Hello, folks, Paul here once again.
And it’s that time, time for me to review the HoboHookah.
You guys saw my first look at this portable party hookah and now I’ve been smoking with
it long enough that I feel I can actually give you a good review.
And it’s a bad review.
I’m not a big fan of this hookah.
I think that it serves a particular purpose which very few other hookahs can fulfill because
it is so very portable, because it is so good for taking to parties - but not much else.
Firstly, the complete lack of a tray and the inability to use a tray without sticking it
down here on the neck of the bottle is a big pet peeve of mine.
I worry constantly about coals falling off.
I like to have a tray, so as you noticed, I added one in.
But you can’t put it up here underneath the grommet because it would be interfered
with by the ports, which means that using a wind cover is practically impossible.
That is why, even on this Crown Classic Mini that I have up here, I need three coals to
get good smoke.
Now, speaking of smoke.
I can get good smoke out of this hookah and so will you if you know how to manage your
heat, but that brings me to my second point.
This hookah refuses to seal well.
The purge valve is at such an angle that the ball bearing refuses to sit itself in the
purge valve without taking a very strong draw.
And I will exemplify that via sound right now by holding up my microphone, so please
excuse the clatter.
It’s refusing to do it now.
Yeah, as you could hear there when I was drawing moderately - and that was not a light draw
- the ball bearing just wasn’t sited and I had to pull very hard to get it to actually
sit itself and seal.
Now, on the note of the purge valve, I’m going to take my coals off for this because
they are quite precarious.
The purge valve is practically useless, so we’re gonna purge and see what this does.
Yeah, I’m not even sure if this is in frame, but I’m gonna take it right in front of
my face.
That’s entirely unpurged.
Because this is common chamber and the ports are right here across from each other, right
there, air goes in here, comes out here immediately.
It purges the neck, it purges absolutely nothing else and it is a useless, useless purge valve.
I don’t tend to purge all that often because I’m very careful with my heat but, yeah,
if you do purge or you’re worried about people at a party not knowing how to manage
coals and you just wanna actually enjoy the party and walk away from your hookah for a
second, it’s not gonna purge and that’s a problem.
Now, on to the next piece of problems, because there’s a bunch of them.
As you notice, I’m not using the stock hose.
We saw these things in the preview and they’re junk.
They’ll do the job - let’s be clear about that - but the stiffness of them.
Because this is such a relatively unstable hookah, unless you put it on a very wide bottle.
If you put this on anything like a wine bottle, it is going to be pretty tippy, can easily
pull the hookah and I’m not a fan, I think that they are just junk.
Happily, like I said, you can replace it with a silicone hose, though these are a bit heavy,
too, which can be problematic.
Next up is the bowl.
We’ve all seen these bowls.
It’s a mod ceramic bowl and it is okay.
I mean, it’ll do the job if you have no other bowls, it’ll definitely, you know,
work if you know how to manage your heat on a mod bowl.
And it’s one that I wouldn’t worry about breaking at a party, but it’s not really
one that I wanna smoke out of, really, with any regularity, so I’ve replaced it with
my Crown Classic Mini.
This, also junk.
I’m not a fan.
I got the extended downstem, which I don’t think is particularly necessary.
The length of the downstem, even on this relatively short bottle here, gives me plenty of space
and if I were to put this on a taller bottle, I think it would still have plenty of air
space in the vase.
Anyway, unless this were used on something with a super long neck, I guess it’s nice
to have with things like Hypnotiq bottles or something that people make mention to when
talking about this hookah and this downstem.
I mean for, you know, a few bucks, it’s not a bad thing to keep around if you do buy
this hookah because it will act as a replacement and also act as a modifier if you use those
really tall bottles, but I think the normal downstem is fine.
On that note, this is pretty - I don’t know if you can see that - flexing.
This is pretty flimsy stuff as is the standard downstem, so the claims of it being indestructible
are very much not the case.
In fact, the aluminum junction here between the hose and the stem has some nicks in it
already and I haven’t taken this thing out of the house, I haven’t taken it to any
parties or been particularly rough with it.
So indestructible it is not.
All that being said, this hookah fills a particular niche.
If you take your hookah with you all the time, if you take it to parties and want something
that’s kind of a beater hookah with parts that can be replaced and you don’t really
need to worry about it getting completely ruined and, also, you don’t wanna be carrying
a glass vase with you and know that you can take a cheap bottle that you can, you know,
toss at the end of the night if you really want to or not worry about it getting smashed,
yeah, this will fill that role.
But, I don’t know, unless you are travelling constantly or a big party hookah smoker, I
can’t honestly suggest this hookah.
It’s not one that I’m gonna be smoking with on any regular basis.
I have plenty of other rigs that do all of these jobs so much better.
But yeah, I mean, I’ll keep this one around.
I’ll enjoy it well enough if I go on camping trips and don’t worry about, frankly, leaving
it behind.
But for the price it’s not terrible.
I wouldn’t be heartbroken to have this busted up a little bit.
So that’s it.
This is a-- You know what?
I’ll give it a numeric rating.
A 4 out of 10.
This is a 4 out of 10.
It’s serviceable, it does the job, it is indeed a hookah, it will smoke, but it has
a lot of problems.
So, if it interests you, make sure to check it out, give us your opinions, let us know
what you think.
If you completely disagree, please fill free to tell me how wrong I am, and if you do agree,
if you have actually worked with one of these before, let me know.
I wanna hear other opinions and I wanna hear other people’s experiences.
So I’ll see you guys next time.
This is Paul for Hookah.org saying thank you very much for joining us and happy smoking.