Your favorite Infant Seat and Why

Now that Daycare baby has gone to a RF convertable instead of her infant seat, I am using my Snugride for her in my vehicle. For some reason, I'm not feeling the love for it as I once did - maybe the pretty cover was messing with me!
So I'm considering selling it at the spring children's consignment sale and buying a different infant seat for future baby.

I've only ever used Snugrides and have been happy with them, but after using the safety 1st designer (I hate the harness BTW!) for daycare baby, it seems to be easier to install with seatbelt only, and the handle up/down transition seems to be smoother.

So, what's your favorite infant only seat, and why?

I would say that I LOVE my SS1. I used it with my DD and I'm going to use it with baby #2. It is very easy to install and use, a bit bigger than the Snugride but I like that it goes to 30#. My sister had the snugride for her DD and only got to use till about month 6 or 8. My niece was a big baby. My DD at 20months still fits in her SS1.

I loved my keyfit. Infant insert was awesome for newborns, harness adjuster so smooth, head support was like comfy pillows - never had headflop, fabric wiped clean with a baby wipe, but wasn't scratchy, easy to install, ummm...narrow enough to fit 3 across my small 3rd row, hmm that's all I can think of right now

I haven't had a chance to actually use it yet, but I would say the Keyfit. Just from playing with it in the house I can tell I like it way more than the Snugride we used with dd1.

I really liked DD2's Combi infant seat, so much so that I am getting another Combi for this baby.

I liked my Baby Trend infant seat with EZ-Loc base. I was lucky that I had a smaller baby, as I hear some babies outgrow these quickly. They seem to be narrower than most. That's what I liked most about it though. It seemed to be fairly lightweight, easier to carry with the triangular shaped handle, and dd just seemed more secure in it because it was smaller. It was very easy to clean and care for, and I never had to do any re-threading of straps (maybe you don't have to do that on many infant seat..not sure...but I loved that I just turned a knob to adjust the height).

I really like my BabyTrend seat. No-rethread harness with 8 different height settings. Headwings with EPS foam adjust with the harness. Cover comes off readily to toss in the wash. Level indicator on the side (two of them actually, one for up to 20 pounds and the other for 20-22 pounds). Triangular carry handle is really nice, when you carry it with one hand you have more options to put your wrist at different angles. As they get heavier you can grab it with two hands.

I have never had any problem putting the Flex-Loc base in any vehicle with latch. The seats and bases are all completely interchangeable, so when the Flex-Loc base wouldn't work with DH's non-latch car, I was able to get a Latch-Loc base for it instead. The belt path is narrow on the Flex-Loc base, and the seatbelts were wide (spacing) on DH's car. So no matter how tight I got it, I could still move it sideways big time (like 4 inches at the belt path). The belt path is wider on the Latch-Loc so that filled in the space.

I have also installed the seat without the base several times, in several different vehicles, and on an airplane. It is super easy, never had any problem other than having to redo it because the angle changed as I tightened it up. Like all infant seats, it is not easy to put baby in/out with the seat belt going across their lap area when it is installed without the base. Certainly not impossible, just not easy.

The dowsides of this seat: The Flex-Loc base has a true incompatibility with my DH's 99 Grand Am, but the seat itself works fine. It only goes to 22 pounds. Not a big deal to me, DD is 14.5 pounds and I'm really struggling to carry her around or even lift her out of the car in it now. I had always planned to get a RFing convertible after the bucket anyway.

Higher weight isn't important to me because my babies aren't on the big side and haven't reached 20 lbs before/until 1 year and I haven't kept them in their infant seats that long anyway.