Verdict: 9.2/10
Short answer: As someone who has left combustion for vaporization this Shield Micro fits all of my water filtration needs in a beautiful, simple and well build discrete portable package, my "con" is the long rubber mouth piece.
In-depth review:
First off I bought this with my own money, I only decided to make this review after receiving an email from Polar Blast asking if I wanted to leave review after purchasing. Such as anyone else would who spent their own money. I'm just a guy that likes bad ass products like the rest of you.
In order to see my perspective you must know I use a non-electric dry herb vaporizer that heats the flower about 50° before lighting it on fire as to vaporize the THC oils off of the plant without burning the leaf. This preserves a lot of flavor, reduces physical "smoke" and leaves the lungs with about 80% less damage being inhaled.
That being said here's my thoughts.
All pieces of the construction including the cup it's self, the steel down stem in the lid, and the rubber seal around the lid are made without any margin of error. Simple design, with easy to clean pieces that are very discreet especially when not put together. Adding water and cleaning the device is as simple as a maintainace of a daily use to-go mug which is really awesome and reducing use to simple tasks. The green color is classy and it over all just feels like a solid and well balanced piece.
Moving on to actually use:
A vaporizer doesn't need much water percula-tion nor for water to be too cold since it's already much cleaner (as both reduce flavor of the flower). The Micro is a 10/10 option in terms of size for my decive, only .05 to .1 of a gram is being used at anytime through my device, netting 2 to 5 decent sized hits depending on how you adjust the herb bowl. For the average smoker trying my set up, it's like inhaling tasty water vapor. For those with more sensitive throats it doesn't get much smoother than this combo in terms of "smoking" options. I truly love this thing, and the 1-3 times a week I do, see the stars ✨, this thing always comes out unless I'm out in the city for the evening. It offers everything I look for, study design, good color, easy to clean, and discreet.
My only gripe is the mouth piece/straw. It's larger than the micro it's self which lends to it looks a little odd and non-aesthetic, and it's rubber material lends to my experience felling a little lack luster; only as I personally don't prefer use of rubbers or vinyls. Polar Blast does offer a glass mouth piece which I'll be looking to try in the future just to remove the mental aspect of rubber. But it is also just as long as the rubber "straw". The long straw especially makes sense if you're leaving the cup on a countertop, but most of the time I prefer to hold it in hand. I would have loved to have seen a shorter more L shaped mouth piece that fits the compact nature of the decive it's self, maybe even with a vent in the middle to limit water splash while keeping high air flow. I have hit the Polar Blast without the mouth piece attached and while possible with little to no water splash, it does feel a bit awkward. I'll try the glass staw but I'd like to find some sort of mid sized glass L joint that I could carry in a much more compact nature when say going to a house party, I just don't know the diameter of the male straw mount (yes rubber folds compactly but I'm not looking for rubber).
As much as that bothers me the rubber has no smell, it has no taste, and benefits from being basically indestructible so it has its place and benefits.
If you use vaporization over smoking this is a perfect option. For smokers out there, bongs destroy my throat and are too harsh for me so I can't speak on that, I have had a buddy use the bowl adapter that comes with the Micro and told me that he definitely enjoyed the hit out of it, but it's not for me.
This is by far the least fuss I've ever had with a water piece and checks just about all of the marks of function in what I want. I don't even use any glass pieces any more, sold them to friends cause I just don't use them now. Again 9.2 could really be a 9.5 with glass, or a 10/10 with glass and rubber using a smaller straw. Awesome product people, I'm out.
