Narrowing down the pushchair options

[LucOw]

So we've been having a very good look around and narrowed down our choices to four pushchairs. We plan to go and have another look this weekend, but for now our needs are:

1. Pushchair seat, carrycot and carseat (could be different brand car seat, so long as adapters are available)
2. Hard sided / rigid carrycot (I'm not 100 confident my choices below all have this - but will confirm this weekend)
3. Enxtendable handle
4. Car seat to have compatible ISOFix base (which I can't see the Kiddicare has)

After looking, we like:

1. Mamas and Papas Zoom (Trio)
2. Kiddicare Iona (Don't think there is a car seat base)
3. Joie Chrome
4. Graco Symbio B

I would love to hear comments about any of these. We are trying to keep to a budget of about £400 (not including car seat base), maybe £500 with.

The Zoom is awful and the Kiddicare pushchairs generally don't have the best reputation and neither do their customer service departments if something goes wrong so to be honest I wouldn't go near either of those.

I've heard great things about the Chrome and having used a friends Symbio its a decent bit of kit.

The chrome is great, the gemm car seat is better than the cabriofix imo. I would definitely keep that one on the list. Also the I anchor base takes the next size car seat.

I know nothing about the symbio b, I see a few around, I think I would rather go for the Evo. I don't know if the car seat has an Isofix base though.

The Kiddicare Iona looks almost identical to the my child pinto, which has a good review on Best Buggy. I liked what I have seen from the other my child pushchairs so I would be fairly positive about this and keep it under consideration.

Haven't used a zoom, don't hear much good about it really. Even less good about m&p generally.

You might squeeze an oyster 2 in your budget. Possibly.

Would you consider a newborn to age 4 Isofix rear facing car seat? Like the britax dual fix, hauck varioguard or joie I anchor? I would do that if I was starting again. I never used the infant seat on the frame though, I was never comfortable with it.

Thank you both. I've read a couple of middle-of-the-road reviews of the Zoom, so this backs that up. I do like the look of the Joie and that's good to know about the I-Anchor base - the website doesn't make it clear if the 0-4 seat would work in the pushchair frame too, so I will try to find that out.

I had looked at the Oyster 2, and although it looks good, it is a little more than I was looking to spend. If it had a number of clear advantages, I would seriously consider it.

The Evo is out, I was kicking the frame when walking and it doesn't have the extendable handles.

The 0-4 seats definitely don't fit the frame, they'd be bigger than the pushchair itself.

We've made a decision to go with the Joie Chrome, with carrycot and Gemm car seat using the I-Anchor base. After having a more thorough look this weekend, it had pretty much everything we were looking for. Thank you for the advice.

How much were you going to pay for the joie chrome? Cheapest I could find with car seat And carrycot is £500

Pushchair at Mothercare - £170
Carrycot at Mothercare - £100
Gemm car seat - £60 (multiple online stores)
Total £330

Then I'll add the I-Anchor base at £100 soon.

If you ask at the till to sign up to mothercare club you get £10 off a £100 spend so you'd save another tenner.

I've also decided to go for a chrome after seeing them in mothercare the lady ww very helpful and told me about the offer. I'm holding off to get mine for a while as the last offer before the current one was that you could get the lot (car seat, travel cot and pushchair) for £230. I'm not due till Christmas Eve so I'm hoping that offer will come up again!

I mean carrycot not travel cot!