Benchmaster Recliners – A Budget Choice

First up we are going to take a look at the Newport model, which retails for a very enticing $349. This recliner comes in black and taupe, although the sleek black model would be our pick. This model looks great, and you would have a hard time distinguishing it apart from any of the competitor products that can cost a few hundred dollars more. Of course looks aren’t the deciding factor, and this models comes with a number of other attractive features. The chair is covered with a faux leather, which is cleaned using a damp cloth.

The base of the chair is solid wood, which comes with a lovely walnut finish. Included with this recliner is a matching ottoman, which also features the solid wood base and walnut finish. This is a swivel recliner, and can rotate a full 360 degrees. The recliner can go back to 45 degrees, which should be enough to satisfy most people.

It sounds good so far, but are there any downsides to this Benchmaster Recliner and ottoman? There are one or two worth mentioning. Firstly the recliner dimensions are a little on the small size, so if you are tall then this won’t be the chair for you. There is also mention of a 300lbs weight limit which seems to apply to all of their products, which is quite low compared to the competition. We imagine this is to do with the fact that these chairs are primarily designed for the Chinese market, so they are used to designing products for smaller bodies.

There have also been some reports that the chair is tricky to assemble. Aside from that there isn’t too much else to mention about issues with this particular model. If you want to find out more about this Benchmaster leather recliner, head over to the Amazon product page. Here is a link to the product page for the Taupe model that has a few hundred user reviews to read through, and also the black model listing.

Next up we come to the Ventura recliner. This model has a retail price of around $499, which is also good value for money. This model comes in four color choices of black, taupe, kona and cognac. All four color choices are quite nice, so it is hard to pick a favorite here. Like the Newport above, this model comes with a swivel base and which can rotate 360 degrees. The base has a dark coffee finish, which looks very upmarket. Also included is a matching ottoman, which has the same stylish look to it.

It has the same faux leather as the Newport, and the reclining mechanism knob is very easy to use and lock in place.So are there any problems with this Benchmaster leather recliner? Sadly there seem to be some issues with this model. Like the Newport above, there have been many reports that this chair is tough to assemble. There have also been complaints about the dimensions of the chair, which are also on the small side compared to competing products. If you are taller than 5′ 4″, then you will not be comfortable in this chair. With the average American height being 5′ 9″ for males and 5′ 3″ for females, this chair is not going to be suitable for a large chunk of the population.

We can look past these two issues assuming you can fit into the chair, however something we cannot ignore are reports of the faux leathers durability. There have been a number of reports of the leather covering starting to peel off in sections, in some cases after a few weeks of owning the chair. This is something we have read about a few times, so clearly not an isolated incident. As far as we know Benchmaster use this particular covering on all their leather style recliners, so this it could affect all their chairs. Alternatively it could also be down to a faulty batch of the covering used only on this particular model. Either way would we strongly suggest you read some of the user reviews of this chair over on Amazon which talk about some of these issues, or do your own research before buying one. From what we have read, this Benchmaster recliner and ottoman should be avoided due to this particular problem.