Diamond Comic Distributors Star Trek: The Original Series: Communicator

I bought this for my eight-year-old son, who is quite the fan of the original Star Trek series. First off, you won't find a better original series communicator for the price. My son loves it - it looks cool and worked great right out of the box. Nice loud, clear sounds. Durability? Well...one slight issue is that the gold aluminum cover narrows down to two small strips at the hinges (true to the original design). This proved to be a problem when my son repeatedly flipped the thing open somewhat forcefully (as kids would do). The cover reaches its stopping point and the inertia of the whole cover would slightly bend the connecting strips. After a while, the bending causes the cover to not want to completely seat back down in the closed position. It's a simple matter to "re-bend" things so that it closes again, but I fear too much of this might eventually cause the strips to break. A lesson to my son about his "technique" and he can now open it without stressing the lid. Also, when you open the lid, a small protrusion on the hinge assembly pushes an internal wire to make a connection which activates everything. At one point our communicator stayed activated constantly - whether open or closed (basically, it wouldn't shut off). I opened everything up and found that whoever assembled it at the factory didn't quite position the internal wire correctly. A little tweaking with a small jewler's screwdriver fixed that problem, but I must detract a star for "durability." One other small complaint from my son was that the motor which drives the moire is fairly noisy, and the moire itself is hard to see unless you're in outside in daylight. But hey, it's around 35 bucks and it really does look great (nice lights, details, etc). I feel that it's worth the money, even with the few fixes which I find are becoming more and more typical of toys like these made overseas. Do I recommend this communicator toy? Yes I do.

Some time back I found the Art Asylum TOS (The Original Series) Phaser at a Toys-r-us store back home in St.Louis. It was nearly perfect.When Diamond Select toys (formerly Art Asylum) announced their Communicator I had high hopes. There was speculation that it would be like the old Playmates version with a plastic metallized flip-grid and a non-functioning moire.DST came through though and delivered something more akin to a prop replica than a toy.Out of box you could comfortably display this as a prop and most people would never be able to tell.This version only has a couple of MINOR differences from the exclusive version. One being the ACCURATE color of the flip-grid (on this one) and the other being an extra sound that can be unlocked on this one with a minor amount of effort.I spent my money and have NO regrets.. when the DST Tricorder comes out later in the year, I'll be shelling out some cash to them again!

I ordered this item for my mother in law as a Christmas gift. She is a HUGE star trek fan and I knew she would love this! I received a refurbished model, the motor inside for the spinning center dial did not work well. It seemed off and did not spin. I opened it myself and readjusted everything, glued it back into place and it was working perfectly! She loves it! She spent days carrying it around and playing with it. The look and feel of the item is just like holding the item straight out of the TV show! The sound effects and call back feature are great! Recommend for any star trek fan!

It rivals my Master Replicas model and was only $24!!!!!! There's two versions (standard and exclusive). I've had the exclusive version on pre-order for awhile but still ended up breaking down and also buying the standard version since the price was so low. Since the "exclusive" version was a few bucks more and the description on the exclusive was much more detailed, I expected this standard version to be made almost entirely of plastic. Well, it's more metal than plastic. It's identical in size, shape and almost weight to my Master Replicas Communicator. The moire looks and runs just like the MR version (only it's a bit louder). It has the feature that allows you to set it up to beep you somewhat like the MR only the AA version continues to beep you until to open it. It has sound clips of the original cast instead of the MR's static/interference sound. Putting it up next the MR version, they absolutely look identical! I still have the exclusive version coming but had I known this I'd of just gone with the standard!!! Still, for the low price, why not have both??? I can't get over the quality of this item and the super low price. You just don't see stuff like this any more! You gotta get one!!!!

I did get all the Diamond toys items (tricorder, phaser and communicator), and so far this is the best of the 3.The quality is solid; it is one single piece; with just the top lid moving. I am a bit disappointed that the lid is not metal but plastic, but it is OK, still feel decently solid and not super flimsy.To operate it, you flip it open. It will make the iconic comm sound, and then the moire effect part in the middle will start to rotate and buzz; which will go on for minutes, or unless you flip it closed againThere are 2 buttons; one is used to trigger events, so you push it and close the lid, then wait for the call. Open the lid and you will get one of the pre-made scenario dialogues.The second play the sentences from Captain Kirk, in sequence.In the end it is plain and simple, but this is the beauty of it; not much to do wrong; feel solid, fun to show around.