If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know that there are a few things I really love in my sex toys. Those things include, though aren’t limited to: narrow but not overly pinpoint precision; silicone softness; up/down buttons instead of a single button; and fun color options.

The Amo—or, no, I’m sorry, the AMO, all caps, like UL from the Belgariad or IT from A Wrinkle in Time—by Hot Octopuss features all of these things. Well, color options not so much, but the black-pink gradient is really pretty and eye-catching, and even people who don’t really like pink may forgive it. (My spouse pointed out that it’s actually more of a red than a pink. I still see it as pink, but it’s closer to the red swatches they showed me. Pinky-red. Reddish-pink. I don’t know. I’m calling it pink. It’s my blog.) I do like pink, so I think it’s stunning. It also features three buttons, little divots in the silicone that are easy to clean. One on one side turns it on and off, and also switches through the patterns. The two on the other side change the steady speed up or down. As for the shape…it’s weird, but it’s kind of cool, wide on top with a swishy point, like Johnny Bravo‘s hairstyle.

The shape is really my favorite thing about this toy, and probably one of the best selling points. My spouse likes to use it so the wide top of it is against their clit and the body of the toy is sticking out from their pelvis, but I prefer to have the “point” against my junk, and the body of the toy flush against my body. Immediately I could see the advantage here for a lot of people—this toy would be extremely unobtrusive to someone having PIV sex or various other forms of partnered sex. It’s tiny, and easy to fit between labia. With the little curve at the back of the base, it’s nice to hold onto, as it’s shaped for a finger or two to rest there. The buttons are a little hard to find by touch, especially if there’s a lot of lube or other, uh, substances, but once you know where they are, it’s pretty easy to increase or decrease the speeds as needed. In terms of design, this toy is really lovely, and there was a lot of thought put into it.

Charging is pretty easy, just cram the jack into the hole in the silicone, although I’m a little annoyed that there weren’t actually any instructions for charging. I realize it’s not that complicated—it’s a vibrator, not a Myst sequel—but at the same time, if this were my first rechargeable toy, I can imagine looking at the blinking red light and going, “Is…is this right?” It is right. It blinks red when it’s charging, and turns green when it’s ready to use. But if, like another toy I own, the charging lights weren’t working right, I would have no way of knowing that, ‘cause it wasn’t written down anywhere in the box, the paperwork, or online. It’d add like two lines to your instruction manual, Hot Octopuss, just write it down.

That, however, is not my biggest complaint about the AMO.

Officially, the run time is 40 minutes on their paperwork, or 30 minutes on a few sites, which is disconcerting as it is. I can easily come a few times in half an hour, but I don’t necessarily want to. Masturbation is a kind of self-care, and I like to take my time when I’m able and have a nice, leisurely masturbation session, with many orgasms and also a lot of time to tease and fantasize. But I’m not worried about me and my preferences—I can pound out an orgasm in five minutes given the right circumstances. There are plenty of people who cannot come within half an hour, and to them, this toy is completely useless. It charges for two hours to get your measly half an hour.

But even that half hour, it turns out, is a luxury you may not get.

The first few minutes after the toy is off the charger are spectacular. The vibrations are deep and rumbly, and the degree of difference between the five steady speeds is both noticeable and perfectly modulated. It makes for an excellent increase in arousal, culminating in a really nice orgasm. These days, for me, that takes about ten or fifteen minutes, which really isn’t bad. Being a very multi-orgasmic person who is never satisfied with one, I then gear up to have some more!

And then…the power starts to diminish (and go into the West).

I’m going to be honest: I don’t think it takes half an hour to do that. I’m pretty sure that promised half hour works if you’re mostly using it on a lower speed, and I’m not. I might get a really nice orgasm out of it, and then it starts feeling…off. It’s subtle at first. It just doesn’t seem quite as intense, but still good. And then it’s…less. And less. As it dwindles further, it starts to get a little buzzy, the vibrations almost unrecognizable in relation to how they’d been before. It’s like a once mighty king reduced gradually to a shell of his former self, imperceptibly at first but eventually, unmistakably, becoming nothing, until you have Grima Wormtongue making all the decisions for your clit and I think I lost control of this metaphor somewhere along the way. The point is: it starts to die and any hope I have of having more awesome orgasms becomes less and less likely with each passing moment. This vibrator transforms from being Pretty Dang Good to a certified Frustration Machine.

And I also discovered that, even if you aren’t using it, the battery reduces somewhat off the charger. Like…that’s a thing that happens, I realize that, most things that hold a charge lose some of it sitting on the shelf. But in this case, it sometimes means it skips the “good” portion entirely. If I want to use the AMO, I have to leave it on the charger until the exact time I want to use it.

I’ve mentioned in a few reviews that I sometimes like patterns because I enjoy edging and teasing. So, even with my growing annoyance with the AMO’s mayfly-like battery life, I made sure to test the patterns. And you know what? I liked some of them. Five is a pretty reasonable number of patterns, especially since they don’t interfere with the single-speed options, and there was one (a pauseless increase and decrease in power) that I found absolutely exquisite. I’d love to transfer that pattern to all of my other vibrators.

Unfortunately, using the patterns made the battery weaker again. “I’m tiiiiiired now, I don’t wanna give you an orgasm,” it said. “Well, I’m tired, too. Tired of your shit,” I said, and got myself a different vibrator.

The AMO is very popular with other sex bloggers, and I get it. It wants to be a good vibrator. There’s a good vibrator in there. The design is spectacular and adaptable. The motor is, when it’s at full charge, absolute magic. But for $50, with my particular preferences, I need the battery to last longer. It doesn’t have to last into next week, but this was bad enough that I wondered if there was something wrong with it. But I don’t think that’s the case, given it states outright that forty minutes is the maximum that it’ll last on a single two hour charge, and most toys don’t make it to the full time they advertise—it cutting out before that is to be expected. But in this, the Year of Our Lord 2020, forty minutes seems ridiculous.

Is this toy worth it to anyone? Well…if you’re a mono-orgasmic person with a clit? Yes, probably, if you can come within twenty minutes. If you really want a toy that’ll be pretty unobtrusive during PIV sex, then yeah, maybe. If you need a toy to match your pink and black gradient manicure, you probably won’t find another. My spouse (pretty mono-orgasmic and sometimes struggling due to health issues) still likes it, although they’re also annoyed at the short runtime, partly on my behalf.

Otherwise? There are about a zillion bullets and small vibrators that will do a similar job. The similarly sized VeDO Bam is cheaper on SheVibe, and has a much better battery life; it sometimes skews buzzy, but it’s still a solid toy and lasts me as long as I need it to. If size isn’t an issue and you love the squishy silicone tip, I will always recommend the Satisfyer Yummy Sunshine, which has managed to hold up to several masturbation sessions on a single charge, for almost the same price as the AMO.

I want to like this toy so badly, but it’s just not gonna work out between us. Will I try Hot Octopuss products again? Absolutely. Will I bother to plug this particular vibrator back in? Probably not.

The Bottom Line

e. e. cummings can, with some alterations, state this better than I can:

Octopuss AMO ’s

defunct

               who used to

               give me reallynice rumbly

                                                                  vibrations

and give atleastone orgasmjustlikethat

                                                                                                     Jesus

it seemed like a decent vibe

                                                  and what i want to know is

how do you like your dying battery

Mister Death

Buy from SheVibe for $49

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