Babystyle Oyster Max at The Baby Show, Manchester, 2012, by Aswalia

I was very excited to have the opportunity to look at the BabyStyle Oyster Max and to try my daughter in it. My first impression of it was that it looked lovely with the chrome chassis and a nice finish on the seat fabrics. I first placed my daughter, (who is 23 months, 81cm tall and 11kg,) in the upper seat and was surprised to find that she seemed fairly small in it, as I’d expected her head to seem quite high up in the seat unit. The upper seat seemed more upright than the seat unit on the standard single BabyStyle Oyster and my daughter looked very comfortable in the seat. The harness was easy to adjust although the shoulder pads got in the way a bit. I tried reclining the seat which was simple to do, however the most reclined position was completely incompatible with having a lower seat on. It would only really work fully reclined either as a single or with the lower carrycot. It is worth noting that I was informed that the upper seat would be raised up from the chassis slightly on the production model which will alter the feasible seating positions somewhat.

I then tried my daughter in the lower seat of the BabyStyle Oyster Max, which only seemed slightly smaller than the upper seat. I didn’t measure the seats though so this is just the impression I had. The lower seat has a smaller hood than the upper seat but can only recline part way so this hood should be sufficient in shading the lower child from the sun. Again, I thought the seat seemed nice and upright with a good harness and was larger than I expected with plenty of room to the side of my daughter. To place her in the seat, I lowered her through the handle into the seat unit which was quite easy to do. I think it would be harder to do it from the side with the upper seat unit on than to do it this way.

The BabyStyle Oyster Max felt fairly light to push but I only tried it with my one child in the upper seat so it will feel different with two children on board. I was impressed with the manoeuverability of it and that there was only very slight side to side movement, unlike the feel of the preproduction models shown at Harrogate earlier this year.

The big downfall still on the BabyStyle Oyster Max is that the basket has not been extended. With a lower carrycot on there is absolutely no space, except possibly for a book which is completely impractical for use with two children onboard. There is a very small amount of space in front of the child with the lower seat unit on, but still nowhere near enough for the amount of things any parent of two children in a pushchair will need to carry with them. I think this is an unfortunate oversight on what is actually a very good tandem pushchair which does actually have room for an extension on the basket. I would still seriously consider buying one of these as it is so lovely in other ways, but the storage options would need to be looked at with the addition of saddle bags and a console on the handlebar or similar. Hopefully BabyStyle will consider this problem before putting the BabyStyle Oyster Max into production.

I would like to add my thanks to BabyStyle for allowing me to take photos, try my daughter in the seats and have a general play with their pushchair.