Review – Sumo Omni

I’m sitting outside right now. I’m sitting in the sunshine on a beanbag. It’s not something I do very often but I think I’ll start to make a habit of it.

There’s a back-story to this though, and sadly it involves my rusty garden furniture getting thrown away. After raining for days the sun then pops out from the clouds and I reach for my usual garden chair, only to suddenly remember that the local scrap man has got it. Luckily, just a few days before, those people at Sumo offered me an Omni bean bag to review. It’s £99 and there’s free delivery, but for that you sadly don’t get the lovely ladies that appear in the product photos.

Personally I’m a little confused. If I try and send something through the post it seems to cost a small fortune, but this rather humungous package arrives quickly and I’ve not paid a penny extra.

Now, the more observant amongst you might remember that we actually reviewed this very model back in 2006 and indeed we reviewed the Gamer a few years later. However, after 7 years, are they still as good and can they survive the ultimate test – my 5-year-old son?

The product arrives in a very large blue bag. It’s well packaged but there’s no unnecessary cardboard outer box. Another change is the fact that the beans were already in the product. The last time we reviewed this it arrived flat-packed and the beans arrived in a seperate bag. It was, if I’m honest, a bit of a faff having to get all the beads in because inevitably some of them ended up flying to several corners of our home. It also means that we don’t have to worry about leaving it for 24-hours (previously when the beans and product arrive in different bags we’ve had to allow 24 hours and “fluff” up the bag).

Massive, huge, sizeable, chunky. These are all words to describe the dimensions here. I’ll give you the rough measurements in a moment but, sufice to say, I’m sat on the thing right now and my feet aren’t touching the floor. Another thing not touching the floor is my backside. I don’t know about you, but I hate sitting on bean bags only to find that my bum hits the floor and all the beans merely wrap around the indentation. It’s like sitting in a rubber ring.

Here on the Omni there’s enough beans to ensure that you don’t end up sitting flat on the floor. It’s 5.5′ (1.67 metres) long and 4.5′ (1.37 metres) wide, so do take this into account when you’re thinking about getting one as it’ll consume most normal rooms. Just think that you’re buying a table for your room – you need to allocate about that much space.

There’s a range of colours to choose from. We’ve obviously got the black Omni here but you can get green, red, orange, pink and a whole load more. It’s made out of nylon too, so it’s easy to clean and – according to Sumo – rip-proof.

Ahhh.. OK… Rip-proof? Really? Well, I gave this to my son, who’s 5, to do his worst. So far he’s used it as a sledge down the stairs, jumped on it and dived into it from his bed. I did look away when he climbed up onto the sofa and then did a dive-bomb onto it.. I honestly thought it would just rip, explode and I’d be finding bean-bags in hidden crevices for weeks. BOOM! It’s snowing..

But no..

Another surprise is how light this thing is. My son has pulled this up the stairs with ease and I’ve chucked it around with one hand easily. It’s 18 pounds (8 KG or just over a stone) in weight, which is really surprising considering the size of the thing.

Being able to use it anywhere inside is good enough, but sitting outside in the summer is even better, and I really don’t care if it gets a bit dirty because a quick wipe sorts it out, plus the whole family can sit on it too – so just one thing to carry around if you head out for a quick pic-nic. 🙂

I’ve tried to show this in the video but there are several ways of positioning yourself and the bag. The lovely lady from Sumo perhaps shows this better, and I’ll leave your mind to come up with various thoughts in the positions below…

Sure, £99 might seem a bit expensive and yes, you could probably get a smaller or cheaper bean bag somewhere else, but this really is a fantastic, large, easy-clean, rugged chair / bed / sofa for the whole family to enjoy both inside and out. Personally I love it, and I should know, I’m still sitting on it right now.

Get one from Sumo. The Omni is available in 10 colours.

Oh and by the way, here’s a shot of the Omni (complete with rug) after we did indeed take it camping shortly after this review was finished.