We purchased the
Graco Air Booster for my oldest son in June 2007. He had been using the Graco Turbo Booster but it was way to short in the legs for him and he complained that it was making his feet fall asleep. We went to several stores and tried out nearly every available booster on the market to find something that fit him. At 10 years old, 53 inches tall and 57 lbs, he still doesn't pass the
5 Step Test in my van, so a booster is still necessary. Most of the boosters we tried out were also too short for his legs. After trying a total of nine different booster seats, he and I decided that this booster fit best.
This booster definitely has the longest seat area of any available booster. The seat area is made of a cool mesh design, fashioned after the popular Herman Miller ergonomic desk chairs. It provides plenty of thigh support and it's long enough for a bigger kid to be able to bend their knees comfortably at the edge.
The head rest/back portion of the booster adjusts fairly comparably to other boosters on the market. It doesn't go extremely tall, but even my son has a couple height settings before he is too tall for it. Hopefully by then he will be tall enough overall to pass the 5 step test and no longer need a booster.
This booster comes in four neutral fabric choices - Rain (grey/white), Storm (grey/black), Cafe (tan/black) and Cobblestone (tan/beige). All the seats backs have suede-like centers with leather-like edges.
Overall, my son loves this booster. He started using it shortly before we took a week-long trip through the western states. He was in it at least 10 hours a day for 7 days straight and didn't complain once about being uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, shortly after we returned from our trip, we started noticing that the head-rest portion of the seat would randomly fall down to the lowest setting. The first few times it happened, we figured it was just a fluke, but it started happening nearly every time we went out in the car. I got in touch with Graco and they sent us a replacement seat and had us send the original back to them. After a month of use, the replacement seat also started having the same problem. Our 2nd replacement seat arrived this week, so we are hoping that the "third time's a charm". I will update this if we continue to have the problem. On the plus side, Graco customer service has been very helpful and they seem very willing to try and get this problem resolved.
Overall I really do recommend this booster for bigger kids. The leg support is definitely worth the investment. I do think the head rest falling down may be a problem, but I'm confident that Graco will do a good job in helping those who have the problem and fixing it so no one else will.
