Hi all, received my first order from US a couple weeks ago (didn't have time to post a review till now!)
This is just a simple review of my new sabers
I would post a video review but I really don't have time to do that, sigh.
I ordered a Dark Apprentice LE V4 in Guardian Blue for myself, with a 24" initiate blade, and a Dark Sentinel in SRD for my brother, with the standard 36" blade.
(The batteries were taken out of the Dark Sentinel and I was too lazy to put them back in, lol. Will update the photo with both colours when I have the time)
We were super excited when we received the package -- we got them within one week, which is frankly amazing because we literally live on the other side of the world. The shipping and exchange rate killed my wallet, but that's not Ultrasabers' fault. It might be a while before I can make another purchase though :')
First impressions: We love them. I mean, lightsabers are LIGHTSABERS right?! We immediately started swinging them around and hitting each other. It was awesome.
Now after we've had more time to get to know these sabers, I have a better idea of what I like and what I don't like.
HILT DESIGN:Nothing much to say here -- aesthetically, the hilt designs are a bit too simple for my taste, but we bought these sabers with the intention to use them for duelling and tricks, so the simple cylindrical hilts are practical and works fine for us. I like the silver bits which is why I got the LE; makes it cooler. We also both got emitter windows because we couldn't resist them -- no regrets. Windows are awesome.
SIZE/LENGTH:I'm really short (5'1") so after much deliberation and forum surfing I went for the Apprentice hilt with the Initiate blade.
I love the hilt length, about 10 inches I believe? It works fine for me and I can comfortably wield it with a single hand and spin it about. The only saber I owned before getting these actual combat sabers was the Anakin-Vader colour changing toy saber from Hasbro, and the hilt was also about 10 inches with a blade length of 24" from the emitter to the tip. I was very comfortable with that size and length and it looked nice and proportionate to my height.
Now, I forgot to take into account the length of the blade that would be sitting inside the emitter, so my 24" Initiate blade feels too small, even for a tiny person like me. My entire saber is shorter than my brother's standard blade
It would be a nice offhand saber. Will probably get the 32" in the future.
My brother is about 6" tall, so he got the standard size 36" blade with his Sentinel. He just liked the look of the longer hilt, so no specific reason for that. It looks fine when he wields it and he can spin it about. After messing around with his saber I realised I could also spin it comfortably as long as I'm careful to lift my arm up more so it doesn't whack the floor, so I think i definitely should've gotten the 32" instead.
BLADE COLOUR:I got the Guardian Blue because it's the classic Jedi Knight colour. I was thinking of SRD but since my brother decided to get that, I figured I can always just borrow his hilt and switch to a shorter blade if I was in the mood for it. I have no issues with my colour! Our blades are Ultraedge, so it shows up nicely in pictures. I tried to capture its actual colour in the photo above; it's pretty close, but brighter IRL. Nice bright sky blue.
My brother's SRD blade is actually more greenish than blue. From what I've read in the forums some get a more bluish SRD; what we got was a soft minty green, which is actually really nice, so no complaints except that we were expecting more of a turquoise colour.
I'm really liking Dark Violet Amethyst at the moment and I will probably get that in the future! I'll also likely get a red saber in the future. I would have gotten that instead of Guardian Blue if I could commit myself to the dark side, but I'm a softie lightsider on the inside heh.
SOUND:We both got Obsidian Lite because we are young and broke. We have no issues with the sound, it's really nice and loud, but we aren't sure what the weird noises are supposed to be, the one you get when you press the switch a second time.
OTHER COMMENTS:As some other saber owners have mentioned before, the batteries tend to come loose or fall out if you whack the saber too hard. After a few enthusiastic hits my sound came off abruptly because the batteries came loose -- nothing that can't be fixed by stuffing bubble wrap in or using a tighter velcro fastener, but it would be nice for it to be a non-issue in the first place.
On durability: we haven't had the chance to duel properly and regularly, so I can't vouch for the durability of the blades just yet! But our whacking so far has only produced small wrinkles in the film, which is quite normal I believe, and they can't really be seen when the saber is ignited anyway.
On customer service: My order didn't actually show up in my account after I checked out and paid, so I emailed customer service because I just blew half my sad little savings account on these two sabers and used PayPal for the first time so I was kinda paranoid. It took a couple days to get a reply from customer service but they fixed it real quick and assured my my order and payment was received so kudos to the Ultrasabers team for that!
My currency depreciated against the US dollar after the, uh, recent US Presidential Elections, so it was a rather large sum for me to fork out for these two sabers especially since I had to pay an additional US$30+ in shipping. Do I feel that I got my money's worth? Honestly, not 100%, but considering that Ultrasabers is already the cheapest in the market, I'm definitely not disappointed with what I got.
Now my dad is going to sponsor my next saber as a birthday present, so I'm eyeing the Dark War Glaive or the Graflex... Decisions!!!
