Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Mutsy- a contender?

Well I thought the Mutsy 4rider was going to be the perfect stroller for me and I was on the brink of buying one. However, while this seems like a fab stroller on paper, it doesn't quite measure up in real life.
the goods: the Mutsy has a reversible seat, bassinet, and can take a car seat. It has great big air tires in back and small swivel wheels in front. a decent basket, nice adjustable handlebar, and my favorite part- a real seat!
what i mean is that unlike the bugaboo, stokke, micralite and orbit--the mutsy has a full seat and not a bucket seat. So you can independantly adjust the seat back to recline and the footrest to be in any position. This way you can recline the seat and put the footrest up and create a sort of bassinet which encloses the baby. This is a feature I was so excited about when I saw the mutsy.
The seat also has a cool feature (which takes time to figure out- hey it's European of course it's impossible to figure out) - the seat has an adjustable depth so that little babies are more comfy and big kids get more room.
Oh- and another great feature is that the bassinet sits very high up (i believe as high as the stokke bassinet) soooo helpful when you have a newborn and need to pick them up every 5 minutes. And when you're changing diapers it's great to have somewhere easy to do it.

So what is my beef with the Mutsy?
The steering, the heavy bulky fold and the width.
I really think that the steering is just not as easy as it should be. It feels like you need 2 hands on the handlebar to take sharp turns and steer straight. It is a heavy stroller (around 30 lbs) and you feel this weight when strolling. For $679 I would really like some fabulous steering. The bugaboo delivers, the stokke delivers, the micralite delivers (according to owners the orbit delivers)- but the Mutsy seems to lag behind.
The fold is huge and very heavy so that it feels nearly impossible to pick up. For an outdooors only stroller that doesn't make a difference, but for frequent trips to the mall you're gonna wish you had something else.
The width is 26 1/2 inches. This is just a very wide stroller for indoor use. Again, for this much money you shouldn't be pushing around a monster. If you like prams- this is probably the a good urban subsitute, but for the average stroller user the Mutsy is just not practical.

The conclusion- a good outdoor stroller- not too great for everyday car use.