Usually these "features" make a powerchair much worse!

• (Continued) If you are small, (child?) or light. and never want to go outdoors then there are many reasonably cheap indoor only powerchairs that are dimensionally small and that have small solid wheels and castor wheels.
  
  These use relatively small batteries and the small wheels and tight dimensions allow maximum capability and manoeuvrability indoors. But these are really out of their depth when you leave the house! They lack the power, range, speed and the small wheels seem to hit every rut and crack in the pavements.
  
  These can be used outdoors at a push if you want to suffer being all shook up and with the inevitable failures that will happen. And the smaller batteries will limit your range and will need replacing earlier due to the average depth of discharge being higher. If you want to go outdoors properly then you really need more speed, proper bigger tyres and 9 or 10 inch castor wheels and if you are heavy bigger 55 or 70 amp hour batteries. So know what you want to do with it and how far you intend to travel outdoors.
  
  
• Outdoor only powerchairs are uncommon. Indoor/outdoor ones are more common. But obviously better suited to outdoors in some cases!  They will have big batteries, higher 6 to 8 mph speeds and are generally bigger.
  
  It is however possible to find an indoor/outdoor powerchair than can be good outdoors and that still has the compact dimensions needed for indoors as well. But there are not too many and I am not going to point you at them so you can blame me when you don't like them!  The main problem is that the manufacturers don't seem to understand just how important every inch really is!     Range  Depends on, pattern of use, how much indoors or outdoors, if you live in a hilly area or a nice flat one, if you drive on thick carpets and grass, user weight (hugely), and a bunch of other smaller considerations. There are no rules here other than ignore the salesman and the brochure. Its like this. You want the biggest batteries you can find in any powerchair you are looking at. Batteries are ALWAYS the weak point if you intend to use your powerchair a lot.
  
  Battery technology isn't really good enough yet, that's why all the powerchairs with "full all day range" and a barely usable 6mph top speed are so big. The batteries are huge and heavy. A full size all day powerchair has 55ah to 75ah batteries or in some cases bigger still. Even at that size they don't last all day if you go far, are heavy, or you live in a hilly area or drive on grass... 
  
  If battery technology was good enough powerchairs would all be smaller lighter so great indoors and all be capable of 8mph with a fat bloke on board all day long. But they are not and that's why. Consider the battery issue carefully.  Assess your weight, your needs, the chairs length with you in it, and you need to measure its width with it adjusted for your seat cushion size. And then consider speed and its detrimental effect on torque and range and battery longevity..
  
  If you are light, the batteries are pretty new you will get about half what the brochure claims in "real world" conditions with road cambers and ramps and lots of turning left/right etc.  I have a page powerchair range here.  So don't expect a folding or indoor powerchair to go all day outdoors with their small batteries unless you are about 5 stone and live on a runway. Consider this when buying a powerchair. Batteries are one of the greatest problems people have with them. 
  
  And remember that if you run your batteries down to 80 percent of their capability daily you will need new ones inside a year! The lower the average discharge level the longer they last. Another good reason to buy a "full sized" powerchair with small overall dimensions and big batteries even if you don't "need" them.
  
  
• Mid wheel drive These are very popular now especially in North America due to the marketing value that their "perceived agility" gives them. Due mainly to the slightly incorrectly perceived benefit of their greater manoeuvrability by having the wheels in the centre. It "looks" on the face of it to be a great idea to have the main wheels directly under you.  It seems like it will offer better control and abilities in tight spots.
  
  But although the often advertised superior "turning radius" looks good on paper that's not what you actually need in practice in the real world. It CAN be helpful in some situations. Mostly its not.  To turn around in my hallway it doesn't matter what your advertised "turning radius" value is, all that really counts is the total length of the powerchair.  (And the diagonal length corner to corner as seen from above)
  
  You see on my own REAR DRIVE powerchair below (see photograph) my head touches the wall first when I reverse. The total length from my head to the tip of that long deep footplate is 40 inches. Of course its a little longer with my size 11s on there but not by much.  I even trimmed 4 inches from those push handles on the seat, moved the seat back (along with my legs of course!), shortened the anti tip wheels too get it to reverse back this close so my head touches first...  Every inch matters on a powerchair.  EVERY SINGLE ONE. Any chair longer than 40 inches long (plus my toes) cannot turn here in my hallway. That includes almost all mid wheel drive powerchairs that are indoor/outdoor types. And many that are indoor only. But this isn't just my hallway we are talking about. Its every restaurant, bar, bedroom, and every time you turn in a confined space. 
  
  Several pride mid drive powerchair owners that have tried to turn in my hallway and cannot do so. They have a total length that is longer than my hallway is wide.  And they cannot go into my bathroom and come out forwards either. They cannot turn in the space available regardless of what the "advantageous" turning radius" quoted says!  They have too many bits sticking out in the corners.
  
  And all of  the front wheel drive powerchairs that I have ever seen try it certainly could not!   Swing away footrests, and rear casters compound the problems as they are in the "corners" making the diagonals longer and unpredictable as they swing around behind you.  "Corners" are bad.  They prevent you from say turning into a doorway from a narrow corridor. So a mid drive powerchair really doesn't help you indoors unless its short too without any "corners". 
  
  If you cant reverse to a wall until your head touches it then your powerchair is too long and wasting space and is therefore lacking possible manoeuvrability.  Its just too just long!   Maybe find a different design for indoor use if compactness and manoeuvrability matter to you.  Or modify yours as I did
  
  In addition mid drive powerchairs have 6 wheels on the ground. They have to have!  Or they would fall over either backwards or forwards. This also causes a few issues. Even forgetting about them getting in the way they cause the wobble factor! They have to have some kind of "give" or suspension in these extra front or rear casters. Otherwise when you drive off a ramp you would either leave the drive wheels clear off the ground or the opposite effect at the top of a ramp where you wobble about with the casters off the ground which scares people. Same thing happens anywhere the ground isn't actually level.  So they "have" to be able to move.
  
  That means that either they are too stiff to allow you to drive easily over a say 2 inch step easily, or so loose that they can do the small step thing but you wobble back and forth like a drunken sailor as you accelerate and decelerate!  The idea is to get them adjusted to be tight enough to stop the wobbling but loose enough to allow you to navigate a bit of the uneven real world!  And I hate compromises.  They seem to manage to be a bit bad at all of the above.
  
  If you have not experienced any of these things then you either don't use a powerchair very hard and/or you don't have the thing programmed to go and stop hard as I NEED to be able to do.  Ever wondered why you don't see any real vehicles with casters at both ends? Compromises like this offend good engineers. I've tried a good few mid drive powerchairs. They all make me seasick and I can't wheelie up or off curbs etc. They look ungainly and they slow me down.  I have to look for ramps with one of these mid wheel powerchairs. With my own powerchair I just wheelie and go off or up small curbs.
  
  Some people however swear by them. They don't suit me or my lifestyle though. Either way you know what to look for. Now you can test them and decide if they suit you while understanding these issues. They may suit you fine. The only way to see what suits you is to try them out. But it helps if you know what you are looking for.

Detailed PowerChair Only Menu    Wheelchair Width

See National Health Service CAN supply powerchairs as well!