Title: Phone Phreak
Artist: Jeff Prace
Producers: Paul Harris Presents
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $44.95 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Video: 43 Minutes
Notes: Review is for the Iphone 5 Version
Includes:
· Gimmick and Phone Case
· Photos
· Instructional Video Link and Password
· App Download Instructions / Quick Start Guide
· Customer Service Guarantee and Quality Inspection Card
Jeff Prace is the king of organic magic. His effects often pack small and deal with common everyday objects like packs of gum and what not. With Phone Phreak Prace takes his creative magic into the technological arena as he tries to tackle a new genre of magic: Tricks done with cell phones.
I’ve got to be honest. I hate IPhone magic. Unless you’re putting the phone physically into an impossible location such as a balloon or a fish then you’re not really doing anything more than presenting the spectator with a puzzle and the challenge to figure it out. Cell phones and especially smart phones such as IPhone are micro super computers these days. It’s just hard for me to accept anything as magical when all the justification a spectator needs is “there’s an app for that.”
So Phone Phreak comes with three different tricks you can do with the program. There’s a torn and restored picture routine, a moving logo routine, and a bill change and production effect. Normally I think that if we’re going to brand something as “revolutionary” in the marketing copy then the product should warrant that level of praise. Here I think it is just over use of marketing buzz words in order to sell a product. There isn’t anything revolutionary here. The magic trick takes full advantage of your IPhone’s electronic abilities and minimizes the amount of sleight you need to execute anything. Great for beginners! But for a moving ink and bill switch I would certainly use other methods and ditch the reliance on the phone all together. Also this product ONLY works on Apple products. Sorry Android users, sucks to be you.
The biggest drawback Phone Phreak suffers is the reliance of using the custom made crappy phone case that is supplied with the trick. The phone case looks like a cheap piece of plastic, and I doubt it really offers any degree of protection for your phone in the same way other real cases do. For $50 bucks that I would spend on Phone Phreak I can buy an otter box for my phone and with the change left over a thumb tip to do a bill change. I just wasn’t impressed. IPhones are expensive. I keep my phone in an Otter box for a reason… I don’t want to break it. The need to switch out the cases for every performance just makes this trick very impractical for me, let alone and god forbid something should happen to my phone while it’s in the cheap plastic Phone Phreak case!
So at the end of the day what I think I’m left with is an expensive piece of plastic that will undoubtedly sit in my magic junk drawer never to see the light of day again. Normally you can’t go wrong with Paul Harris’s stuff. Guess everyone gets at least one thing wrong in their life.
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The four points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, Sound & Video Quality and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 4
The magic is electronic, IPhone dependant, the quality of the case is cheap in both construction and appearance, and the entire thing is way over priced.
Teaching Quality: 9
Jeff does everything he can to not only teach the gimmick, the construction, and the effect but to keep it updated and relevant to newer models on the market.
Video & Sound Quality: 9
Good sound. Good video. No issues.
Overall Quality: 4
Not something I’ll ever use.
Have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at draven@williamdraven.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.
Artist: Jeff Prace
Producers: Paul Harris Presents
Link: Available At Your Favorite Murphy’s Magic Dealer
Retail Price: $44.95 USD
Learning Difficulty: Easy
Length of Video: 43 Minutes
Notes: Review is for the Iphone 5 Version
Includes:
· Gimmick and Phone Case
· Photos
· Instructional Video Link and Password
· App Download Instructions / Quick Start Guide
· Customer Service Guarantee and Quality Inspection Card
Jeff Prace is the king of organic magic. His effects often pack small and deal with common everyday objects like packs of gum and what not. With Phone Phreak Prace takes his creative magic into the technological arena as he tries to tackle a new genre of magic: Tricks done with cell phones.
I’ve got to be honest. I hate IPhone magic. Unless you’re putting the phone physically into an impossible location such as a balloon or a fish then you’re not really doing anything more than presenting the spectator with a puzzle and the challenge to figure it out. Cell phones and especially smart phones such as IPhone are micro super computers these days. It’s just hard for me to accept anything as magical when all the justification a spectator needs is “there’s an app for that.”
So Phone Phreak comes with three different tricks you can do with the program. There’s a torn and restored picture routine, a moving logo routine, and a bill change and production effect. Normally I think that if we’re going to brand something as “revolutionary” in the marketing copy then the product should warrant that level of praise. Here I think it is just over use of marketing buzz words in order to sell a product. There isn’t anything revolutionary here. The magic trick takes full advantage of your IPhone’s electronic abilities and minimizes the amount of sleight you need to execute anything. Great for beginners! But for a moving ink and bill switch I would certainly use other methods and ditch the reliance on the phone all together. Also this product ONLY works on Apple products. Sorry Android users, sucks to be you.
The biggest drawback Phone Phreak suffers is the reliance of using the custom made crappy phone case that is supplied with the trick. The phone case looks like a cheap piece of plastic, and I doubt it really offers any degree of protection for your phone in the same way other real cases do. For $50 bucks that I would spend on Phone Phreak I can buy an otter box for my phone and with the change left over a thumb tip to do a bill change. I just wasn’t impressed. IPhones are expensive. I keep my phone in an Otter box for a reason… I don’t want to break it. The need to switch out the cases for every performance just makes this trick very impractical for me, let alone and god forbid something should happen to my phone while it’s in the cheap plastic Phone Phreak case!
So at the end of the day what I think I’m left with is an expensive piece of plastic that will undoubtedly sit in my magic junk drawer never to see the light of day again. Normally you can’t go wrong with Paul Harris’s stuff. Guess everyone gets at least one thing wrong in their life.
When I give my product scores below I am measuring them on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 Being absolute the worst score possible, and 10 being the absolute best, making a score of five average. The four points that I grade upon is Product Quality, Teaching Quality, Sound & Video Quality and Overall Quality.
Product Quality: 4
The magic is electronic, IPhone dependant, the quality of the case is cheap in both construction and appearance, and the entire thing is way over priced.
Teaching Quality: 9
Jeff does everything he can to not only teach the gimmick, the construction, and the effect but to keep it updated and relevant to newer models on the market.
Video & Sound Quality: 9
Good sound. Good video. No issues.
Overall Quality: 4
Not something I’ll ever use.
Have a product you want reviewed? Want to see if it will stand up to the Draven Seal of Approval? Contact me directly at draven@williamdraven.com to find out how your product could be on the next Draven Reviews! Don't forget to like my blog where all my reviews are posted at www.williamdraven.wordpress.com.