Mima Xari review

B Loves: Amazing range of colours for the seat, chassis and accessories means you can create a unique look. You can order it in the UK from Cheeky Rascals.

Seat: The seat is a really lovely curved shape, rather like an egg or a pod and attention to detail means the underside of the seat unit is as beautiful as the upper side. Opening the hood enhances the look, as this continues the curved shape. The seat is lined with a nice soft fabric liner (again you can choose your colour) and the five-point harness is smooth and easy to adjust using sliding clips. When you want to adjust the seat itself, the whole, bucket-shaped seat tips backwards rather than the seat itself lying flat. This means it’s not suitable for tiny babies – but see the carrycot option lower down, which is suitable from birth. Tipping the seat is done with a lever on the rear of the seat unit and the seat can be placed on the chassis facing wither the parent or the front. When you want more interaction with your child, or perhaps you’re having lunch at a café or picnic table, the seat can be slid up and down the chassis to make it higher or lower.

Carrycot: Though the seat can’t be used from birth, the seat itself does tricks – it zips opens downwards to form a neat little carrycot with a flat base that can be used for a baby from birth to four to six months. There’s a mattress included and stiffener to make the unit stable. The bumper bar becomes a carrying handle and the hood clips back on to the carrycot. The bottom half of the carrycot is black, which matches the wheels and the accents on the chassis. It is not suitable for overnight sleeping.

Chassis: This is quite a different look from many pushchairs out there – the most similar to it would be the Stokke Xplory, so if you like to turn heads, this is the pushchair for you. From each wheel, the arms of the chassis come up to a central bar and the swoop up to the seat in a U-shape. From there, bars extend upwards to form the three-position adjustable handle, which is covered with a leather cover matching the colour you have chosen. Sadly, the storage baskets are quite small – there are two small baskets rather than one larger one. Ideal for smaller items and a travel changing pouch but you wouldn’t fit a large pack of nappies in there! They have colour coordinated covers though, so if you like things stored neatly and without being on display, this is a plus point. There is a strong brake pedal in an easy-to-see position on the rear of the chassis, between the back wheels and set neatly into a curve in the basket. The chassis fold with the seat unit in place – push the handle to the top of the seat unit, pull levers on either side and it collapses down. You do really need two hands to do this and unfolding takes a little knack. It won’t fold with the carrycot on it, so you have to take it off first.

Wheels: Though the chassis looks rather top-heavy and you might wonder about stability, once you look at the wheels, you’ll realise that the base is very sturdy and its design makes it easy to push and with a very small turning circle – perfect for narrow shop aisles. The front wheels can be locked straight for bumpier ground or long walks on pavements, or they can swivel to make cornering simple. The rear wheels are larger, with a nice offset spoke deign and no-puncture sleek wheels. They can come off for cleaning or when you need extra space when storing the pushchair or popping it in the car’s boot.

Extras: There’s a range of accessories to choose from including a winter kit, cup holders, parasols and changing bags.

Colours: The chassis comes in Black, Aluminium, Champagne and Graphite Grey .

The seat unit comes in Champagne, Royal Blue, Cool Grey, Black, Camel and Snow White.

The seat liner comes in Pure Black, Snow White, Hot Magenta, Ruby Red, Sandy Beige, Retro Blue, Black and White, Pixel Pink and Denim Blue.

There’s a pretty cool function on the Mima Kids website https://mimakids.com/xari that allows you to se what colour combinations could look like – we like all black with the black and white liner, or a Champagne chassis an seat with the denim liner.

The small print:

• Weight: 13.4 kg
• Suitable from: birth to around 2/3 years
• Seat reclines: three
• Size when folded: 89 x 52 x 42 cm