Just how awesome is Evolv?
I sent a PM to the Evolv guys telling them how the Darwin that was shipped to me was kind of broken. It would not stay turned off when the arm was fully closed no matter HOW slowly one closed it. ALso, the 510 adpater was kind of put on with a screwy tilt towards the the main base. Made it almost impossible to close it with ANYTHING attached to it no matter how much one loosened the attachment. Also, when it got to me the button was stuck in the ON position and it was completely turned on!
That's right: my Darwin was turned on with the button pressed the whole time it was shipping to me in the mail - for 5 days!
I was able to unjam the buttom and it still worked, except for the not powering off issue.
On August 4 they shipped me a new one that just got dropped off by SGT Slappy TODAY!
That's 5 days to go from Ohio to the border of Iraq/Kuwait via the regular ol' United States Post Office.
The replacement Darwin - which I call Darwinator, Destroyer of Worlds - arrived in a nice small box lovingly wrapped in foam. It works perfectly. No matter how fast I flip the arm to the OFF position it always turns off and - more importantly - STAYS off. Loaded up a 510 carto with some new 555 @ 6mg that also just arrived and....ahhhh.
This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. A slim, tank-tough variable-voltage mod for my cartos and juice I get from another vendor (other vendor also located in Ohio near the APO center so carto and juice get here quick as well!).
Overall I'm a very satisfied customer for the following reasons:
1) When I asked Drew why the Evolv store didn't have options listed for shipping to APOs, he almost immediately made options appear (read: automagically!). Excellent customer service even though I wasn't a customer!
2) When Darwin arrived in a less-than-optimal condition (note: it still worked) they shipped out a replacement THE SAME DAY. They even provided a nice sticker to use on the box. Well worth the $5 or so it will cost to ship back to them. I'm shipping it back to them today since they were so nice to send me a replacement so quickly.
3) The Darwin - even when working in sub-optimal condition - just flat out WORKS. Yes, it took me a week to actually figure out how to optimize it for my own personal use, but once the light bulb went off it performed perfectly, every time.
4) As luck would have it, for some strange reason Drew & crew must live almost right next door to a major APO facility somewhere in Ohio. This makes them the FASTEST vendor to ship to APOs that I've found - most packages take only 5 days, 6 at the latest. My juice/carto/808 vendor is about a day or two slower than Evolv taking on average 7 days - and he's located in the same state! And remember, this isn't using UPS, or DHL, or any other private package shipping company - this is using the United States Post Office. Drew and the Evolv team have their shipping times down pat.
So, will I buy something from Drew and Evolv again? You damn skippy! Matter of fact, I already have and it should be here any day now! It's probably on that big mail truck I see trapped at the main gate getting searched by guards with bomb-sniffing dogs.
