Car Seats

Best Car Seats

Overall Score

Evenflo LiteMax NXT

The Evenflo LiteMax NXT Infant Car Seat is a lightweight car seat designed for rear-facing use with babies weighing 3 lbs to 30 lbs. The LiteMax NXT comes with a seat belt tensioner to make seat belt installation easier and hook-on LATCH lower anchors. The seat also includes a no-rethread harness and is equipped with SensorSafe, a Bluetooth-enabled technology that sends safety alerts to your smartphone. A load leg is sold separately.

CR's Expert Take

How did it perform in our expert lab testing?

Overall Score

The Overall Score for this model is derived from our expert lab test results.

Current Range of Tested Infant Car Seats

What goes into the Overall Score?

EXPERT LAB TESTS

Ease of use

4 / 5

Fit-to-vehicle LATCH

2 / 5

Fit-to-vehicle belt

2 / 5

Fit-to-vehicle carrier-only

2 / 5

Maximum weight (lbs.)

Crash protection

Better

Pros

Includes a “LockStrong” seat belt tensioner feature to help easily increase seat belt tension
Features SensorSafe technology
Carrier is lightweight
Harness can be adjusted without rethreading
Seat covers can be removed for machine-washing
Uses “Green & Gentle” flame-retardant chemical-free fabrics

Cons

Recline angle is too upright for premature infants or newborns
Labels on the car seat shell are minimal and only on one side
Canopy doesn’t offer UV protection
LATCH connectors are hook-on only
Carry handle doesn’t rotate all the way back, which is a feature our experts like to prevent the seat from rocking when harnessing a baby

CR's Take

The Evenflo LiteMax NXT is an infant car seat suitable for babies from 3 to 30 lbs., with an additional infant insert required for babies between 3 and 6 lbs. The LiteMax NXT features a waist strap adjustment, allowing for a better harness fit on smaller babies. The car seat can be used rear-facing only and comes with several parent-friendly features, including a no-rethread harness, a seat belt tensioner, and SensorSafe Bluetooth technology, which sends car seat safety alerts to your smartphone. A load leg can be purchased separately. The seat is lightweight and easy to install, but our car seat experts found it difficult to get an appropriate recline angle with both the base and carrier-only in several different vehicles, which would be especially concerning for premature infants or newborns, given the need for a reclined position that doesn’t put added pressure on their neck and chest. In CR’s rigorous crash testing, this seat performed well in comparison to other infant car seats we tested.

This seat may be a good choice for:

Families who want a dedicated infant seat for the first year before switching to a rear-facing convertible or all-in-one car seat
Families who may need a lighter seat to move regularly between cars

Detailed Test Results

Ease of use: Our expert car seat testers found this seat very easy to install; however, they had issues achieving a proper recline level on the seat, which is designed to be used with even the smallest babies, starting from 3 lbs. Instructional labels were minimal and only included on one side of the car seat shell, which may make them difficult to see depending on which side of the car you’re installing the car seat in.

Fit-to-vehicle LATCH: We had difficulty getting a proper recline suitable for smaller babies when installing the car seat and base with LATCH connectors.

Fit-to-vehicle belt: We had difficulty getting a proper recline suitable for smaller babies when installing the car seat and base with the seat belt.

Crash protection: This seat performed well in CR’s crash tests when compared with other infant car seats we tested.

About

The Evenflo LiteMax NXT is part of the Car Seats test program at Consumer Reports. In our lab tests, Infant Car Seat models like the LiteMax NXT are rated on multiple criteria, such as those listed below.

Maximum weight: The maximum weight of a child that a model will accommodate.

Ease of use: Includes the clarity of instructions, installing the seat, adjusting harness positions, placing a child in the seat, securing the harness, and removing the child.

Fit-to-vehicle LATCH: A rating of how easy it is to securely and correctly install each seat using the LATCH system in a variety of vehicles and how well the seats fit each vehicle once installed.

Additional Information

Good to know: All child car seats sold in the United States are required to meet government safety standards.

About our testing: Consumer Reports’ child car seat tests are not designed to test compliance with federal standards. Rather, we evaluate car seat performance under conditions designed by our experts that go beyond the required federal safety standards. Consumer Reports’ independent car seat crash test program has been carefully designed to simulate the forces encountered during a crash, while replicating some of the real-world factors that might impact a car seat’s performance. Our testing aims to determine which car seats could provide an extra level of safety when compared to other models in the same category.

Basic, Better, or Best: CR rates the child car seats we crash test on a scale of Basic, Better, and Best, based on the additional margin of safety they may provide. Read about how we test car seats to learn more about our crash test protocol.

Features & Specs

Features

Load leg

Flame-retardant-free options

Yes

Rotating seat

LATCH connections

Hook

Harness height adjustment

External

Harness tension adjustment

Single Pull Front

Base recline level indicator type

Pendulum

Base recline level indicator position

Front

Carrier recline level indicator type

Line

Carrier recline level indicator position

One Side

Adjustable base

Yes

Belt lockoff

Yes

Adjustable crotch strap

Yes

Handle restriction

Carrier use without base

Yes

Spanish language instructions

Included

Specs

Weight range (lbs.)

3-30

Height range (in.)

15.7 to 32"

Carrier weight (lbs.)

Seat/base weight (lbs.)

Base width (in.)

Carrier width (in.)

Overall length (in.)

Good small car fit

Yes

Price & Shop

Evenflo LiteMax NXT

Price

Description

CR's Expert Take

Overall Score

What goes into the Overall Score?

EXPERT LAB TESTS

CR's Take

Detailed Test Results

About

Additional Information

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