First off, I want to say that Backcountry.com sent my order promptly will good communication throughout. I am very satisfied with their service.

Secondly, the Arc'teryx Tau is a very nice, stylish, and well constructed shirt. So for that, it gets 2 stars. I call it a shirt because that's all it really is - a half-zip sweatshirt. Calling it a jacket is a bit of a stretch.

Calling the fiber "Wind Pro" and leading folks to believe the garment will protect you from winds is another whopper.

After reading the reviews here and reading the description, I thought to myself, "Wow, maybe this shirt really IS worth $200. Maybe it IS some kind of super-amazing space-age fabric. Toasty warm, light, wind proof, stylish. All that and a bag of Doritos"

Well, sorry to break it to you fleece people, but its not any of these things and I'm still hungry.

Lets talk about amazing fabrics. Gore-Tex is an amazing fabric. Gore Windstopper is unbelievable. It doesn't let ANY wind in AND it lets your skin breathe. Now THATS performance and innovation in my book. What is the Arc'teryx Tau? It is polyester polar fleece that's woven just a wee bit tighter than regular fleece and the face is smoother so it doesn't pill. Oooh! What an innovation!!! God bless you Arc'teryx!! please take $200 of my hard-earned money for this amazing shirt. It's changed my life forever.

By the way, a size medium fit me very well. A medium! I am 6'1" 195 pounds, athletic build, and a medium fit me very well! That is RIDICULOUS sizing in my opinion. Ridiculous. But no worries thanks to backcountry.com's guidance, I ordered a size down.

I put it on, went outside, it was cold, a breeze blew and I sure as heck felt it. Most of my wool sweaters that cost $40 perform better than this. Hell, a $15 windbreaker from Wal Mart would perform better than this. Was it "4-times more wind resistant" than my other polar fleece sweaters? Heck no. But to be fair, I suppose it depends on how you quantify that. I'm sure it performs 4 times better than some polar fleece out there somewhere. Maybe. Who knows.

Bottom line. It's going back. Sure it fits nice, after I got the tip about sizing down. And it looks decent, but I can think of so many better ways to spend $200. Why anyone would spend this much money on a sweatshirt, I have no idea. The local sporting goods stores are always having clearance sales on polar fleece and you could get at least 4 for the price of this one. Hopefully this post will stop the insanity.