Safety 1st onBoard 35 Infant Car Seat, Nitron
- Rear-facing 4 to 35 pounds
- Side impact protection
- Adjustable stay in car base with belt lock device for easy installation
- Best fitting harness design for premmies and 17% more leg room than most infant car seats
- 5 point harness system with up front harness adjustments and removable, washable pad
Is this the safest infant seat on the market? Who knows, but it may well be. Perhaps the
“air-protect” is a gimmick, but it makes seems like a considerable advance in safety. Airbags in cars are particularly effective, and the use of passive airbags for head protection in a carseat sounds great to me.
What isn’t a gimmick is that this car seat fits up to 35 lbs – which is more than any other infant seat. Plus, it isn’t any heavier than a normal infant seat – the carrier weighs just 8 or 9 lbs.
The materials feel top notch, and look snazzy… Well, it looks about as cool as a carseat can look, which isn’t saying much. The seat is very deep, which means true side-impact protection (airbags nonwithstanding) and more leg room for the little ones. The harness is very adjustable, and the single pull tensioner makes securing the child very easy. (The straps can be nice and loose to put the kid in, and with one tug on the tensioner, all the straps tighten right up.)
The base has an adjustable wedge so you can find the correct installation angle (supposedly) without using any towels or pool toys as shims. It works really easily, and can raise the seat to a fairly good angle to make up for deep or soft seats. Also – the infant insert isn’t just a bit of padding – it has several parts and can be adjusted in many ways, which is probably why this seat can fit all the way down to a child of 4 lbs! Very well thought out.
Since some of our friends have complained of outgrowing even the (supposed) 30 lb weight-limit seats within 4-5 months, we’re hoping to get much longer out of this seat. (It appears that most manufacturers raise the weight limits of their seats arbitrarily… Many children simply don’t fit in the seats well before they reach the weight limit.) We were planning to get a Maxi-Cosi Mico, but heard countless stories of babies outgrowing it at 16-18 lbs! Because this Safety 1st Onboard Air 35 seat was designed significantly deeper and larger, it should last many months longer.
The canopy is plenty large enough and effective, although it isn’t the smoothest to use. It’s not bad, but as with many car seats we’re looked at, the mechanism just isn’t all that great. It is fantastic that you can leave the handle up when in the car if you want (many car seats require you to lower it) and the seat snaps into the base clearly and effortlessly every time.
For now I’m happy to give it five stars, even if there isn’t much independent data supporting the air-protect feature. It’s a good carseat anyway, and very competitive on features and price to anything else out there.
My only lingering concern is what stroller to dock it to. The Safety 1st Stroller that it is intended to dock with (the Aerolite LX) looks reasonable, but there are no reviews for it anywhere, nor can I find any store that sells it to have a look.
I’ll post an update once the carseat gets some good use or we find another stroller that it works with.
I do really like the carseat, except for the canopy. It is inadequate at best. On the picture it is shown fully extended. You can reattach it at the back (it is velcroed in) and move it farther front, but then you will have a gap on the back. If it is raining, the baby will get rain from head to toe.
On the other hand, everything else about the seat is wonderful. My baby is 6 month old now, and he is big – 27 inches tall and 19 lbs, and there is a lot of room for him to grow. It is nice that you can leave the handle on top, but as my baby gets bigger it is getting harder to put him in and out with handle on top, but it is nice not to have to fold it while in the car.
We never had to use the preemie and little baby inserts, my baby didn’t fit in them being born almost 9 lbs and 21 inches tall, so I cannot tell if they are any good.
Also, it wouldn’t attach to most shopping carts.
I have been holding on to review this seat but now that my little guy is 4 months old, I feel it’s time to do this review.
Firstly, it’s a great looking car seat and I get many compliments on it – women frequently ask me where I got it. It has a decent canopy on it for shade and it can be adjusted backwards to various positions, each side independently. On a recent trip I was able to max it out to full shade on the car window side and have it clicked back on the inner side so that baby’s older siblings could see him and keep an eye on him. Out of the base, the gentle curve on the bottom can act as a rocker, if you wish. Out and about, I use this seat with Kolcraft’s black Universal 2 Infant Car Seat Carrier and it makes a wonderful travel system and back saver.
The seat comes with various padded inserts for a newborn or preemie, they can be removed or kept in. A head support and bottom support – in all there are two or three adjustable/removable supports. The straps are easily adjusted, I believe there are four different height positions, and the seat buckle has three outward adjustment positions. I loosen the straps and pull it out and then pop him in and zip it back in to a comfortable position. The seat seems as safe and as well padded as the many Britax seats I’ve owned over the years. My son also seems to really like this seat, I think he feels like he is being held. There have been a few ex-poo-sions too over the months and the cover comes off easily for washing. It has been in the washing machine several times and the colors have not faded.
As for the car, the docking base goes in very well; however, you don’t need it, the seat can easily be secured without the quick release base – we’ve used it this way a few times in my husband’s vehicle. There is also a leveling device on the seat to help you get the angle just right for your child’s age.
Finally, a big issue for me was how long would this seat serve us? With my other kids, they all outgrew their infant seats by 4 months and I didn’t want to waste money on a seat that would only be used for a few months. With this Safety 1st Onboard 35 seat my child has in no way outgrown it and still has plenty of headroom and bottom room and leg room. He’s a big guy in the 90th %ile yet there is easily another six inches above the top of his head to the top of the seat.
For us, there have been no negatives, as infant seats go, we love it and so does baby. It is well designed with features, it’s stylish – and your child is unlikely to outgrow it before they are ready for the next stage seat. If you get one, be prepared for plenty of compliments.