Wicked Lasers 95mw Extreme:Review (93%)
Posted by Simon Perry on 5 April 2006 at 10:30 am | Tagged as: Platforms, Reviews
We’ve had the Wicked Laser Green 95mw laser for a couple of weeks now. It’s falls outside the sort of things we’d normally test, but I’m glad we made an exception, because this thing is bonkers.
I suspect that if you’ve never worked professionally with lasers, the only thing that you will have seen that’s brighter than this laser is the Sun. This - 95mW CLASS IIIb portable laser, to give it it’s full name - is a little more convenient than the Sun though, as it’s the size of a pen (15cm, 6inch) and you can switch it on and off.
It arrived well packaged in a rather natty box and we couldn’t wait to get it on. An unexpected lack of the required 2 x AAA batteries at our end lead us to initial disappointment but this instantly evaporated when it was powered and switched on for the first time.
What you can do with it
Once you get over the brightness, you’re left with what to do with amazing product of human engineering.
Stage two; test it on the outside world by pointing it through your open windows (best not done through the glass, as the reflected light is so extreme); pick out the branches of trees (no matter how far away they are); shine it on the side of boats; in the clouds: you know the type of thing. We found that using it, you cannot fail to be impressed. As you'll see from the promotional video on their site, this baby burns things. It can light a match, cut though black tape, pop balloons and burn through papers. I can confirm that I burnt a hole in a newspaper - my tip, focus on an area of black print (obviously), wait for 10-15 seconds, the smoke will rise and the hole appear. All from something that sits in your pocket and runs on a few tiny batteries. Crazy. Man-magnet I showed the Wicked Laser to a room full of lads (aged 25-35). The effect was remarkable. I have never seen some of these people move so fast, as a collective WOW went up around the room and they literally dashed towards it. Their attention was completely captivated. If you’ve got any reason to want to grab the attention of a large group of boys, you could do little better than to get yourself one of these. So how far does it go? I’d definitely recommend wearing protective goggles with it, if you’re going to be using indoors. This baby has so much power that it reflects a serious amount of light when you point/shine in to surfaces. In our findings, the longest you want to use it indoors without protective glasses is about 15 mins. After that you start to get a strange ache in the back of your eyes. This fades off over around 10 mins. We don’t really know how or what to compare it with as it’s outside out normal remit. All we can rate it by is how much it impressed us - and everyone we showed it to, without exception. Score: 93% Wicked Laser 95mW CLASS IIIb portable laser- $369.99 (E307, £214) Extra photos and videos
Naturally our curiosity was peaked - how far does the beam go? What size is the light point when it gets there? Wicked Lasers tells us that the beam will reach 30-40 miles, yes MILES, and if you were to be there looking at it, the point of the beam will be about the size of a house! 
Safety
To re-itterate a warning - this laser is seriously bright. Forget every laser pointer you might have seen before. This is like nothing you’ve ever seen. James Bond look out. 
Conclusion
This thing is seriously powerful and certainly not to be messed with. You _will_ impress the pants off people who see it - especially men. Take care with it though, it could be dangerous It’s certainly not cheap, but you’re paying for its extreme power.
When you get to the end of burning things and scaring ocean liners, you start to explore the potential. Here’s one of the videos that we shot with using the laser. Link.
Creating lighting havoc from the sofa.
Commanding the street.
Oh look, it’s the corner of the room.
Freaking out the camera with a direct hit.On this day, years gone by ...
