeping bag can cost £20+, does this Asda budget version stack up? Here's my review (and my unsurprising answer to this question!)
-- Price and Availability --
The Asda Envelope Single Sleeping Bag is available instore in Asda (larger Asda stores, not Essentials), larger branches of Asda Living (the non food ... standalone Asda stores, but not George standalone stores), and online at www.asda.co.uk.
The bag costs £7 - which is exceptionally low - it's the cheapest I have seen, even the cheapest sleeping bags I'd seen previously were £10. So it's great if you're on a budget.
-- Looks --
The Asda sleeping bag is available only in black - a good colour for a sleeping bag as it won't show the dirt, but I would have liked to have seen a Khaki alternative (or possibly a blue). But you can't complain for the price and certainly the colour is suitable for all.
It is presented in a very thin drawstring bag with a black double cord for carrying and a black toggle to hold it closed. The bag on first look seems well made, with sturdy stitching and decent zips (there are two on this bag). The drawstring bag doesn't look like it will last long, though - the thin material looks like it will rip easily (and I know this from experience of stuffing a bag into a little case like this, they have to be strong). But again, for £7, not too bad.
-- Use --
Though the bag looks well made for the money, and is not too heavy (I believe it is 1.4kg which is easy for anyone to carry), as soon as you pick it up it becomes patently obvious that this is not a bag for the serious camper. It's about a quarter of the weight, fullness and stuffing of a 'good' sleeping bag and would be all but useless in cold weathers. This is advertised as a spring-summer sleeping bag, but with the chilly spring nights we have in the UK, it's either for use outside of this country, or it's more of a summer only sleeping bag.
It seems to have a design flaw, too - whilst it's long enough to accommodate me, at nearly six feet tall, the double zips I mentioned earlier meet, for some odd reason, right at the base of the bag, and because they have no overlap or way of joining, there is a good few centimetres gap at the base, which is right where your feet are, obviously. So, chilly feet! Remember to wear your snuggliest socks when using this sleeping bag. Unfortunately this means the rest of you isn't as warm as it could be as the warm air around your body escapes and cold air replaces it meaning your body is constantly fighting with the temperature - this makes for a fairly sticky, chilly night. The only time this would be bearable is on a hot summer's night. You can, however, use this bag as a cover over another bag by opening it out and laying it sideways and this does provide a reasonable extra layer.
The bag seems splashproof, I've never gotten more than a splash on it, and is easy to wipe clean too.
-- Overall --
I can't say that I'd recommend the Asda Envelope Single Sleeping Bag, based on it's weight and the fact that for the serious camper it would be totally inadequate. But I can't write it off either as it's a fantastic cheap bag ideal for summer festivals, for kids for indoor slumber parties, and for a lightweight bag for use in a motor home or caravan. It does have it's uses but not for a camping holiday I'm afraid, it's just too thin and the zip issue means it won't keep you anywhere near warm enough.
Overall I will give it a 2 out of 5 stars, as it doesn't quite do what it promises but it does have some uses nevertheless, and is a great price.
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Asda Envelope Single Sleeping Bag
by dee778
As a family who are keen campers, I have an adequate number of very good quality sleeping bags in my cupboard, but when my youngest son announced that he had tickets for the Reading Festival I knew that I had to buy him something more suitable.
I know that any sleeping bag taken to Reading by a sixteen year old will never be ... the same again, if it returns at all - so I looked for the cheapest sleeping bag that I could find... and, as usual, Asda came up trumps. For a bargain £7 I bought a sleeping bag that would be perfect for a teenage festival weekend.
~~Description~~
The bag is available in one colour only; black. It comes with a black nylon stuff bag which has a long drawstring, allowing the bag to be comfortably carried over one shoulder.
The dimensions of the unfolded bag are 180cm long and 75cm wide; a very spacious sleeping bag in the square style that I prefer to the more constraining mummy sleeping bags. The bag weighs a very light 1.6kg and is made from polyester with a single layer of polyester insulation.
~~Warmth~~
The sleeping bag is optimistically advertised as a two season spring and summer bag (adequate for temperatures between 8 and 15 degrees Centigrade), but as a camper who has several two season sleeping bags, I can assure anybody that this is the thinnest bag I have ever seen, and not something that would keep me anywhere near warm enough on a chilly June night.
It is advertised as having 250mg of insulation - by which I assume that this is 250g per m² - very much on the low side, as I have two season bags of a good quality which have between 1000 to 2000g per m² of insulation, and these are just about right.
Getting inside the bag, the lack of weight and substance is immediately apparent, and I am absolutely certain that this would not be an adequate sleeping bag for any serious camper.
In addition, the construction of the zip allows drafts of air to come right into the bag; the zipper opens up two sides of the bag, but does not meet properly and creates a large gap of about 2cm at the bottom of the bag where the sleepers feet lie.
I am certain that anybody would feel rather chilly in this bag once the heat of the day had died down.
~~Quality~~
The first thing to strike me about this bag was the inadequacy of the stuff bag; it is just not big enough to take the sleeping bag, and it takes a lot of effort to put the sleeping bag away. The stuff bag is also made of a very thin nylon and I know from experience that these types of bags split and tear very quickly.
The manufacture of the sleeping bag seems surprisingly good; the zip is much more robust than I expected and the stitching all seems secure and strong.
~~Conclusion~~
Although I would never recommend this sleeping bag to a serious camper, it is absolutely ideal for sleepovers or festivals. The components of the bag are very inadequate in terms of both warmth and quality, and it is neither warm nor robust.
However, it is cheap and compact - and the price means that if it is lost or ruined it can easily be replaced. For £7 I have to give it 2 stars for value for money alone.
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