I'll stick my opinion in seeing as I've had several awnings of both poled and air varieties! We've been air-only now for a few years, we moved away from poled as (on the larger awnings) my wife struggled without using a stool (she's vertically challenged!), after she fell off the stool once we decided to go the air route as it'd allow me to put it up on my own while she faffed around inside. My own comments are:
- Decent air awnings are heavy, think of it as one item weighing the same as a full awning AND poles. Not too much of a problem if you're reasonably fit or have someone else to help you load it into the car/awning rail etc.
- SOME air awnings don't break down into individual components so you cannot unzip panels etc on some to lighten the load.
- They are quicker to put up in my experience (if using a 12 volt pump!) but pegging out still takes the same amount of time.
- Cheap air awnings are lightweight and great for a porch etc but they're pretty much disposable after a few years.
- Expensive air awnings are great, well made BUT very heavy and VERY expensive!
We had a 2017 Kampa Rally 390 Plus first, it seemed great but at just over £1,000 it was a big investment. It leaked pretty much from the first outing, faded badly and you couldn't remove the panels completely. A shame as the design/concept was good. Tip: Don't buy online as we got zero support from Kampa after discovering the online supplier had folded.
We then had a Starcamp 280, a £275 buy from EBay. Cheap and cheerfull, lightweight, really quick to put up, but the material was very thin and condensation was a big problem.
After an unexpected tax rebate we bought an Isabella Cirrus 400 with annexe. Eye-wateringly expensive but the quality is first-class. It's very heavy BUT removing the panels etc makes it manageable.
Some folks claim they struggle on uneven pitches but it's not something we've ever encountered, whatever the pitch is like, the awning always seems to fit just as well as the previous poled types used to.
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