Sumolounge Omni Beanbag Review

The guys at
sumolounge.com sent
us an email a few weeks back. "Would you like to review our product?", they
said. Well sure, of course we could. But what was it? Well, a quick check of
their site led me
to the girl above. "Ho ho! Yes, yes, yes! We’ll definitely give that a once over!", said us.

Unfortunately we got it slightly wrong.
Sumolounge.com do
"urban lounge gear". Put simply these are super size pillows which you sit on.
You may know them as bean bags too and indeed they used to be quite a big
"thing" here in the UK some years back. We got confused.


“But we’re a Windows Mobile website, we do reviews of Windows phones”, we said.


“Yep”, they said.


“It’s not really our thing.. beanbags.. y’know”, we said.


“Would you still like to review it?”, they said.


“Ahhh…. go on then”, we said.


So can a big beanbag win us over? Well
we figured it was worth a try even if it
didn’t include a pretty lady sat on top.
Sumolounge.com ship
free within the USA complete with beans, however we’re based in the UK so they
sent ours flat-packed. This is a whole lot cheaper – the thought of a huge
beanbag sat in the hold of an a 747 somewhere would probably start a huge party at
the local parcel company.
 

The Sumo – this is the larger
"Omni"
beanbag by the way – arrived quickly and I took some shots of it whilst waiting
in a local car park. This is a dark green one – there’s several colours
available so check to see which one will suit your room best.

Mine came with a paper insert which stops the velcro sticking
together. The velcro hides the zipper which allows access into the beanbag and –
when zipped / velcro’d up you would never even spot it was there.

As you can see the stitching is almost industrial strength. This
is nothing, nothing like the beanbags I had when I was young The Sumo beanbag is one
extremely substantial product which shows significant quality in both build and
finish.

The material seems almost indestructible. It’s tough but smooth and wipe-down too – always great when you’ve had a few too many beers. The guys at Sumo call the
material "ballistic nylon". Apparently this is PVC coated nylon.

Here’s some more shots. I can’t emphasize enough how far away
this is from the traditional material beanbags that end up splitting or tearing.

Flat beanbags are all well and good, however we needed some
beans. Eventually we found somewhere to buy the beans to fill the bag up – a 12
cubic foot bag from ebay arrived. Postage here in the UK has gone up recently
because parcels are now classed on size – not just weight. Anyhow, the bag
arrived. It turned up at work so I didn’t actually take a shot of it. To be
honest I was a tad busy trying to cram the box containing it into the Mini
Cooper. Somehow I did it, although it was a tad funny driving home with a big
bag of white balls against my face (no jokes please) 🙂

Don’t forget that if you’re in the USA the
Sumo Omni
will turn up pre-filled so you won’t need to do this.

Emily decided to grab the bag out of the car and fill the
beanbag up. It was a complex but hilarious moment with me holding the beanbag in
place while she tried to empty the big bag of balls into it. The resulting scene
made our kitchen look like Santas Grotto with polystyrene balls flying
everywhere. We were a little ham-fisted if we’re honest, but it got the job
done.

After a bit of Dyson-action we zipped up the beanbag and velro’d it up. It’s
…well…..huge. This is one massive bag. Our semi-detached house didn’t really
have the space necessary for the beanbag – it takes up around the same amount of
space as a regular chair so you’ll need to make sure that there’s a space ready
for it or you’ve got a fairly sizeable cupboard to store it in when not in use.

Big huh? Yes indeedy. Comfortable ? Hell yeah. This isn’t one of those
beanbags that sag in the middle – you can jump on it, roll on it, make it into
some weird peacock shape or just plain sit on it. It’s something you’ll probably
not want to get out of once you’re in it.

No, I’m not taking pictures of me sitting in it. Are you insane?
I’m not photogenic at the best of times, least of all when I’ve got my legs in
the air and drinking beer. 🙂

As you can see from these shots in our lounge the
Sumo Omni
we tested dwarfed the TV (you can see it just behind), although in the shot
above I must confess to standing it quite upright for the picture.

Conclusion
To conclude, this is one mega comfy slouching paradise which is hard-wearing and
durable. Don’t go to the local market and buy some cheap material beanbag, get
this one. It’s by far the best thing to grace my backside in a long time and
it’s probably going to be my new computer chair.

Get one
The Sumo Omni
and other Omni products are available from
sumolounge.com. The
Sumo Omni
tested costs from $129 at the time of writing.