Evenflo's biggest seat now has its smallest fold

Every full-size stroller gets judged in the same place: a parking lot, with the trunk open, the groceries already in it and a baby who chose this moment to wake up. Evenflo built its new Monarch Travel System for that minute. It is the roomiest toddler seat the brand makes, on the most compact fold it has ever put on a full-size frame, with a LiteMax NXT infant car seat included.

What’s new

Monarch was announced September 1 and is Evenflo’s latest push upmarket: a champagne frame, black fabrics, a leatherette handle and one color, Space Black. The toddler seat takes a child up to 55 pounds and 45 inches, reclines through several positions and drops into a lay-flat pramette for newborns without any adapters, so the same seat works from the ride home through preschool. It faces either way, and it folds with the seat attached in either direction, then stands on its own. Folded, it is 25.75 inches wide, 17.25 inches deep and 26.75 inches tall, and Evenflo lists the weight at 26.8 pounds.

The car seat is the other half

The included LiteMax NXT carries SensorySoothe, which is Evenflo’s name for a strip of lights, sounds and music built into the car seat handle. It sounds like a gimmick until you have driven twenty minutes with a six-week-old who disagrees with the car. The seat fits 3 to 30 pounds, the base stays in the car, and the seat clicks straight onto the stroller frame so a sleeping baby stays a sleeping baby. Underneath, the stroller runs all-terrain wheels with suspension built into the frame, a 20-pound basket you can reach from the front or the back, an extra-large UPF 50+ three-panel canopy, a parent cup holder and a snack tray.

Evenflo’s Sharon Ruggieri put it plainly: “Parents shouldn’t have to choose between a stroller that looks beautiful, works hard for their family and makes everyday life easier.” Which is a nice way of saying the good-looking full-size systems have mostly cost twice this.

The price, once

$599.99 for the stroller, toddler seat and infant car seat together at evenflo.com, and it is also at Target.com and in Target stores. One colorway for now.

Who should buy it

Buy it if you want one stroller from the hospital to preschool and your trunk has opinions. The fold is the story here, and a full-size seat that goes flat for a newborn without a separate bassinet is real money saved. Skip it if you already own an infant seat you like; you would be paying for a second one, and the stroller is not sold on its own yet. And if you never leave the sidewalk, Evenflo’s own Pivot NXT does most of this for a couple hundred dollars less, with a plainer frame.

Evenflo’s in the club: give $20, get $20 through its referral program. See the Evenflo offer →