We got some admiring nods en route to the celebration—and we had one of the more comfy seats at the show. Before we tried the Renetto Original Canopy Chair, we had never considered buying a shade-equipped camp chair. The shaded Renetto chairs were consistently the first seats snagged at a beautiful but coleman chair harshly exposed Indian Grove group campsite. The Coleman camping chair is big and durable, and of all the upright chairs that our panel of campers tested, it was the most comfortable. By far, the best thing about this chair is how easy it is to set up — it just folds outwards like an accordion.
In real-world conditions, you’re often packing up fast to try to get ahead of crowds or traffic. So you can easily misplace a carry sack on a dark night in a crowded field, especially if you’re in a large group or have a lot of stuff. At a fireworks show and at the beach, we appreciated a chair that was ready to go without even 30 seconds of hassle. The Everywhere Chair closes like a book—simply lift the padded strap and go. This low-profile chair is easy to carry, and it adjusts for uneven ground. Select a chair with a built-in canopy, which will give you a little patch of cool at any campsite or cookout.
Bring a comfortable seat with you to the campsite with the Coleman Broadband Mesh Quad Camping Chair. Ideal for camping, picnics, or backyard barbeques, this versatile folding chair offers premium comfort in a roomy yet portable design. It features a breathable mesh back that allows the breeze to cool your back on hot days, plus an integrated mesh cup holder that keeps a refreshing beverage within your reach. Designed to ensure your comfort, the chair features an extra-wide 21.3-inch seat that offers plenty of room to lounge and adjustable arms that let you customize the chair to suit your preferences. The strong steel frame can support up to 250 pounds and withstands seasons of heavy use.
In total, it’s a pretty great deal for anyone looking to invest in a mid-tier camp chair that offers competitive comfort and all the features you could want. Even though Coleman’s Cooler Quad is one of the larger chairs that we’ve tested, it’s by no means the heaviest. Weighing in at a negligible 8lbs 2oz, the Cooler Quad won’t punish you for parking a little ways away from your intended destination. When you consider this in tandem with the carrying sleeve, the Cooler Quad lies somewhere on the more portable end of the full-sized camp chair spectrum. A camping chair with such a high-grade integrated cooler wouldn’t be much without a cup holder to match. Our not-too-discriminating underage testers liked all the kids’ chairs, though over time we found several reasons to declare the REI Camp Chair the best of the bunch.
We also let two boys, ages 1 and 5, play with them and sit on them in the backyard for six months. After all that, we concluded that the REI Co-op Camp Chair – Kids’ is the best choice for anyone who wants to buy a practical, portable outdoor chair for a small child. The Helinox Chair One weighs about 2 pounds, compresses smaller than a 2-liter bottle of soda, and is the most comfortable and easy to stow of the three top backpacking chairs we tested. Like competing chairs, the Chair One has a nylon and mesh seat and aluminum legs, which are linked with shock cord (the chair legs are made out of the same material as high-end tent poles).
The Ozark Trail Oversized Mesh Chair from Walmart, although similar to our pick in size, was far less comfortable, with rough-feeling material that was obviously of lower quality. We later found, after six months of frequent use, that the stitching along one arm had come unravelled and that the small straps holding up the back of the armrests had both ripped in half. The GCI Outdoor chair also has a pocket built into the back that can hold a phone or a book. This chair comes in green or blue and is rated to hold up to 250 pounds.
For all of the features and the size of the Cooler Quad, setting it up is just as easy as any other basic camp chair. The only thing between you and an afternoon of grilling is getting it out of the sleeve. Artful employment of padding along the seat makes the Cooler Quad a little more than just an oversized camp chair. Just a thin layer of foam that adds something to the polyester does the job without making it feel like you’re sitting in a pile of mashed potatoes.
This chair had us impressed on all ends, and with its wide availability, the Cooler Quad is a stalwart defender of Coleman’s reputation as a king of camping. We found the Coleman Kickback Breeze Chair to be a simple yet very comfortable seat, though women liked it more than men did (many of them judged it to be too snug). Anecdotally, we found that this chair category in general is more popular among women than among men, who generally prefer a higher, upright seat.