The Billy is a complex toy with lots of buttons: well, 4 buttons, but that's more than it sounds like when you're trying to focus on other things. Important things like keeping your teeth away from your boyfriend's genitals. What I'm trying to say here is that the Billy, while a great toy, has a control scheme that is a bit more complex than I would prefer for a partner toy. While I enjoy the small size of the Billy, it leaves precious little room to hold onto the toy without accidentally hitting the buttons. A poorly timed slip of a finger can turn one of the best blowjobs of your life into your girlfriend stopping at precisely the wrong moment to say "What the hell just happened? Did I break it?"

Still, mind the clause in the previous sentence about "one of the best blowjobs of your life". When you've got it working, the Billy is a phenomenal toy. I've never had a quicker or more powerful anal orgasm than those I've had with the Billy. The problem is that, in the midst of all that ecstasy, it's hard to navigate those controls. Furthermore, the controls can be unresponsive or incorrect because of the circular push pad design. The last thing I want is for my shortcomings as a gamer to creep into my sex life. If I wanted to fight with an unresponsive directional pad instead of having an orgasm, I'd be playing Call of Duty.

As with many similar toys, the Billy is easier to use by yourself than with a partner. Prostate massage is a very subtle art, and a toy can be a difficult tool to use effectively when you can't feel either end of the transaction. The Billy requires very little practice for effective solo use, and the first time I used it, I had an orgasm in under two minutes. Lets be very clear about the significance of such an occurrence: it never happens. Not even in conjunction with penile stimulation, which was completely absent in this case. I've heard a lot of claims about Aneros and the p-spot orgasm, and while those toys can get you there, they can take a lot of work. If there is an easy road to a prostate orgasm, I believe that the Billy is it.

The business end of the Billy is covered in a velvety silicone, which has a much smoother feel than it looks. The material is non-porous, phthalates free, hypo-allergenic, food-grade, and latex free. Smooth as it is, you'll probably want to use a water-based lube with the Billy, and reapply regularly during extended use. While the material is ostensibly non-porous, I found that it seemed to soak up some of the lube rather quickly, and it retained the smell of our Intimate Organics Adventure spray pretty much indefinitely.

Despite the velvety texture of the material, the Billy is actually a very rigid toy. This rigidity actually makes it great for prostate stimulation, and perhaps even g-spot stimulation if you want to use it that way. You'll want to be sure that it's facing the right direction when you use it or it could be very uncomfortable. While the rigidity of the toy might make it a little tougher to accommodate if you're not used to anal play, the velvety texture makes insertion, removal, and thrusting a lot easier.

I didn't notice a smell or a taste to the material, but my girlfriend did remark that the Billy had a bit of a plastic smell when we first took it out of the box. After I washed it, it didn't seem to retain any of that plastic smell, although as mentioned above, it now smells like Intimate Organics Adventure.

As with all of the Lelo toys, the design of the Billy is very pleasing aesthetically. It's much smaller than you might assume from the pictures, or even the measurements listed in the product description. The small size worked great for me, as I have trouble accommodating larger toys. Although, I might just be getting better with practice. I did notice that despite the small size and the velvety texture, thrusting became pretty uncomfortable when the lube dried up a bit. If you're a beginner to anal play, be sure to take it slow and apply lube liberally and regularly.

I thought that the shape of the Billy might allow me to treat it sort of like a plug and simply leave it in place if I wanted my hands free to attend to other pressing matters. I was wrong. The change in girth from the narrow part, just above the ridge to the widest point further toward the tip, is not pronounced enough to hold the toy in place. The upside of this is that the toy is easy to remove, even for tight asses like myself. Still, the toy is not a plug, so don't expect to wear it during traditional intercourse unless your partner has freakishly long arms for a human or average length arms for an orangutan.

The one part of the design that irks me is the control pad. The Billy has 4 buttons arranged on a circular control pad and surrounded by an indicator light. Aesthetically, the design works great, but ergonomically, it's a disaster. I'll comment more on this in the performance section, but suffice to say that the Billy should have 4 separate buttons, not one large circular button meant to be pressed in different directions.

The Billy promises a lot, with seven different vibration patterns, and five different levels of intensity. The little guy delivers a lot of power for a tiny rechargeable toy. All this may be a little bit more than is necessary, given that I find the best patterns to be constant vibration at the highest intensity, but it's fun to experiment with the other patterns just to mix things up. The downside is that the controls are complex, and the rules seem to change like a game of calvinball. I'm sure that perceived inconsistency has something to do with my general loathing of instruction manuals, but before the Billy I'd never found a sex toy that was harder to figure out than a vagina.

Moreover, the controls are hard to use. The top of the pad frequently doesn't read that I'm pressing the button unless I push it really hard, which usually triggers one or more of the other buttons. Virtually every spot on the pad regularly triggers another button by accident. For instance, if I want to change the vibration pattern by pressing the top button, the left button will also be triggered, lowering the intensity. Other times, the top button won't respond, so I'll push it harder, which will just turn the toy off. Overall, I still enjoy using the toy, but frustration with the controls keeps me from getting the most out of the functions.

The battery life on the Billy is really impressive. I've been using it every other day for two weeks, and I haven't once had to recharge it. Furthermore, it only takes about two hours to get a full charge. From a guy who hasn't made a phone call in two years that didn't end in "Hang on, my phone is out of batteries!", that claim should carry a lot of weight. Another nice feature that makes the Billy nice for travel is that you can "lock" it, preventing it from accidentally being turned on turning transport and running down the batteries or just plain embarrassing you.

The Billy is not the easiest toy to clean, but I chalk that up to my fervent desire to preserve it for future use. Billy's charging socket and control pad are splash proof, but not water proof, so you'll want to be careful not to submerge it in water. Boiling and dishwashers are completely out of the question. The manufacturer recommends cleaning with hot water and soap, and recommends against anything containing alcohol, petrol, or acetone. I personally use hot water and toy cleaner, which seems to have served me well but for the lingering scent of my Adventure spray.

Lelo provides a one year warranty against defects due to faulty workmanship or materials. Additionally, Lelo provides a 10-year quality guarantee which states that, if anything goes wrong with your Billy, you can send it into the nearest Lelo office. Once Lelo confirms the nature of the problem (and, presumably, the nature of the problem wasn't you), you'll be given 50% off your next purchase from lelo.com.

The Billy came in the most extravagant package I think I've ever received, for a sex toy or otherwise. The box is so big compared to the toy that it could easily pass for a shoebox, or some kind of luxury cosmetics package. Inside the plastic outer coating is a black cardboard box which contains the Billy itself, instructions, warranty info, a smaller box containing the charger, and a pouch for the Billy. The box is actually quite sleek and discreet, and has plenty of room inside for other toys if you wish to keep it for storage. Furthermore, the black cardboard box is very discreet, with nothing but the word Lelo to identify its contents. The only criticism I have is that the pouch is of shoddy quality and tends to shed pieces of thread.