Review of Safety 1st OnSide Air Protect Convertible Car Seat

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i drive a 2 door hyundai accent and do not wish to own a bigger vehicle. so, when my son out grew his infant seat and i started looking for the next step...i was shocked! car seats are made with bigger SUV/mini van type vehicles in mind. i wanted a britax but couldn't find one that would fit in my car! at first, i was so bummed when i realized that this was the only one that would fit but it didn't take long for me to realize that this car seat is as good as any of the ones that are three times as expensive.

when i had the car seat checked, i was told by the professional car seat checker (haha) that the difference between models is really superficial and more about "appearing" more safe by adding extra padding. this car seat is light weight, easy to install, and leaves room in the back seat for another passenger. my only (small) disappointment was that when the car seat is rear facing, the seat that it is behind will not go all the way back. with a small car like mine though, that is par for the course.

i am very satisfied with this car seat.

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Just received this seat from amazon.com and its pretty darn nice. We were originally looking at the air convertible 65. That seat costs $179-$200 in some places!!!! I wanted to justify buying the $180 car seat that looked just plain bad-ass....But I couldn't. After lots of research I discovered that ALL car seats sold in this country meet or exceed federal guidelines for child safety....Keep in mind, these guidelines are rarely updated and vehicle technology/structure has drastically changed in the last 20-30 years. Long story short, guidelines aren't hard to conform to. If they were car seats would cost lots more dough, and we would have fewer choices. Y'know, it would threaten the car seat industry :/

Now really about the seat-

For the money I feel its a square deal. Its a nice car seat, more open for my kid to look around. It seems to be far more comfy than her first seat which she had outgrown, she's pretty chubby(more to love & protect). I actually like the color scheme. It matches the inside of my Jeep well, in fact, its almost identical in pattern and colors are spot on. The installation is idiot proof(but I wouldn't put it past some of the people I see runnin' around) with stickers everywhere telling you explicitly where the seat belt or built in anchoring belt goes. READ THE STICKERS!!!Only use one of the methods, seat-belt or built in anchoring, not both. Do you wear two belts? No, unless you're a cop or perhaps Lady Gaga...

The "air" system. I believe its a gimmick. They don't provide any stats or real data on why it makes your kid safer, therefor I am left to assume. I suppose it makes sense in a side impact crash that more cushioning around the child's melon will protect it better than, let's say, a bag of potatoes, but Other than feeling like a memory foam mattress and looking cool, I believe it makes your kid no safer than other car seats.

This will fit in smaller vehicles,(Jeep Patriot) no doubt. I am, however, 6' 3" and require a bit of extra leg room. This seat has forced me to be a bit cramped, but once I put it forward facing, that won't be a problem anymore.

I posed the idea that because this seat is rated up to 40 lbs that the extra $100 for the convertible 65 se was maybe a better option lasting her until she was 65 lbs. But I looked at booster seats and those range from as low as $25, so fiscally I would argue this is the best deal you can get for a child seat and it will last you as long as your child is small enough to be a in a car seat.

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Now, this is the thirteenth car seat I have installed for my children (this is my third child). I have never had a car seat that was "easy" to install but this one was particularly difficult. The way the latch is desinged, when you are kneeling on the seat you need to pull the strap straight back towards you but you can't because of the side of the car seat. If you look at the picture near the legs it is very deep which is great for safety but makes the installation very difficult. It also took three noodles to achieve the proper level in my 2005 Hyudai Elantra. It also does not allow the front passenger seat to go back very far and ultimately could make an uncomfortable ride for my passengers. With that said, to adjust the harness height you would need to uninstall the car seat, remove and rethread the straps and reinstall the car seat which is not something I am looking forward too. We have had other "all in one" car seats and I swore off those when my sons broke down from the sun in just three years so we are purchasing by stages now. Over all I love the car seat but my back really didn't like the installation. The four stars are for the safety and design and I removed one star due to the installation.

Edited 10/3/11 I brought the seat to a car seat safety check point to have it checked (especially since I was so sure of my installation) and low and behold I had it in wrong. They did show me a way to EASILY install the seat rear facing though. If you push the front seats all the way up and stand between the front seat and the back seat with the top of the car seat at your hip level, you can push on the car seat (while keeping the 45 degree angle without noodles)while you pull the latch strap and poof! installed in under a minute. I now love this seat and how completely easy it is to install (now that I know the trick)

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My children and I were in a car accident last weekend and my daughter was in this exact same seat. The impact of the collision was pretty serious and she didn't even budge! This car seat saved my daughter. I would buy this car seat 100 times over before I bought anything else!

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After seeing Consumer Reports' ratings for this seat (ranked highest for up to 40lb harness capacity), and finding a good deal, my husband and I finally settled on buying this seat. We spent a lot of time researching seats and looking at them in stores, so when I realized how light-weight this seat was, I was pretty confused. A sales associate at Babies R Us kept throwing out the number "30" for the number of pounds that most convertible seats weighed as a single unit because we liked the idea of a seat that had flexibility from one car to another (we had one seat and two bases for our infant carrier). Anyway, this chair is extremely lightweight, but apparently manages to get decent safety ratings ("very good" for crash protection from Consumer Reports). Who knew?

We had no problems installing this in our Prius. It fit well rear-facing and we still had plenty of leg room in the front seat. It's a great fit for our daughter who is a very petite 16 month-old. She looks happy and comfortable in it.

When we found a good deal on this seat again, we decided to buy a second for our other car instead of switching it back and forth between cars.

The real praise is after taking a trip to the East Coast from California. We opted to buy our daughter a seat in the plane since it's the safest thing to do and she'd never last sitting on our laps for hours. This seat, along with the "Traveling Toddler" strap saved us on our journey. Being that this seat was so lightweight, it made traveling with it about as easy as one could hope. Using the Traveling Toddler, we were able to strap this seat to a rolling suitcase to use in place of a stroller while in the busy airports. Our daughter loved it! I also did a lot of reading about installing convertible seats in airplane seats and read a lot of people running across problems with having a difficult time buckling/unbuckling the seatbelt in the slots for the carseat. I read lots of tips about asking for seatbelt extenders, twisting the buckle so it's upside-down, etc. I did not need to do any of these things and was able to strap and unstrap this seat in and out with ease when it was empty. Carrying it on and off the plane was made easy by its light weight. We had two layovers each direction, so I dealt with this seat for a total of 6 flights on our trip plus using it in the rental car and had no problems at all. I can't imagine having a much heavier seat and saying the same thing.

I guess what it comes down to is whether it works in your vehicle or not. Most of the negative reviews are dealing with the installation of it, in which we've had no problems. But if you're someone who travels with your little one and need a seat to do that, I highly recommend this seat.