This car seat is simple and affordable, has it's advantages, but is let down in other areas

The first thing I noticed was the lightness of this car seat. I have had back trouble before but found this to be easy to install and I could walk afterwards - some of the other car seats we have used have led to anger and frustration and a visit to a chiropractor after getting it in. It also make it easier to transport between cars - and remove if you are looking to save fuel on longer trips with your youngster. We have one large car and another that is not so large, and it seems to fit in both with relative ease.

The reason for this lightness however is that there is no additional side impact protection or much padding (either for comfort or safety), but then my daughter didn't seem to mind this. In some car seats the baby is so far back/cocooned in padding, it cannot see anything around it, whereas she was happily pointing at trees and fields out of the window in this.

This convertible car seat faces rear and front with a rear-facing weight limit of 35lbs and a forward facing weight limit of 35lbs. It has four harness height slots which give a good range of heights as your little one grows (and boy do they grow fast), as well as three fastening positions. I found reversing it (or facing it forwards) to be fairly simple as well, with a quick turnover of the foot that it rests on. The straps were also fairly easy to change heights, although my wife did struggle at first with the slightly confusing instruction manual. There were also several loops and apparent 'slots' which we were unsure of and we ended up 'posting' some of the excess straps throught these to keep them out of the way. This is actually a good thing a my daughter used to like playing with the strap on her old car seat, which we weren't comfortable with.

I didn't particularly like the straps, they seemed to twist quite easily and require un-twisting at regular times. This can be annoying if you are just nipping to the shops.

The material is good, though I expect there will be several options available - my 16 month old tested it thoroughly with crisps, juice and ground in raisins, all of which came off with relative ease. I have only just got one, so cannot tell yet if it is durable, but it survived the slight tugging and pulling needed to get it into the car, so that's a good sign.

One other slight down side is that it didn't seem to stay recliend very well - this is frustrating, particularly if you are on a long journey and require your baby to sleep along the way, and was worse in the smaller car where there was less room. This may have been to do with the angle of the back seats, and their lack of firmness. In the larger car the seats have less 'give' and hence gave more support.

Overall I would recommend thisif you are on a tight budget, but would go for something more sturdier/padded if you can afford it