More warped plastics from Safety 1st
Written: Feb 23 '04 (Updated Mar 07 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Connections to adult seat
Cons: Backrest installation and hinge. Difficult adjustments for height and recline positions.
The Bottom Line: Must be better seats out there but I haven't had chance to review them yet. This one's fine as long as you don't have to stow or make frequent adjustments.
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| chretiensucks's Full Review: Safety 1st 3 Stage Reclining Booster Seat 41769 |
Due to an upcoming road trip to avoid our hellish winters, my wife went out to purchase a booster seat for our potential restaurant stops along the way. Enter the Safety 1st All-in-One reclining booster seat ideal for children from 3 to 48 months as long as they are within a certain size. One strange note: On the website Q&A, it states that the seat is recommended more for toddlers than infants but yet, on the box, it has a large picture of a baby in the seat?
The Epinions photo is of a white one. We purchased a blue one as shown on Safety 1st’s website. You have to love these pictures that include on the boxes illustrating a very happy baby and mother using the seat (http://www.safety1st.com/product.asp?productID=84).
There seems to be something disturbingly familiar with Safety 1st products and in reviewing this booster seat, I know what it is. See my review of another warped plastic product http://www.epinions.com/content_114822254212.
That familiarity is due to the fact the cheap plastics don’t fit together easily. Obviously the mother in the picture didn’t put the seat together otherwise she would have hopefully realized what shoddy workmanship went into this product. We also have a Safety 1st baby monitor that I haven’t reviewed but cheap plastics and workmanship don’t have as much importance with monitors since they're not subject to the same physical rigor as a bath tub or booster seat.
Features
- 3 height adjustments
- 6 reclining positions
- Foldable backrest
- T-bar safety restraint
- 3 point belt restraint
Assembly and Installation
Very little assembly is required and you do not need any tools. Two separate and adjustable belts are easily threaded through the seat bottom so it can be strapped to a regular chair. One belt will go around the chair’s bottom, the other one will go around the back. Together, these belts provide sufficient restraint to prevent the booster seat from moving around very much.
The high backrest is another story. You have to press down the backrest quite hard to get it to snap into the booster seat. By the time it actually snapped in, I could see a stress fracture in the plastic.
Positioning and Adjustability
Theoretically, this backrest also folds back to save space so that it can be stowed away or brought along for travel. Good luck! This backrest is very difficult to unlatch. It does save space though if you manage to do so.
There are 3 height positions you can achieve by pulling (very hard) on one lever on each side of the base and lifting the seat (while putting your foot on the base). The springs for the levers are very stiff and may need some working in but hopefully you won’t have to adjust the height very frequently.
If you haven’t given up hope on this product yet, there’s always the 6 reclining positions available to you. Because of the poor tolerances and slight warp age of the plastics, again this is a more difficult exercise than it should be. It seems that pushing down on the front button while sliding the seat isn’t enough to do the job. You have to involve some acrobatics as well to get it to disengage from one of the 6 slots. And forget about trying to do this while your child is in the booster as his weight will most assuredly add to the problem of the warped plastics preventing the button from coming out of one of the six designated slots easily.
The tray is the only saving grace as it is easily removed and slid forward and backwards with the easy pull of two levers.
Fabrics and materials
The backrest fabric is an easily wipeable material and can be removed without a problem. But remove it too many times and it doesn’t look like it will stay on the backrest any more. It’s only held by two stiff Styrofoam pieces which slide into slots in the backrest. And you have to bend these Styrofoam pieces every time you want to remove and reconnect the fabric.
Accessories
I didn’t even bother removing the toys which would attach indentations in the tray from the sealed plastic bags because 1) they look a little boring, and 2) I might return this booster seat.
Conclusion
This would be a great booster seat if it weren’t for the poor tolerances of the plastics. Investing a little money in making specific plastic pieces a little harder and less warped would go a long way in improving the projected quality of this product. It’s not that the seat would necessarily break easily as it comes with a 1 year warranty but its toted “features” never seem to work that well.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
chretiensucks
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Member: joe unpronounceable
Location: GTA, Ontario, Canada
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 3 members
About Me:
How do people with more than one child do it?
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