Meduse Mini-sniper

[jaredm]

Well this is the review I think a lot of people have been waiting for. I am still waiting for my replacement vase (DHL had it sent it from Czech Republic to Belgium and then to Leipzig - so much for the 310 Euros I paid for guaranteed next-day before 12pm - I'll be seeking a refund of that shipping charge!).

Anyway... lets start with the review.

Here is the whole kit (some duplicate parts were included but I've not included them all):


Quite a bit comes in the package and by the time I'd unpacked it all there was a whole array of parts littering my table.

We'll start with the main part - the pipe itself. Here is what it looks like with the top removed and placed beside it:

On the water container there's a thick rubber ring at the top that forms a very nice seal when the top part is placed on top. The hose inlet has a screw on valve that can also form a seal during transport.
The little red ring can be slid to cover the holes, this is useful for transportation if you've filled it with water then it stops it pouring out the top. Also, there are a number of holes around the side which sort of acts like a diffuser.
Other notes: its quite a solid construction and feels heavy (but I appreciate the weight).

Next we have the mouth piece:

It feels very weighty and feels very nice to hold. It screws onto the hose.

And also the mask...

Quite a few of my friends were very reluctant to use this but once they tried it they preferred it over the mouthpiece. The mask feels more natural to use and the smoke feels much smoother.

And the tongs:

This just feels so great, its nice and springy and its designed in a way that allows you to pull out the upper screen filter very easily. It isn't perfect, I had to pull it so it was a bit wider than as supplied.

Meduse supply what they call a 'reducing adapter':

It allows you to use a much smaller amount of tobacco but I was confused about when it would ever be useful. I called them to ask and they told me it was very popular in the US... maybe I just don't get it.

The hose:

It feels very solid also and the valves at one end (the bit that goes into the pipe) revolves making it easy to pass it around without getting things in a tangle.


Part 2 below because of a limit of images...

[jaredm]

And part 2:


Now its time to load the shisha, I place the lower screen filter into the top:


I add some shisha (here I'm using a mix of Al-Fakher Mint and Two Apple):


Next its time to drop in the upper screen filter (where the coal sits):


And with the coal:

There is a slight problem here: Meduse have designed the unit to only take 33mm quick lights. All I have right now is some 40mm Iranian coals which I've been really pleased with. I had to cut the coal disc to make it fit.

Finally its time to smoke this baby so I attach the mouth piece and start getting the thing going:


It does take quite a while to get going but once its going I switch to the mask:

[jaredm]

Now I'm smoking away and writing this review

Quality: Top-notch, a few niggles but it works really well so I'm not complaining.

Appearance: Looks great. I'm not so impressed with the attachable belt.. it looks seriously uncool in my opinion. Also, wearing a belt, mask and canister that reads 'sniper' on it would not go down too well on the London Underground and is likely to attract some sort of armed 'shoot first, blame later' response from the Mets finest. It should come with a warning about this.
Jokes aside, there's a welded look to the top of the pipe where the bowl sits. I can see from an engineering point of view why its like this but it spoils sleek brushed-aluminium look a tiny bit.

Smoke: I was very concerned about the amount of smoke such a tiny pipe could generate. I have a tiny no-name pipe and its crap. Although this takes a while to build up the smoke, once its going it goes well.

Extra comments: Is it worth the money? For the occasional smoker probably not. I happen to have to travel a lot for work and this kind of thing is great because I can pack it into my suitcase and it doesn't take up much space. I'm hopefully going skiing soon and I want to try this thing during a break on the slopes.

Problems?: My concerns are that because its a fixed bowl and screen there's not that much room to play with coals or the amount of tobacco used. I doubt Tangiers will work in this (I'm expecting my Tangiers to arrive on Monday according to the online tracking. For those who like to manage their coal or 'load' it then it might not be a good thing. Then again, I've had no problems with burnt tobacco and the Meduse screen pattern seems to work well. Also the tongs could be longer - they're really too short to comfortably move the coal around when heating on a hob.

Well there we go, end of the review. I was smoking when I started and I'm still smoking it now.

PS: I'll mention again that I am in commercial discussions with Meduse but I promise this is an unbiased review. If it weren't good I wouldn't be discussing anything with them.

Any related discussions may take place on this thread here

Edit to add something else I thought of under 'appearance'. Edited December 22, 2007 by jaredm