A little while ago, my little one was about to turn six and he started insisting he no longer wanted his three-wheeler scooter. He said it wasn't cool enough when lots of his mates had progressed to two-wheeler ones.
This didn't seem to present an issue seeing as we had the eldest's old JDBug one still in the boot from when he did a comparison between a couple of Micro Scooters last year, but he kept complaining that it wasn't as good as his brother's new ones. Well, it wouldn't be, I explained as it was older than them, but it would have to do.
Before very long though, after being out and about on it, he made some good points about why we needed a replacement, and, to be fair, he was right. However, with his birthday coming up, which would we choose - another JDBug or a further Micro Scooter?
The very basic JDBugs start off a little cheaper than the Micro Scooters, although the prices shoot up as the features do, but I've always struggled with the folding and unfolding of ours, even from when it was brand new. Over the years it has been used really regulary, but I actually started leaving it unclosed before popping it back in the car, rather than facing the impossible battle to close it and this makes it awkward to store, especially in a confined space.
The kids were all for an additional Micro Scooter and, as they were able to put them next to each other to do an outright comparison, we could truly explore between them and when I went onto the websites, the Micro Scooter one easily won me over out of the two. It's easier to navigate, there's a much wider range of choice of appearance and you can even create a completely individual one by picking out the colours of each handgrip, as well as the stem, the deck and even the brake for some of them! They focus more on age groups which helped enormously, rather than other specs that confused me on the JDBug one.
Most crucially of all though, I noted that Micro Scooters are Swiss designed and engineered, which sold me on why the same problem with the opening mechanism has never befallen us in all the years we've used a variety of them.
Side by side, the Micro Scooter has a wider deck and brake, which the eldest prefers and they both love the stand the Sprite comes with which means no more having to find places on which lean them. This is the one that is recommended for a first two-wheeled beginner scooter. It steers like a bike, unlike their Mini Micro scooters and is suitable for ages 5-12. All their prices are within a narrower band and I think they offer excellent value for money.
Here's a tiny video where the boys tell you in their own words why we prefer the Microscooter over the JDBug.
Disclosure - we were sent the second Sprite for the purposes of this comparison, but, as usual, all words and opinions are honest and our own.