I was totally excited to receive this new toy because I had enjoyed other vibrating rings in the past, and this one had a slew of great features. In addition to four speeds and ten patterns of vibration, it was waterproof and made from the manufacturer’s exclusive “Futurotic” material. In the end, though, it was at best a mixed bag.

 I should start by saying that it’s not actually constructed out of the soft-rubber “Futurotic” material. It’s a full sized bullet attached to a plastic ring with a gap in it to accommodate a variety of dick sizes, and the whole mamba-jamba is then coated in the really excellent squishy rubbery stuff. This is a great idea because uncoated plastic things like that can pinch—and not in the good way—especially after a few hours of vibration have loosened up the housing. While the squishy material has the advantage of dampening the noise that less expensive vibrating bullets inevitably make, it dampens vibrations too, so even with four speeds, the vibrations aren’t as intense as with some other toys. This isn’t really a fault of the product, since any toy coated in a nice soft material would suffer from the same issue, but it’s a double edged sword.

In addition, the material does drag a bit on your skin. That means that you either have to put it on before your cock is hard, or use lube. In the latter case, everything’s slippery, and it doesn’t stay on without constant attention. As an alternative, you could spread out the gap in the ring to put it on a hard shaft, but unless you’re pretty modestly hung, I would be concerned about the plastic inside snapping.

Finally, the coating over a full-sized bullet makes the toy heavier and bulkier than the standard hard-plastic version. When I used it with my partner, it was just plain in the way, and when I tried it in the shower, the whole thing was too heavy and…er…weighed me down. On the upside, the waterproof feature was a lot of fun in the bathtub!

The ten vibration patterns didn’t really do anything for me. In fact, the changing sensations could be distracting, so I used it on the constant vibration setting most of the time.

All and all it wasn’t perfect, but it also wasn’t through-the-roof expensive, so I thought it was an OK value; that is until it started turning off at random. At first I thought there was a loose wire because I’d have to whack the remote control a few times to get it going again (and you can imagine the inopportune times at which this occurred). But then it got worse. One of the buttons on the remote stopped working altogether. If I want to lower the speed now, I have to reset it by turning off the power, which kind of defeats the purpose of all the fancy switches. All manufacturers have quality control issues from time to time, but for all the right reasons, sex toys aren’t returnable. Even at a moderate price, this one has become more trouble than it’s worth.

The bottom lines: What could have been a great toy was compromised by a few design flaws and poor quality construction.