- Hi, I'm Parris,
and it hasn't rained in Austin for a month!
And I've had this product waiting to review.
It's the Better Brella.
Finally a big rain storm passed through,
so I'm still a little damp from outside testing this out.
(pleasant guitar music)
♫ Epic Review Guys
- They've cleverly put the name
of this umbrella in the fabric itself.
It's called the Better Brella.
It goes for about $29.
A deal on their website is that you get two for this price.
I picked it up over at Fry's for about $19.
You might be able to find it in your local store.
Check it out online at the link down below this video.
Let's do this a little in reverse.
The umbrella and I are already wet,
but I wanted to show that obviously the water
does have to come off the umbrella.
They talk about bringing it into your house,
bringing into your car without all the water pouring off.
So what's so special about this Better Brella?
Well, I actually saw on TV a while ago
an umbrella called the "unbrella".
Which was an umbrella which sort of opened out in reverse,
and therefore wasn't as susceptible
to being blown inside out by winds.
It also had an interesting way of getting you
in and out of your car, in and out of a house
that's exposed to the rain pouring on the front door
without you getting wet.
Here's how it works.
You noticed all the gathering here
is at the top of the umbrella,
and normally you would see that down here
by the button that you push to release it.
That's because this part opens first.
Now, we made it past Friday the 13th a couple days ago,
so I hope I'm not pushing my luck here
opening the umbrella inside the house,
but I'm going to show you this.
So when I push the red button here by the handle,
very typical way to open an umbrella.
Grab it and pull it up.
You see how it's opening.
I don't want to get the water on my laptop.
It opens this way as we keep going
at this point it switches,
and the little metal spines in it
are pulled around this way,
and turn it into a traditional umbrella.
I still have more water dripping off.
The water that gets on the umbrella does have to come off,
and even if it doesn't form as big a pool right away.
It's all gonna come off eventually.
So that's one thing
in the commercials I don't know about.
Their claims that it won't make a mess
in your car or your house.
The water does have to come out,
but the difference is rather than
all being around the edges here,
where you have all those heavy drips ready to fall,
when you close it up to put it away,
the water is now going to go this way.
It's gonna fall in here,
and be collected all together,
and so you have all the water
basically stored inside the umbrella.
The part that is facing out is the dry part
of the umbrella that was actually down over your head.
It's pretty clever, right?
And then it's got a tie with the Velcro,
so you can leave all the water in there
if you want for a while.
Take it, tie it up,
so now aside from here around the edge
where the metal spines point out
where there are some drips,
the rest of the water is stored inside
until you can open the umbrella up
out on the porch or something,
let the water run out and let this dry.
And you do have to remember to go back and do that.
Otherwise if you leave it like this
until it rains in another month and you open it up,
you may have a kind of moldy surprise in there.
Two features that are a benefit of this design:
one, is that it will fit in very small spaces.
A cracked open car door,
if you're going into a building,
and the rain is pouring in,
you just have to open the door a little,
you can put this out and easily open it,
and be under the umbrella before it gets you all wet.
The other thing is it is harder supposedly
for this to flip inside out,
and as I'll show you in the video clip in here,
when it does flip inside out,
it doesn't break the umbrella,
and it basically pops right back in.
So it looks much more manageable to use in a heavy wind.
(rain)
(car door closes)
It actually works!
(rain)
Disadvantage of this design is it can't get this small.
We have a couple of umbrellas like this.
These are our main umbrellas that we use here.
They open very large like a golf size umbrella
because we all have to fit under them sometimes.
I'll tempt fate a little more,
open this up and show you.
So this is very compact because
you push this button--you know how umbrellas work.
Pops out and it opens up.
Now, on both of our umbrellas
we have a couple of these metal spines are starting to go.
They have been blown inside out,
and that really seems to damage the hinge
at that last part of it.
I don't think you're going to run into
that problem with this,
but if there's only room under that umbrella
for two of you and there are three of you there,
this larger size is certainly a big plus.
The other advantage is once you have it wrapped up,
it's much more compact.
We have this out easily stowed away in the minivan.
I carry this if I have to pick the kids up
at the bus stop and it might rain.
It's very easy.
You kind of forget you have it.
Whereas, you're never going to forget this
because it won't shrink down
You do have to make a point of holding onto this.
If those pluses are more important than those minuses,
this might be a good umbrella for you.
Again, you can buy it on Amazon.
It's about $29 for one umbrella.
If you go to their website,
they have that two for one,
but then the extra shipping,
so it ends up at the moment,
coming to $47 for two of these umbrellas,
if you order from their website.
But lucky for you, if you're watching today,
January 16, 2017, we're actually doing
an Amazon giveaway of one of these.
I'll have a link to our giveaway
right down below this video.
Now, you do have to be 18 or older,
you have to live in the US,
you have to have an Amazon account,
and for this giveaway you do have
to be following us on Twitter.
If you don't already, you'll get a chance to
when you click on the link,
and go though the process.
If you already follow us on Twitter, @epicreviewguys,
then go ahead, you have a chance to win
this fine umbrella in this color of blue.
And if you were watching last week,
when I reviewed this seen on TV BoomTouch,
I ordered a two for one deal,
they sent me an extra one.
We're sending this to one of our viewers.
Someone who commented in the past week
down below that video,
and that's going to be announced
on our Instagram, @epicreviewguys.
And on the very rare chance
that the same person who wins this umbrella this week
was also the person who won
the musical speaker BoomTouch last week,
well, actually that's okay.
It would be really weird,
but it gives me the opportunity to make the joke,
that you could be singing in the rain.
You can keep checking back
for my future attempts at humor and reviews.
Or you could click that subscribe button down below.
You'll get notified when our videos go up.
See you on the next review.
(upbeat music)
♫ Epic review guys
♫ Wanna watch it all night long
(upbeat music)