Thermos are renowned for manufacturing flasks which can keep drinks warm for an extended period of time - but they also make sports bottles. One such example is the Thermos Hydro Active, which is widely available from a number of high street stores and online retailers. I picked mine up from Halfords for just over £4, but they can be bought a little cheaper if you shop around.

Made from a durable soft plastic, the bottle is available in three colours and has a 450ml capacity. The Hydro Active has a handy feature which takes the form of a hollow plastic section running down its centre that can be filled with water and subsequently frozen. Although this may seem like a bit of a gimmick, it does work very well and helps keep your water, juice, or squash cold for longer. The bottle is easy to fill via a screw section on its top, and the hole to drink from uses an easy-to-close flap with a rubber seal inside.

The good and the bad points
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Safe for dishwasher use, the Thermos bottle is comfortable to hold and easy to grip with its contoured body featuring rubberized sections. After washing out, the bottle thankfully doesn't absorb the odour of the previous liquid as some bottles do - there's nothing worse than filling up a sports bottle with fresh water, only to taste a mild version of the squash you had in it a few weeks back! In terms of the bottle's bad points, well there's only one really... sometimes, and for no apparent reason, it will leak. Obviously a leaky sports bottle isn't a good sports bottle, and on the occasions it has leaked, the lid has been fastened correctly and securely.

Final Word
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Although it's comfortable to hold and easy to drink from, the Thermos Hydro Active bottle has leaked once too many times for my liking, and is therefore not my primary bottle of choice when I go to play squash. Perhaps i've got a faulty one - but I can only report on my personal experience, which hasn't been completely satisfactory.