Spin Master Air Hogs Vectron Wave

The Vectron Wave is one of the toys that were heavily advertised pre-Christmas 2010 and looked incredibly exciting. Hovering on its own and controlled by your hand this futuristic toy had us from the get go. Like most of these gadgets however, does it have any real longevity?

The early signs are good as it looks very much like a UFO coming out of the box. With its distinctive look and bright colouring my daughter and I were very excited. The Wave itself requires very little assembly. The only thing you attach to it is a plastic stick that clips into the top and acts as a handle in which you can grab hold and toss it. The box deceptively makes this look like an antenna but this is certainly not the case and all the wiring is stored away securely inside. The design is very futuristic but on close inspection it is also very cheap. All plastic and polystyrene to keep it light, it doesn't look durable and the plastic blade looks flimsy.

Once your throwing arm is snapped into place you might think you are ready to go but unfortunately we encountered our first issue with the Vectron Wave, a lack of batteries. To charge the device you plug it into a charging unit but this unit doesn't run off the mains but rather needs SIX AA batteries which are not included. The lack of these batteries is a massive drawback. Most of the remote control devices we have owned of any quality have chargeable batteries inbuilt that you then plug into the mains. However, because the Vectron Wave needs to be very light to work, it relies on a short charge rather than internal batteries. Charging doesn't take long (around an hour) but this does mean that you get very little playtime out of the device. On average we can operate the Vectron Wave for no more than fifteen minutes before it starts to die.

Fortunately playtime is all kinds of fun! We learnt early on the Vectron Wave needs lots of room. The manufacturer recommends a room of 4x4 meters or more and that sounds about right. Turning the device on is like setting off a firework as you flip the switch and stand well back. The Vectron Wave's blade underneath spins rapidly and it starts to rise eventually reaching the ceiling. On our first attempt it hit the lightshade veering wildly around the room knocking into me, my wife and then the dog much to her annoyance. The reset button on the charging unit which turns the Vectron Wave off remotely became my best friend before it turned into a scene from a horror movie. There is a reason this product is recommended for ages 8 and up and I think they have that about right. By our fourth attempt and lots of room clearing we soon got the hang of the initial launch procedure. The Vectron Wave rises to the ceiling once then descends while it's motion sensors decide where the floor is. When it rises again and starts to lower it will hover about halfway between floor and ceiling and is then ready for playing with.

There are a few things you can do with the Vectron Wave but one of the most fun is simply putting your hand underneath it and watching it rise up thanks to the sensors. As it rises and descends we all started to become more confident and took turns showboating our skills as if we were magicians and doing daring headers with it as if we were Premier League footballers. You can also holding the stick on the top if you have the required co-ordination and it will continue to spin wildly in the air. You can then try and toss it across to someone else which usually results in them fearfully jumping out the way! There is definitely a knack to this as it often boomerangs back at you to the point were you reflexively duck.

All this is undoubtedly a tonne of fun. Unfortunately after less than fifteen minutes it is all over far to quickly and you are back to putting it on charge or packing it away. This leads to another issue, the packaging simply isn't efficient to store the Vectron Wave. The product itself is required to be flimsy to keep flight but this makes it very delicate. A thin cardboard box is therefore not the right thing to store it in and we have already had a few lucky escapes were my fortunately light footed daughter has stepped on it. If the polystyrene breaks the device is renders useless and this is very possible is this box. We soon decided a solid plastic box was more suitable otherwise we would have been lucky if it lasted out the week. Would it have killed them to give you a decent container?

The Vectron Wave is undoubtedly fun although the durability of it and the short charge means it might only be fun in the short term and considering we paid twenty quid for it, I wouldn't call it excellent value. If ever there was a case for being able to give something two and a half stars, this would be it. Tentatively recommended.