city pram Archives - A Baby on Board blog

iCandy Raspberry Review; Is It The Ultimate Urban Pram?

Gillian — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 05:00:40 +0000

If You’re Interested In Buying A New Baby Stroller, Read Our iCandy Raspberry Stroller Review Here’s our iCandy Raspberry review – us the iCandy Raspberry buggy the ultimate stroller for city living? Marketed as a lightweight pushchair for urban adventures, we’ve been testing it to see how true this is. Why You Need A Good Pram For City Living Why do you need a good pram in you live in a city? Living in London and having no car means any pram we use has to be suitable for a lot of use on public transport. This is especially true for when I’m by myself on buses, trains and the tube, which means any pram has to be carried up and down millions of steps in lift-free south London train stations) then into small spaces like shops and restaurants and so on. As as the iCandy Raspberry is marketed as a city pram, we decided to take it on our usual day of doing…all these types of things. iCandy Raspberry Review: How Easy Is It To Use On Public Transport? This is key for any pram for us; it has to be narrow, small and light. So we took the iCandy Raspberry on the bus… (living the bus stop dream!)…and had no problems. The iCandy Raspberry is narrow so easily copes with getting down the aisle. It also fitted into the pram section on the bus, along with two others on one of our journeys (which only usually happens when everyone has umbrella folds). The handle also folds down which means it doesn’t stick out too far and get in everyone’s way when they walk past. A additional bonus point is that it free-stands once folded, which is also useful for storing it at home (it’s not the easiest fold to master at first though). The Raspberry is billed as a lightweight stroller, and it is – I can easily carry it plus child and lift it off buses and trains. How Easy Is It To Use The iCandy Raspberry Stroller? Out and about in general the iCandy Raspberry handles really well and steers easily, especially one-handed, something which is pretty important when you have another child and a million bags to hold on to. It’s probably not the sturdiest pram for going off-road, but it’s fine on escalators. And because it’s so narrow and small it’s easy to take into shops…or out to lunch. What Features Does The iCandy Raspberry Stroller Have? With the liner in, the iCandy seat is padded and seems pretty comfortable – obviously she can’t tell me just yet (!) but Florence napped in it when we took her out and has every time she’s been out in it since. The seat reclines easily and it’s so smooth it can be done with the child in it. The shopping basket on the iCandy Raspberry is pretty roomy, although when it’s reclined in parent-facing mode, the foot plate means it’s more difficult to get things out of there. The hood is huge and it offers good nap / sun coverage, but it’s made of a single layer of thin fabric and does seem slightly flimsy. The Raspberry can be both forward and parent facing (something else that’s essential to us in any pram). It fits the standard Maxi Cosi car seat but you do need to buy the adapters separately. There’s also a hidden secret compartment behind the footplate which stores the raincover, but you could easily use it to store money / keys / phone if you nip out without a bag. I also liked the simple iCandy Raspberry design as it’s sleek and streamlined. There’s seven different colours – we went for the Wisteria (aka purple) – and you can have the chassis in either brushed aluminium or black. How Big Is The Seat On The iCandy Raspberry Buggy? A big criticism I’ve read is that the iCandy seat is too small. It isn’t the widest seat (and it’s smaller even than the one on our smallish current pram). But I don’t know if we’re just used to smaller seats, as it doesn’t seem that small to me, especially as most people I know buy this type of pram from birth and then swap to an umbrella fold later on anyway (and Eliza started refusing the pram at around 2.5 so we wouldn’t be using it that long anyway). Everyone is different, so go and test it out and see. There’s also no handle strap, which seems like an odd – and fairly simple – omission, especially due to all the other safety features like the five point harness. Our iCandy Raspberry Review: What Did We Think? Whenever I write pram reviews I’m always as honest as possible about our experiences, as prams are a big investment! But I did really like the iCandy Raspberry and the only negatives I can find are quite small compared to the positive. I had read some really mixed reviews on the pram, but they really didn’t seem to match our experience at all. Out of all the prams we’ve reviewed, it’s the only one I’d actually use in our day-to-day life. We have our pram that we bought before Eliza was born that’s still going strong on our second baby, and the iCandy Raspberry is the nearest to that we’ve tried. The Raspberry ticks all the city living criteria boxes for us and is definitely one to strongly consider if you live in a city. You can buy it from John Lewis here from £420, with the seat liner and newborn pod and footmuff as extras. You can also read our review of the Bugaboo Bee 5 If you like our iCandy Raspberry review read more posts: everything you’ll obsess about in your baby’s first year, the SnuzPod co-sleeper cot review the Britax Affinity stroller and presents for playful one-year-olds. Thanks to iCandy for the pram – also contains affiliate links.

