Honest baby product review: Emmaljunga NXT90B/Big Star Stroller

Welcome to another honest baby product review (if you missed my review of the Moonboon slyngevugge, read it here!). Lots of people wanted to hear about both strollers that we have tried: the Emmaljunga NXT90 Big Star, and the Bugaboo Fox2. While they are both really well-made, high quality strollers, one of them really worked for us, and the other didn’t. In this post, I’ll share our experience with the NXT90B, and I’ll review the Fox2 next!

Disclaimer: We purchased this stroller ourselves, and I am in no way affiliated with Emmaljunga. These are my honest opinions.

Why we bought it

We actually did a ton of research on strollers (unlike some other products we purchased, haha), mostly looking at “best in test” lists and reviews. The NXT90B kept coming up as one of the best strollers available, and we knew it was popular because we had seen it around Copenhagen so many times. I was a little bit worried that the 97 cm bassinet would be too big to be practical for city life, but again, lots of people have this stroller in Copenhagen and it seems to be pretty normal, so I pushed those worries aside. We imagined that Noah would also be napping in the stroller a lot, so we definitely liked the idea that he would be able to use the bassinet until he was about 2 (most strollers with smaller bassinets say not to use them past 6 months). We tested the stroller at BabySam and it felt big, but not too big, or so we thought. The handlebar was adjustable so it seemed like it worked well for both my husband and me. But even as we were testing it out, I was looking at the strollers with smaller bassinets and thinking, “That would be a lot easier to get around with.” But I reminded myself that we would be able to use the big one for much longer, so we bit the bullet and bought it.

The review

As soon as we assembled the stroller inside of our apartment, I started to panic a little. It was MASSIVE. It felt even bigger than it did in the store. We were going to keep the stroller in the entry way of our apartment, and it felt like it just took up the whole space.

After Noah was born, we finally got to take the stroller for a spin with a baby inside. When we were actually outside, the stroller didn’t feel as big as it did in our apartment, but I quickly noticed a different problem: When Noah was inside the stroller, if we had the top part zipped up (I think it’s called the “apron”), I actually couldn’t see him!!! Because I’m short, the bassinet is fairly high up, and with the handlebars at my height I had to be quite far back from the head end of the bassinet… so my line of sight was cut off by the part of the apron that sticks up. I couldn’t see Noah unless I went around to the side of the bassinet. This was something that didn’t even occur to me to think about when we were shopping around and testing the stroller when I was pregnant. But it felt like a HUGE issue to me that was very hard to get past.

I still used the stroller for about 6 weeks. Personally, I use public transportation a lot, and I really, really hated taking this huge stroller on the metro. I never even tried to take it on a bus. It’s pretty heavy and obviously takes up a lot of space, which I hated doing when my baby was so teeny tiny! (As stated before, using this kind of stroller in Copenhagen is pretty common, and I feel like it’s totally fine when other people do it! I just felt very self conscious using it myself.)

One other issue we had was that it was not really portable at all. Yes, it folds down (so we naivelyyy thought the size wouldn’t be an issue here), but the frame, wheels, and bassinet are still pretty massive. If we wanted to take it with us in the car, the stroller would take up the ENTIRE trunk space. And we had to remove all the wheels and flatten the bassinet to make it fit at all.

It’s worth pointing out that my husband didn’t feel like any of these things were major issues. He is a pretty average-height Danish man, so obviously didn’t have the height issues that I did, and he didn’t mind the size when we were out and about. And I will also say that this is a beautiful stroller (who knew I would ever think a stroller was beautiful? But I do!). I mean, it’s just really, really nice. And super solid and high quality. No complaints there.

But after about 6 weeks, I insisted that we get a smaller stroller for everyday use (the Bugaboo Fox2, of course). We decided to keep the NXT90B for when Noah outgrew the bassinet on the Fox2 so that he could nap in the bigger one… but we ended up selling it when Noah was about 10 months old because we still didn’t use it. (Fortunately, it was still in great shape and these strollers have high resale value!)

Would I recommend it?

Overall, it’s a beautiful, high-quality, well-made stroller. But it just was not a good fit for us–especially since I was the one primarily using the stroller (since I was on maternity leave). The size just made it incredibly impractical for our lifestyle, and I should have trusted my gut on this one. I think it would be more practical if you do not live in the city and are mainly using it for neighborhood/nature walks and/or naps.

Have you tried this stroller, or are you considering it? Leave your thoughts or questions in the comments! 🙂