Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We have 2 - Pink and Green. We've been using these for about 3 months, so I feel like I can give a pretty good review and comparison to our Planetbox Rovers. My kids are about 4 and 2, and we have lots of food allergies so we pack food constantly, and at their daycare we pack lunches. My lunchboxes get a lot of use. Pros/Cons of Yumbox, then a comparison to Planetbox Rover. Favorite things about the Yumbox: (1) It really is leak-proof. We put in yogurt, ketchup, applesauce, mandarin oranges, berries, cheese shreds, chips and they all stay in their container/area. I love love love this for preschool aged/toddler kids. LOVE. (2) It seems pretty sturdy. We don’t toss these things around, but we aren't super gentle either and I have yet to have them unlatch or crack. This is with about 3 months of use. The outside doesn’t look pristine, but I don’t really care, and my daughter hasn’t mentioned it. (3) The” dip-dip” spot in the middle is PERFECT. It is small enough that you can put some chocolate chips or jelly beans if you want, or you can put ketchup for dipping leftover hamburger, or mustard for bologna - it is the perfect size in my opinion and it is so nice to not have to waste a large portion of the lunchbox area for dipping needs (a complaint of mine about Planetbox). (4) This fits into a lot of lunchbags – I think the majority of “flat” type lunch bags out there would work. I put it in our flat lunch bags from Garnet Hill, which has the following dimensions: 10 1/4" H x 8 1/4" W x 3" D. And there is room to spare all over. I think it would fit the majority of “flat” lunch boxes, including the PBK Classic Lunch Bag (6.75" wide x 3" deep x 7.5" high) and the LB Bean Lunch Box (9"H x 7"W x 4"D). Things I do not like about the Yumbox: (1) The compartments are small, really small. It is sufficient for my 4 year old (who can eat wheat and dairy so she gets more crackers and breads, which are more filling anyway), but she gets morning snacks and afternoon snacks at daycare. I do not know if this will work for her in K or 1st grade when she doesn’t have snacks. Also, my kids aren’t French so they don’t happily eat everything I pack. If they are picking and choosing, and if the amounts are pretty small to begin with, they could be going through the day with only eating about 5 crackers. (This has happened to us before.) The compartments are deep, but small. The small but deep shapes help it fit into a small rectangle for the whole lunch box, which is awesome about the Yumbox, but I don’t think this will work for younger elementary kids. I know this would NOT work for my 7 or 5 year old nephews, except as a snack container. (2) You cannot fit a sandwich in the "Grains" portion of the tray. You could fit 1/4 of a sandwich, maybe 1/2 if you cut them in a square and jam them on top of each other. I find that I will put 1/4 of a bun or crackers in the grains, then just some meat in the meat compartment, you get the same result for lunch and it is okay . . . . Not a big deal in most cases, but if you are packing something yummy like a pita, bean spread, carrot and cheese sandwich, kind of a big deal. You can’t really separate those out. (3) You can’t pack anything that needs to be heated up. (Same complaint with Planetbox – can’t win them all.) (4) It isn’t light. (Same as Planetbox Rover.) (5) There is a chance that the tray will suction/stick to the lid and the lunchbox is really not so usable. My green one sticks (which is unfortunate because this is the one I use for my younger son, and he will use the Yumbox longer than my older daughter). When you open the latch, the tray stays stuck to the top and it is really hard and kind of a messy pain to unstick it. Our pink one operates with no problem. I am not sure why this happens with our green one and not our pink one, but it does. I have tried changing the trays . . .no difference. If my kids did not have their teachers there to open the lunchboxes for them, I would be tossing the green one out and finding a new lunchbox. There is no way my 2 year old or even my 4 year old could open it. I have a hard time opening it, and I often spill some of the lunch un-sticking it. Yumbox v. Planetbox Rover (1) Yumbox wins for ease of packing ANYTHING liquid, liquid-ish, foods needing dipping sauce, or things that might be able to drip for whatever reason at all. My Planetbox Rover drips when I slice up strawberries, or pears - not even over-ripe ones! Planetbox lovers will say – put some glad stick and seal on that compartment and it won’t drip all over your crappy Planetbox lunch bag, but that kind of goes against what planetbox touts as the point – no waste! (2) Planetbox Rover wins if you have a child that is a hearty eater, or is over age 4 or 5. (3) Planetbox Rover wins if you make lots of sandwiches. (4) They are equally easy to clean; you cannot heat up food in either; they are equally not-light (though I wouldn’t call them heavy); both allow you to put lots of different types of foods in the lunch with only one main container to clean. (5) Planetbox rover is not so great/awful if you like to pack things like yogurt, applesauce, etc. I would say even things like pears, mandarin oranges – they all leak whatever tiny amount of juice they make. If you do pack yogurt or dips in the special dipper containers they provide – those containers have to be placed in a certain spot to stay leakproof and closed, and those spots take up either the entire area (for the big dipper) or at least ½ of the area (for the little dipper). This is annoying if you just want to pack some mustard for dipping pretzels – you get a huge place to put your mustard and the area now allows you to pack about 4 pretzels. (6) Yumbox’s carrying bag options are far better – you can use a lot of lunch bags and might be able to pack in something extra (Pudding cup, jello cup, apple, orange – for snack later or in addition to the lunch.) Planetbox’s lunchbags are absolute crap and they are the only bags that fit the Planetbox AND they have no room for an extra something. I hate them. (7) If you have a Yumbox that “sticks” like my green one, and you don’t have someone to help your child open it up, it is a complete waste of money. Even when I am opening it, it is a pain in the butt and I end up dumping some food getting the tray un-suctioned. Of course, you don’t know if it sticks or not until after you’ve opened, washed and put food in it, so it’s yours. I guess it is a $30 gamble. IN my case, I don’t think I will buy another one to replace it, I will probably use the ziplock divided containers once this becomes an issue. This is just my humble opinion, and I hope this helps anyone out there looking.