Customer Reviews

Original Series Communicator Replica [Toy]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an original Trekkie- this is something I have coveted a LONG, LONG time!
It is too funny and too much fun. (My husband is giving me up for lost...I was so excited that my new toy came in the mail. He and the dogs had to sit around and starve while I "played".)

OK- I did eventually feed them...

If you are a true Star Trek lover, you NEED this- the recorded ORIGINAL voices add so much ... if it had a walkie talkie feature it would be PERFECT...(HINT).

The unit looks and feels great and has the extra voice samples. I would be loving this except for one major flaw. When you flip it open, you hear the expected chirp but then a pretty loud motor whirring sound for the rotating display. ughhhh! It really grates on me. I watched the video of the product on Entertainment Earth's website and you notice they cut it just as the open it and it chirps, you never hear the motor. I found that deceptive on their part to leave that out. I did contact them and they said mine is not a defective at that this is how it is. If it wasn't for this, I would give it 5 stars.

Very good reproduction of the communicator. Actual metal used for the cover piece. The only negatives is that you can hear the motor as it turns the optical portion inside. It is loud and kind of ruins the sound samples. But overall for the price, it is much cheaper than the master replicas version and still a nice addition.

I'd wanted one of these ever since I saw my first episodes of the series when I was eight. Now at 38, it finally happened. Am I a super-geek or what? The communicator looks fabulous, sounds great, and the recorded voices are loud, crisp, clear. The Playmates more toy-ish version from 1994 was quite great, but this one here is more of an exact replica. Fantastic reproduction.

I read the reviews and I had hoped it would be close to the real thing. I was very surprised - I has all the sounds feels great in your hand and my brother (another Trekker) was also impressed. I may buy another one for him for his birthday.

i think that any star trek fan will love it.EE Exclusive Star Trek Original Series Communicator Replica

I LOVE this communicator! A long time ago I had purchased a fan-made prop replica. It was very cool, and actually had a voice chip (Spock's voice), but over time it literally fell apart.

The EE communicator appears to be very durable and it looks as good as the prop replica did - even better, actually, with the motorized sensor and the flashing lights. The voice clips sound wonderful, and I love the hailing beep feature as well!

This is the real "Exclusive" version. All in all it's the same as the twenty dollar Diamond Select but this has the metal antenna cover instead of the plastic.

One more time - YES - The antenna cover/lid is made of metal.

I admit that I don't use it much as it is on a shelf for me to display and once in a while flip open. However, it is because I don't have anyone to play with. ;-)

The opening chirp, the signal from the Enterprise with Mr. Spock's voice as I answer it and a few other things make this fun. It's plastic, obviously so I wouldn't rate durability high. But then, neither would I rate a Ming vase high on that list either. It's simply a part of a small collection that I pick up every now and then.

I rated the educational value low because, let's face it, there is none. Again, I didn't buy it for educational purposes. If I want education, I'll buy a book. It's simply a gadget.

I gave it a four of five stars overall because the motor inside to make the little moire spin makes a little noise and I think it could have been a little quieter. I just don't recall Captain Kirk asking to beam down a landing party with his communicator buzzing constantly.

Other than that, it's a good product.

First of all, I should let everyone know that I've had 3 of these things delivered to me, and I still haven't received one with a working motorized moire. Some might consider me lucky due to the excessive noise they create, but I at least wanted to have one that works correctly.


While the quality of the unit is nice for the most part, size.. heft.. all pretty much what I expected. What wasn't expected, (and is not shown in any product photos or discernible until removed from the package) is the horribly mis-proportioned body. I don't know who was in charge of production on this thing, but it looks,.... well, awful. I like to refer to this as the big-butt comm, as the body is easily twice as thick on the on one end compared to the other. This difference not only makes the unit feel awkward resting in your hand, but also makes it more likely to slip out of your grip while attempting to flip it open.

The fin which runs along the outer edge of the main housing is absent from the top. This detail leads me to believe that this toy was designed based on a damaged communicator prop that had the body compacted at the top to seal the gap left from the missing section. Even if this were the case, the body is still too thick on one end. Even my friends who were unfamiliar with the props from the show, noted how odd it looks. Even the Playmates version from the 90's got this one right....

To be honest, after this,... mentioning the other factors based on appearance seem pointless. Sure you have the plastic vs. metal parts discussion... Then there's always the fact that the soft plastic used in the buttons doesn't hold detail well, and are not even large enough for the holes made for them (causing them to rattle around a bit...) The metal flip antenna is well made, but has a vac-metalized mirror finish on it, making it look more like plastic than actual metal. and due to it's loose hinges flops around a bit. But when the main base of it looks as odd as it does, the rest of these problems seem unimportant.


Moving past the look of the piece you have the sounds and lights. I love the idea behind the flip antenna activating the chirping sound, the call back feature, and the various sound clips. I wish they had included the garbled static or the sonic pulse seen in the series as well, but we can't have everything. What we do have, unfortunately, is all very substandard in quality. It's sad that this piece doesn't sound nearly as good as the communicator ornament released from Hallmark last year. Even though they use many of the same sound clips from the show, and the ornament is easily half the size of this version... The Hallmark one sounds so much more clear.


In the end, everything comes together as a product that misses the bar on every level. And while this might be an excellent toy,... The market that these are aimed at aren't children, but more towards collectors... and as a collector, I found myself disappointed.