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Our Quinny Moodd review

Gillian — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 10:20:36 +0000

Are you looking to buy a pram or travel system, considering the Quinny Moodd buggy and want to read a Quinny Moodd review? Our Quinny Moodd review: We were recently invited along to meet with Quinny at The Baby Show, for a special top secret buggy review mission. We were given the new model of the Moodd to try out while we were there, and have been reviewing it for the past few weeks. So here’s what we thought (you can also read my iCandy Raspberry review, Britax Affinity review and Armadillo Flip XT review) But first, some background on us and prams: We don’t have a car at the moment, so any pram we use has to be suitable for public transport (the bus, tube, taxis, south London’s Dickensian train station network with lots of stairs and no lifts and so on) and getting in, out and around central London Our flat is up two flights of stairs, and as we don’t like to leave things downstairs overnight we need something that’s fairly portable We went for a Bugaboo (the Bee+) before Eliza was born – as it’s very small and light – and it’s been brilliant. We recently bought a Maclaren Volo to take on holiday, and have used it a lot as it’s even lighter and more portable than the Bee. Moving on to the Quinny Moodd, some first thoughts: It’s a three wheel pram with an automatic, hydraulic unfold motion Suitable from birth to 15kg, it comes with a padded ‘baby nest’ cocoon that fits on top of the seat when reclined and is secured with the straps. We haven’t used this but it looks pretty cosy From six months+ you can use the normal seat, which can be in both forward and parent facing modes and has three levels of recline Maxi Coxi carseat adaptors are included, so you don’t have to fork out extra for these – and it fits the Stage 1 Maxi Cosi carseats It comes in seven different colours (ours has a black frame and red accessories) It costs around £600 and you can buy it at most major baby-focused retailers. The price includes the baby nest, shopping basket, parasol clip, sun canopy with UV50+ protection, raincover, t-bar and car seat adapters. The good points… The Quinny Moodd is strong, stable and robust. It’s light to push and easy to steer, even one handed. The air tyres means it’s a very smooth ride Eliza loved being higher up, and the padded t-bar at the front. I suspect she likes to think she’s driving it It looks great – the frame and design is very modern, the colours are vibrant The seat is padded and slightly curved round the sides which makes for a good head rest. Eliza finds it really comfortable (and the acid test; she fell asleep in it within about 10 minutes at The Baby Show) It also reclines really smoothly and easily even when your child is asleep in it (see above) Although it doesn’t fare so well as an city / urban pram for reasons I’ll come on to shortly, it was great on longer walks, through parks and on uneven pavements and roads. I imagine it will be very useful in colder weather too …and the not so good points It’s very heavy and I really struggle to pick it up, let alone carry it up and down stairs This means it’s tough to use when you live on the top floor, as well as making public transport tricky I don’t know if I’m just used to the tiny Bugaboo, but the back wheel span on the Moodd is huge, which means it’s hard to get through narrow doors and around shops. And while it can fit on the bus, it does take up most of the space It’s still fairly large even when it’s folded down (you’d need a big car boot). And some other thoughts: It fitted in a taxi with no problems, although the driver did have to help me to lift it in and out. There’s no danger of it falling over when you go round corners (this is as issue with the lightweight Maclaren) The tyres are inflatable, making it really smooth to sit and and great to push. It comes with a pump which is stored in the basket. And speaking of, the shopping basket is wide but very shallow, and as the bar of the pram cuts across the top so it’s difficult to put any big bags in it (and loose items aren’t particularly stable). Obviously this isn’t a deal breaker, but it does make your life a lot more difficult when you’re shopping A minor safety point, but there’s no wrist strap on the handle. What’s our overall verdict? The Quinny Moodd is a really strong, robust pram. You get a lot of pram for the money and features like the automatic unfold are really unusual and clever. It’s very easy to get up, down, change the seat round and put in recline. We were really impressed with the design, look and feel and how easy to use it was. The Maxi Cosi integration is really useful, as are the free adaptors. It’s not the most practical pram for city use or our current circumstances, due to the weight and size. It would be great if you go on a lot of long walks in the countryside, and I do think we’ll use it more when we move house and don’t have to cope with stairs. But if none of these issues are a factor – e.g. if you live in a house, on the ground floor, drive a car with a big boot, don’t have to use public transport – it’s definitely one to consider, especially as it’s so comfortable for babies and mine loved it. We were given a Quinny Moodd pram for the purposes of this review. Read my disclosure policy here. Make […]

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