We evaluated beach chairs by Coleman, Ostrich, Tommy Bahama, and Walmart—one was so comfy we didn’t want to leave the beach
Our three beach chair picks all have different strengths, so you’ll be able to find a chair whether you value comfort, portability, or roominess.
By Lisa Fogarty
A relaxing day at the beach, pool, or park deserves an equally restful spot to sit, recline, and take in the sights, sounds, and scents of summer. That’s why a beach chair is an essential accessory to pack alongside your sunscreen, sun hat, and snacks. But there are about a million beach chairs on the market, they all look the same, and who honestly has time to contemplate chairs?
We do! CR evaluated four top-selling beach chairs by big names you recognize: Coleman, Ostrich, Tommy Bahama, and Walmart. Keep scrolling to find out which one we could have sat on forever (with a cup of coffee and views of the Atlantic), two more chairs we highly recommend—and one that’s just meh.
Coleman Cooler Quad Chair
“I’m lucky if I get to the beach twice all summer,” you may be saying to yourself. Is a beach chair really worth the investment? And the answer is yes—absolutely—especially if you snag our top choice, the Coleman Cooler Quad Chair. This chair is versatile enough not to scream “beach chair!” and is one you’ll pull out at barbecues, kids’ sporting events, camping trips, and any other outdoor event where you want to be comfy and have drinks and books at the ready.
Portability: For starters, it’s collapsible—while the kids are screaming at you to let them go in the ocean before you’ve had a chance to kick off your flip-flops, you won’t waste even 10 seconds unfolding legs and armrests and clicking a chair into place. Take the Coleman out of its matching travel bag (which features a shoulder strap and feels lightweight when carried), unfold its accordion-like legs, give it a shake, and voila, you have a sturdy outdoor chair with barely any effort. When you’re ready to leave the beach, it collapses in seconds and slips back into the carrying bag with close to no effort.
Comfort: Unlike every other model on this list, the Coleman lacks a head pillow, yet it’s the most comfortable of all of these chairs. Its polyester fabric is thicker and more cushioned than the material of the other chairs, and this detail, along with contouring on the seat, provides more support to your backside and back. I sat in it for 1 hour and no part of my body hurt. On the flip side, the chair might not feel as airy as the other chairs, which are designed with stiffer but more breathable materials.
The chair does not recline at all, so if you love to snooze at the beach, this isn’t the chair for you. The back also comes up slightly shorter than the Ostrich 3N1 Beach Chair—I’m 5’7" and it reached the middle of the back of my head. I didn’t find this problematic, but it’s something to consider when shopping for chairs.
This chair’s seat measures 19 inches from the ground, which makes it the tallest on this list. When we ran a blow dryer on its hottest setting over its handles, back, and seat to mimic summer hot air, all three components became hot but cooled down in less than 1 minute. The rim around the built-in cup holder, however, became extremely hot, as did the zipper along the left-side insulated pouch.
Features: The Coleman chair features two compartments—a double-zippered insulated pack that hangs down from the left armrest where you can fit four beverage cans, and a pouch with a mesh front on the right side of the chair that is roomy enough to hold books. It has a built-in mesh cup holder on the right armrest that fits a Stanley cup, Hydro Flask, or bottle of water. We loved the fabric armrests, which are supportive, comfortable, and stay cool under the sun. This pick comes in four colors.
Things that annoyed us: The armrests would be better if they didn’t tilt up slightly at the ends—so even though your Stanley cup fits in the cup holder, it also tilts slightly toward you. Another minor annoyance: The base of each leg features small texturized grooves where sand gets trapped. When I returned home, I rinsed the sand off with a garden hose, and it came off instantly.
Tommy Bahama Wavy Marlin Deluxe Backpack Beach Chair
Tommy Bahama is a popular name in beach chairs. I’m usually not a fan of chairs that are low to the ground, but this one won me over with its lightweight, extremely portable, and smart design, which includes so many compartments that your kids can stuff them full of toys and you’ll have room left over for your own beach goodies.
Portability: The Tommy Bahama Wavy Marlin Deluxe Backpack Beach Chair is the most portable chair on this list. It weighs just 7 pounds and has padded backpack-style straps that won’t dig into your back. When you’re ready to pack up, fold in its legs and arms and clip two straps together to hold everything in place. It doesn’t come with a carrying bag.
Comfort: This chair sits low to the ground and has a built-in head cushion that you can flip to the back, which is a good thing because it hung far too low (it came down to my upper shoulders) and I found it extremely uncomfortable. Adjust the armrests to recline this chair to five positions, including all the way back. After sitting in this chair for 1 hour, I was eager to move my knees a bit because they were positioned in an unnatural way, given the chair’s proximity to the sand. This is the lowest-to-the-sand chair—its seat measures 8 inches from the ground.
During our blow dryer experiment, its wooden armrests became hot but cooled off after 1 minute, while its fabric seat and back became warm but not uncomfortably so. The metal bar at the very top of the chair gets extremely hot fast. It’s unlikely that your head will be positioned on the bar, but be careful when grabbing it if you’ve been under the hot sun.
Features: Boasting the best storage capabilities of all of the chairs on this list, the Tommy Bahama features two chair-width compartments on the back—one is a roomy zippered insulated cooler for storing up to eight 12-ounce beverage cans or snacks, while the other is a compartment with a mesh front that’s perfect for storing a beach towel or wet accessories. A third compartment hangs from the bottom of the right armrest and consists of a zippered case for your phone and wallet and a fabric cup holder that’s big enough to hold a Hydro Flask, water bottle, or Stanley cup (though its handle will not fit). Its armrests are made from smooth wood, and it has a towel bar on the back. It comes in three colors.
