There’s also a mesh pocket behind the backrest, to hold things you don’t need to access quickly. This chair comes with a sturdy carrying case, with an over-the-shoulder strap, and it’s simple to expand and fold up accordion-style. Higher back and a head rest that make it more comfortable.
Many testers found other chairs more comfortable and easier to put together than the Nemo Moonlite Reclining Camp Chair. This is also the most expensive lightweight chair we tested, and we think the Chair One is a better value. Several Wirecutter ozark trail canopy staffers have owned the Coleman chair for years, using it on camping trips, in backyards, and at sporting events. For the most part, it’s held up well, but one common quibble is that the seat bottom begins to sag after several years of use.
Kalee Thompson is the senior editor heading up Wirecutter’s kid coverage. When she wrote the first version of this guide, Kalee lived in Southern California, where she tested chairs on three group camping trips. These portable chairs are great for camping, sporting events, and backyard BBQs.
The Ozark Trail Padded Camping Chair is on clearance for just $40, regularly $79.98. The padded seating area detaches if it’s a hot day and you want the breathability of the mesh seating. It’s that familiarity and prevalence that makes party chairs so uninteresting to us. You can buy one for peanuts and keep it out on your porch or patio for three hundred years and never think twice about it. You probably have folding chairs in your home right now that you couldn’t describe with much detail without cheating. They’re little more than background actors in our day to day lives.
Senior editor Kalee Thompson, who wrote a previous version of this guide, has been regularly using the Coleman chair she originally tested in 2016. Aside from the color fading and the cooler pouch deteriorating, her chair has held up to years of backyard hangs and camping trips. In summer 2023, she bought a newer Coleman Cooler Quad Chair to compare to her 2016 model, and she found them to be more or less the same. Testers preferred the Coleman chair’s thoughtfully placed mesh storage pouch over those of its competitors.
It delivers a solid baseline of build quality, comfort, and reliability that we didn’t find in other, similarly priced chairs. Note that some reviewers mention these run on the smaller size, but they are designed to hold up to 225 lbs. There’s a real-life human behind every post on Brad’s Deals. We’re proud consumer advocates, scouring the internet every day for best-of-web prices on just about everything.
So they felt comfortable leaning onto the frame for extra support. Here’s a question I’m sure very, very few of you who regularly read this blog have ever asked. I know … it seems like a boring subject, doesn’t it? It’s hard to find a home, a store, a school, a church, a gas station, or a hospital without them. They’re everywhere and we use them for everything.
This pouch is big enough to stow gear like a phone, book, or tablet. Of the chairs we tested, the Coleman chair was the only one that came with a built-in cooler bag, which can hold four standard-size beer or soda cans. The chair also has the round mesh cupholder found on most chairs of this type.