The name Doxy usually conjures images of a wand built to rival the Hitachi. Doxy has been working for years now to carve out a piece of the industry with their signature rumbly vibes. Based out of England, they’ve cornered a previously underserved market for plug-in vibes (you’d need an adapter to use a Hitachi or other US-centric wand there. Doxy originally made their mains-powered toys for the EU market, and now sells their wands with a set of worldwide adapters.)

I have a rocky history with Doxy. To no fault of their own, I got my original Doxy wand right around the time my body was phasing out wands and other traditional clit vibes and moving on to a nearly exclusive need for air-pulse toys. I liked it, I could appreciate the power the wand had and the difference between it and my also new at the time Hitachi Magic Wand Rechargeable, but the HMWR won me over with the shape of the head (it has a flatter top that creates a sort of edge I could really jam against a more precise spot, whereas the very round head of the Doxy just wasn’t hitting right for my absent/buried anatomy.) The original was nice, but I didn’t wind up using it as much as I thought I would. I did get lucky in that my Original never had the notorious spinning head problem. I soon after tried out the Don – still not quite right for my anatomy but again, I could see the potential. Then it broke, and its replacement was sent with a very poorly done silicone coating. I did not ask for a third since I didn’t think I’d use it much. I was very stoked for the smaller Doxy 3 when it launched, thinking the smaller head would do everything I needed from the Original but didn’t quite get. My first review sample was a dud upon arrival. I was in contact with someone to have it replaced, but when the second one also arrived broken and I complained, I stopped getting answers to my messages – and stopped getting replacements, so I was never able to actually use or review it. It is the occasional bad luck that a product doesn’t work or quickly breaks upon arrival, and most companies do have exchange and warranty policies to help with this issue, but four unusable items from the same company was very bothersome to me, one person can’t be that unlucky. I knew I had options for exchange, I knew who to get in touch with and what to tell them was wrong, and I’m obviously quite comfortable with doing that (up until I stopped hearing from them I guess.) I fear the average consumer doesn’t know these options exist or is not comfortable initiating an exchange/return/reimbursement request. Whenever I have the misfortune of getting a broken product I wonder how many other people are also experiencing that, and if they’re just eating the loss because of lack of info, or the hassle of it all, or shame. An average consumer might not even realize their merchandise is broken or isn’t supposed to look or sound or operate the way it does, not everyone is on sex toy twitter and able to ask a whole group of experts if something seems wrong with an item they just received and get an answer in minutes. Most of these toys are no small financial matter either…

Anyway, I quit chasing after Doxy products for a while after that, but Betty’s Toy Box offered me the new Doxy Bullet and since I’ve got a great relationship with them, I figured if anything did go wrong we could certainly work it out.

The good news – my Doxy Bullet works! And has kept working through multiple uses! The first hurdle has been cleared.

The Doxy Bullet’s bells and whistles seem to come most in the aluminium storage tube. For the typical sex toy owner who has probably just a handful of toys at most, cool storage solutions can be a perk. It is however important to remember that coolness is a cost passed on to the consumer. I personally don’t need any of my toys to come with any kind of storage bag or box or tube – I actually throw most of it out to save space and make finding the toy I want in my giant drawer of toys easier. If I were just comparing a couple bullets side-by-side and trying to choose which I liked best or was most accessible, storage is never something that reaches the top of my “must have” list, so now I’m wondering how much of the price tag is in the metal storage tube? It’s sleek for sure, but I could do without. I’m also not sure it lends to discreetness, it’s a little too unique to just blend in on a nightstand, anyone taking a glance around a room is gonna want to know “what the fuck is the giant hunk of metal?” It’s also heavy, I would not put this in my purse or overnight bag still in the tube, the tube would stay home.

The Doxy Bullet itself is also aluminium which should cause a big leap forwards when being compared with other bullet vibes, as metal tends to conduct vibration very well. That the Doxy wands all have metal heads is their biggest selling point – it’s what makes them more rumbly and allows them to feed more power into them.

I say “should” because whether or not that’s true is difficult for me to assess. The Doxy Bullet only comes with two steady modes, and then 5 patterns. Despite being roughly twice the size of the We-Vibe Tango, its functions are halved. The Doxy’s first and lowest speed is closest to the Tango’s third, and the second pairs with the sixth respectively. In its much wider range I feel the Tango actually maintains more rumble than the Doxy. By looks and weight (the Doxy also weighs twice as much) I’d expect the Doxy to really pack a punch…but I don’t feel like it follows through on that. It’s not weak and I wouldn’t call it buzzy, but I can find a couple bullets that meet that description. I wanted Doxy to knock it out of the park, I wanted Doxy to make a bullet that was by far the best. I don’t feel like that happened.

You know what’s coming – my forever gripe – only one button. More advanced function control could have been possible with the Doxy Bullet, and there was space for the extra buttons, but it wasn’t used. There’s space for an increase and decrease button, there’s space for a button to toggle away from steady speeds to patterns. The Doxy Bullet only cycles in one direction (so you cant turn back from the highest steady mode or choose a previous pattern) and in the eternal steady vs patterns battle, only two steady speeds feels downright criminal. The Tango also lets you change the intensity on the patterns – the Doxy does not.

The Tango has long since been a gold standard for bullet vibes, We-Vibe created a nearly impossible pair of shoes to fill there, but I’d expect a toy made of superior materials that is also twice as big to be able to come pretty close. Ultimately the Doxy Bullet really let me down. It’s a solid vibe, and I’ve definitely reviewed much worse, but “could be worse” isn’t the kind of review I was really hoping to leave for a big-timer like Doxy. If I really struggle for it, if I time my jump from steady speed 1 to steady speed 2 perfectly (because there’s no going back unless I want to start all the way over), then I can squeeze an orgasm out of the Doxy Bullet, but I don’t really like it, and I’ve got other toys that do better.

Big thanks to Betty’s Toy Box for sending me the Doxy Bullet to review! You can get yours by clicking Here.

Tl;dr – Doxy Bullet