Things that annoyed us: The chair comes with a headrest, but I had to keep it flipped to the back in order to be comfortable. Less annoying but still worth mentioning are the small, sneaky grooves on the bottom of this chair’s legs that collect sand. Remember to clean them out before placing the chair in your car to avoid bringing the beach home with you. I quickly removed excess sand from these grooves with a towel and then rinsed them with water when I got home for a more thorough cleaning.
Ostrich 3N1 Beach Chair
If you want to invest in just one chair and you want it to effortlessly convert to a lounge chair and be as luxurious as a beach chair can possibly be, the Ostrich 3N1 Beach Chair is calling your name. This is the roomiest chair on the list, and also the one with the most impressive bells and whistles.
Portability: This chair is heavier than the three other models we evaluated, and it’s also wider and longer than the other chairs, so be prepared to carry extra weight from your car to the beach or pool. It also took us a few extra minutes to unfold and then fold it back up and ensure each component (like the headrest) was tucked in before carrying it. The process is not difficult at all, just a bit more time-consuming than the other chairs. A detachable shoulder strap boosts its portability factor, but we still found it to be the most bulky and least portable chair on this list.
Comfort: This chair is as comfortable as breathable mesh fabric can be—which is to say, moderately comfortable but nothing to write home about. Fabric is a personal preference, but I find that thicker mesh can feel a bit stiffer on the skin (especially when you’re wearing a swimsuit) and not as comfortable. However, a few clever design choices help ramp up its comfort. It boasts a footrest that can be raised up or pushed down if you prefer a traditional chair position, and you can recline it to five positions, including fully back, so that it converts to a lounge chair.
Unlike the Coleman Cooler Quad Chair, the back of the Ostrich chair comes up fairly high and its built-in padded head pillow is fairly comfortable. Its seat measures 12 inches from the ground. Its wooden handles got hot under a blow dryer but cooled off in about a minute, while its seat and back cooled down in less than 1 minute. There are, however, two exposed metal bars along the sides of the back of the chair (that your skin may touch) that got extremely hot quickly and took several minutes to cool down.
Features: We loved the built-in cup holder that is smartly positioned beneath the right armrest so that it swivels out to the right but takes up zero armrest space—it’s genius. The cup holder itself won’t fit your beloved Stanley cup, but it will fit a Hydro Flask, can, or bottle of water. The armrests are nice and wide, made from smooth wood, and the right armrest features a thoughtful cutout that you can use to pass headphone wires through and to help make it easier to carry. Another unique feature is a padded cutout face cavity, just in case you want to lie on your stomach, and cutouts for your arms to fit through, as well. It comes in three colors.
Things that annoyed us: This chair lacks storage compartments, which is a big miss. If you aren’t enamored with the built-in head pillow, you can flip it to the back of the chair—but then you’ll be left reclining your head against the pillowed cutout feature. I found the cutout pillow to be more comfy than the headrest, so whether this is truly an annoying con will depend on your personal preference. The cup holder is a little too narrow, which is frustrating because the design is otherwise fantastic. And, minor detail, but it has those same sneaky grooves on the bottom of its legs as the Tommy Bahama—check for collected sand before storing this chair in your car or home.
Another Beach Chair We Tried
Any of the beach chairs we tried would provide a great day by the shore or pool, but one failed to win us over for a few reasons.
Walmart Mainstays Backpack Aluminum Beach Chair
Walmart’s Mainstays Backpack Aluminum Beach Chair sits low to the ground like the Tommy Bahama one. It will serve its purpose on the sand, but it’s just not as good as the Tommy Bahama (to be fair, it’s also about half the cost).
Let’s start with what it gets right: It’s lightweight and has padded backpack-style straps, so carrying it to and from the beach is a breeze. It’s made from a similar stiff, breathable material as most of the other chairs on this list and has a head cushion (more like a neck cushion if you’re on the tall side) that flips over to the backside of the chair if you don’t want to use it.
Like the Tommy Bahama, this chair reclines all the way back and features two storage compartments: a roomy, discreet zippered compartment at the bottom of the chair that we love and a side beverage compartment that we love a little less because it is separated into two narrow spaces that limit the types of drinks you place within it and renders it useless for storing larger items like your phone or wallet. Its seat measures 11 inches from the ground, and its armrests stayed hot for a few minutes after we ran a blow dryer over them. It doesn’t feature an insulated compartment and its resin armrests feel a little cheap—but, if you aren’t in the market to pay more money for a few more bells and whistles you don’t think you’ll miss, this chair is a solid option.
How We Evaluated Beach Chairs
We brought our beach chairs to Long Beach, N.Y., and evaluated them one by one, from the parking lot to the water’s edge and back to the parking lot. We took notes on how easy they were to carry, set up on the sand, and take down. In between setup and storage, we sat on each chair for 1 hour to get a feel for how comfortable it was and put its features to use by testing the fit of a 30-ounce Stanley cup and a 24-ounce Hydro Flask in each cup holder and inserting various items you’d take to the beach into storage and insulated compartments—including a wallet, cans of seltzer, protein bars, and a towel. If a chair had recline options, we evaluated how easy they were to adjust, and for the Ostrich 3N1 Beach Chair, we tried out its padded cutout face cavity.
Back home, we measured the distance from the chair’s seat to the ground to help give you an idea of how you might enjoy its fit, depending on your height. Because we evaluated these chairs on fairly cool days in April, we set a blow dryer to its hottest setting and ran it over the armrests, seat, and backs of each chair for 3 minutes each to get a better sense of how they would feel under a hot sun.
Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright © 2025, Consumer Reports, Inc.
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