What an interesting, quirky little toy.

The Vibro-pod by California Exotics is a multifunction plastic vibrator that hooks up to your music device (mp3 player, computer, stereo... essentially anything with a headphone jack) and vibrates in sync to the rhythm of the music that is playing. The vibrator can also be used alone without a music device and has eight different vibrating functions.

The vibrator comes in several pieces: the remote, the vibrating piece, and a cord and splitter to plug into your music device. Please note that this vibrator plugs into a headphone jack, so if you want to hear the music that's playing along with the vibration, you must plug either headphones or speakers into the other end of the splitter.

What is particularly interesting about this toy is that the intensity of the vibrations increases as you turn up the volume of the music. Therefore, soft music produces light vibrations, whereas loud music produces much heavier vibrations. This is probably a case where speakers would be better than headphones—to produce the stronger vibrations, you have to turn the music up fairly loud. It can prove to be a little bit painful with the headphones.

This vibrator will also cause you to view your music collection in a different way. I prefer folk and classic rock, but I have a new found appreciation for Christina Aguilera and Heather Nova. Essentially, songs with quicker tempos seem to work best with this vibe.

Another important thing to note with this vibrator is that since it is corded, it is not wise to insert it fully unless using a condom. Having to pull it out by its cord could cause the cord to break, thus potentially injuring you. This can be remedied by covering with a condom, then removing by pulling the bottom of the condom, rather than the cord.

The toy does have a few downsides. As mentioned before, to get stronger vibrations you must turn up your music fairly loud. The photograph of the woman on the front could have been left off, but I prefer packaging without pictures of people on them. Also, the instructions were lacking. Included were a set of generic vibrator instructions which do not at all match the vibrator included. However, it's fairly simple to figure out. Overall, this vibrator would probably not make my top five, but it is an interesting little novelty or beginner vibrator.

This vibrator definitely has its novelty appeal, but practically speaking it's not very effective. It's not very strong, and when you turn the volume up on your music, the vibrations tend to get muddled and cease matching the music.