(One 2018 tester described the lightweight seat as feeling “like a kid’s toy.”) That makes it a good choice for travel—it’s the convertible pick in our guide to the best travel car seats. It’s doable, but even professionals we consulted noted that this seat is harder than others to install well. And unlike our main picks, which have a forward-facing weight limit of 65 pounds, the Scenera Next’s weight limit is 40 pounds in both forward- and rear-facing mode, which means you can’t use it for nearly as long.
In the name of science, we put our preemie Huggable Images doll in the 4Ever and here’s what we found.Yes, indeed, that’s a 4 pound, 17 inch long preemie doll fitting correctly and snugly in the 4Ever, with the harness coming out from just at her shoulders. Keep in mind that not all preemies have the same proportions, and just because it fits the Huggable Images preemie does not mean it will be suitable for all preemies. When this car seat is installed on the plus one or jump seat of a minivan, Graco has confirmed up to 20% of the base can overhang the edge of the vehicle seat while in harness mode.
For help on how to install a car seat with a locking clip, check out our video here. Even without the extension panel that the Graco Extend2Fit Convertible has, a rear-facing Foonf gives even a larger child plenty of legroom. Plus, the Foonf’s lower sides make it easy to get a rear-facing child into the seat and buckled.
There’s a footrest panel that extends by 5 inches to add legroom for a rear-facing toddler or preschooler, enabling them to stay comfortable in the rear-facing position longer. We were won over by its solid construction, painless forward-facing install, cushy seat bed, and stain-evading fabric. The Foonf has a generous 50-pound rear-facing weight limit—the same as our top pick, the Graco Extend2Fit Convertible—and the seat’s pitch and shape keep kids comfy riding in it rear-facing as they grow.
In order to adjust the height of the straps on the Foonf as your child grows, you must slide them off the splitter plate (tucked behind a panel in the seat), thread them through a different slot, and then reattach them to the splitter plate. As long as your child is rear-facing, this can be done without fully uninstalling the seat, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. To install the Foonf forward-facing with the seat belt alone, you route the lap portion of the belt through the forward-facing belt path and the shoulder portion of the belt through the forward-facing belt lock-off, and then buckle it in. To get it extra-snug, you pull on the belt while pressing down on the center of the seat, removing any extra slack. The seat has a no-rethread harness, so making height adjustments to the harness straps as your child grows is a quick and easy process—no dismantling and rethreading required.
Our friends at Graco were kind enough to provide us with a new (much cleaner!) version of this seat for an updated review. The Urbn seems like a neat idea—it is baseless and instead uses a rigid LATCH to quickly hook onto a car’s anchors. When you’re ready to click the seat bucket into the base, yet another color indicator on the side of the bucket confirms that it’s inserted properly. If it’s not attached securely, the indicator displays red; when the seat is locked in, it turns green. Because of the copious color-coding (the Liing has more such indicators than any other seat we’ve tested), it’s nearly impossible to inadvertently goof anything up along the way. Although the KeyFit 35 and KeyFit 30 have no dramatic aesthetic differences, the KeyFit 35 does have a perceptibly sleeker and more high-end feel.
Then you attach the included straps via LATCH (see this video for a demonstration) to the vehicle’s anchors and close the lock-off (a lever that ratchets down the strap to remove the extra slack). Or, if you prefer to rely on your car’s seat belt (see this video for a demonstration) instead of the LATCH system, you thread the seat belt through the belt path, buckle it in, and close the lock-off. (Graco calls this lock-off mechanism the SnugLock, and we found that it works as advertised.) To uninstall the base, you lift the lock-off and either push the red buttons on the LATCH clips to release them or unbuckle the seat belt.
Unfortunately, the seat doesn’t come with a cupholder—c’mon, Clek—but you can purchase one for about $20. The fabric on the Extend2Fit Convertible is not the smoothest or the softest—we prefer graco convertible car seat the material on our runner-up Britax Boulevard ClickTight and our also-great Clek Foonf picks. The Extend2Fit Convertible’s fabric feels a bit like that of a wetsuit, slightly nubby and rough.
The openings in the cover make installing the seat with either the vehicle seat belt or lower anchors a breeze. The SnugRide SnugFit 35 DLX’s secure fit is due in part to the anchoring effect of the anti-rebound graco car seat bar at the foot of the base, which rests flush against the vehicle’s seat back. The anti-rebound base is an extra built-in safety feature that helps to reduce the secondary motion caused by a front-impact crash.