GCI Outdoor Waterside SunShade Beach Chair

I bought this chair in Oct 2021. Used it probably 20 or so times for grandkids' soccer games. What I did like, and what kept the item from a 1 star: - Very sturdy - Stitching and fabric first class - Carry bag top quality (wide mouth, easy to drop the chair into, tie off and carry with wide, well-built strap) - arm sturdy, not fabric - fairly light (9 pounds) - sun shade allowed ratcheted adjustment for positioning against a moving sun Problematic: - NEVER easy to fold (and was never used on a beach, and I see others had problems with sand getting in it, but this was not used in sandy areas) - tiny sun shade (I like that I could reposition it with the moving sun versus the standard chairs that tried to block out a larger area, but would rather have had a larger sunshade that still allowed some positioning) - while attempting to fold it for the two dozenth time it jammed and broke (snapped a positioning tube) Out of warranty so I have to replace it. I bought two different chairs at the same time. This one that I wanted for me for the better build quality (from pictures I could see and reviews at the time) and the solid armrest, and another ("Lamberia Folding Camp Chair with Canopy Outdoor Portable Camping Chair Heavy Duty 260 LBS Capacity") for my wife as she didn't want the hard arm rest of the GCI. Lamberia: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B092VKZYH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (I have discovered when clicking on this link at Amazon from my “previous purchases” that, although it shows the exact model we bought for my wife, the link takes you to a different, newer model without the sunshade so apparently they’ve stopped making it anyway.) For the time we owned these the Lamberia was a frustrating thing for me to close each time and I will review that separately. It didn't/doesn't jam like this GCI Outdoor Waterside Sunshade did, it was just complicated. It was like relearning "how" to fold it each time. The GCI waterside was easy to remember "how" to unfold and fold it back, it was just stubborn about doing so. But all else about this GCI would have rated it a 5 star. At the time it broke, the GCI still looked much better than the Lamberia, and the carry bags were not in the same league. The carry bag strap attachments/stitching of the GCI looked like it was a month old, while the ones on the Lamberia looked like it was 10 years old. I am actually keeping the carry bag and only trashing the chair as the build quality is so good, and the bag is so big, that I can use it to house the Lamberia when that bag fails, which probably won't be long now. Yet the Lamberia is still working. Since the GCI appears to me to be a unit that the company seemed to take pride in and "tried" to build to a quality level, I just bought their "GCI Outdoor SunShade Rocker Collapsible Rocking Chair & Outdoor Camping Chair With Canopy, Neptune Blue" . https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B097C2YG2M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 The replacement seems to be built of the same quality and at least "appears" to have a better folding/unfolding mechanism as it has pistons for rocking, but only time will tell. Will review that later. Just wanted to get this review out for others to know what they are getting into with this model GCI. It looks like the reviews have come down since I bought it anyway. There are many good features on the GCI Outdoor Waterside SunShade Captain's Beach Chair & Outdoor Camping Chair With Canopy, but with the difficulty in folding/unfolding and the fact it broke at the 17 month mark I could not recommend it... But, I am giving the company one more chance with a different model of theirs with better reviews solely based on the attempted build quality on the first unit with the only problem (and it was a major one) was the design of the folding mechanism, which kind of guaranteed eventual failure. So far the new "GCI Outdoor SunShade Rocker Collapsible Rocking Chair & Outdoor Camping Chair With Canopy, Neptune Blue" "seems" to have corrected that issue. I will give it a few months before reviewing it.