Thursday, November 6, 2008

Wicked Lasers, Elite Series Review

Nearly everyone has seen a laser pointer that lets you highlight presentations from a distance. While such lasers are useful, they’re also relatively harmless unless you stare directly at the laser for long periods of time. If wielding a mild laser pointer is too tame for you, then look at the Elite Series of lasers from Wicked Lasers.

These lasers are slightly larger than a ballpoint pen (15mm by 155mm) and made out of chrome finished brass, giving it an elegant appearance. It runs on two AAA batteries, which give the laser a battery life of approximately 90 minutes. This may seem like a short amount of time, but it’s mainly because this Elite Series of Wicked Lasers is nothing more than a low-powered weapon.

At close range, it can easily pop balloons, light matches, and burn exposed skin. Point this laser at a PowerPoint presentation on the wall and you’re liable to scorch the wall. Point this laser at an attacker at close range, and you have a high-tech self-defense weapon.

Its output power ranges from 100mW – 200mW with a beam divergence of 0.8mRAD – 1.2mRAD and a beam diameter of 1.6mm. If you’ve ever wanted a real laser, the Elite Series puts that power in your hands.

Due to the high-energy this laser emits, this is definitely not a toy or an ordinary laser pointer for casual office use. This is a powerful weapon that needs to be treated with care, so you’ll want to keep this out of the hands of children and other unsuspecting people who may play with it and hurt themselves by accident.

If you visit the Wicked Lasers web site, you can read testimonials from soldiers in Iraq, who have battle-tested this unit and praised its performance. If you need high-tech firepower in any situation, the Elite Series of Wicked Lasers will more than meet your demands.

There are a few notable drawbacks to this laser. For one, it sucks the life out of its two AAA batteries far too quickly. If you use this laser frequently, you’ll churn through AAA batteries fairly often, so the cost of additional batteries will add up. Another problem is that the on button is flush with the unit, so it’s difficult to turn it on by mistake (such as when carrying it in your shirt or pants pocket). However, perhaps a cap or some kind to cover over the lens would be helpful just as one more barrier to protect people. That way if you want to use it, you’d have to remove the cap and then deliberately point it at something. The way it is without a cap, it’s too easy to point it at something and turn it on, only to find out that you’re pointing it at something fragile like someone’s eye or on your exposed skin of your arm.

http://www.gadgetreview.com/2008/11/wicked-lasers-elite-series-review.html

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