I must admit that this is one of my worst outdoors buys recently. I bought one of these aluminium kids bottles last year. It cost more than a tenner and looked nice and new for precisely 5 minutes. The bottle itself is fine and the top is leakproof, but I have three major gripes with it:

• When a bottle is filled with liquid, it becomes heavy. Kids will drop it and when they do it is VERY easily dented.
• Along the same lines as the first complaint is that the lid cover is not very durable. One drop on it’s lid and something cracked and the cover didn’t work any more.
• Price. For something that is knackered in no time, these are ridiculously overpriced.

Our Sigg now lies at the back of a cupboard replaced by… well, just about any plastic drinks bottle we happen to have lying around.

I really didn’t think it was possible for a bottle to evolve further, but it would appear Camelbak are pushing bottle design further and further. How? Well this Camelback Bottle has a built in straw so you don’t have to turn it up to drink out of it. Neat. All Camelbak need to do now is design in a little ridge half-way up so people can put it in their bike bottle cage and this water bottle will be everything you could ask for (until the next innovation comes along.