Review: Form 5 + Hello Touch X

Jimmyjane has a habit of creating products with little to no understanding of human needs. These toys, consequently, are awful.

Jimmyjane Form 5 and Hello Touch X vibrators (plus masking tape labels) next to some fall leaves.
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Why does Jimmyjane still exist?

That’s mean. I know. I should delete that. I should write a new first sentence, something less hopeless and definitive. But sitting down to tell you about Jimmyjane’s recent releases, that is the question that pops into my head. Why, year after year, do they create products with little to no understanding of human needs? Why do they fail to improve upon anything, to move forward in any meaningful way? Why do they insist upon peddling $4,000 bouncy sex castles and $35,000 private jet rides rather than getting people off?

Take, for instance, the Form 5. This is the fifth vibrator in the Form series, after we’ve been subjected to a glitchy tooth, malformed tongue, bowling pin, and an insertable vibrator with its control buttons on the insertable part. All have been mediocre. Not astronomically bad, but not good. The Form 5 follows a similar trajectory: interestingly shaped, seemingly innovative… not at all logistically functional as a sex toy. And that motor. Oh god, I have thoughts about Jimmyjane’s motors.

Then there’s the Hello Touch X: a rechargeable version of Jimmyjane’s once-promising fingertip vibrator Hello Touch. Great! Maybe it will have more than one speed setting now! But no, it doesn’t. Just one vibration intensity and 10 levels of ELECTROSTIM. And it’s not easier to operate either, because why would they do that! That would be progress!

I feel like in the venn diagram of “people who want fingertip vibrators” and “people who love estim,” there is very little overlap in the middle. But logic is not Jimmyjane’s forte.

Jimmyjane is like that aging, obstinate techie hipster in the room who for years has been standing around with a beer in his hand bragging about his grand idea for a Facebook-killing social media website but has never lifted a goddamn finger to make it happen.

Form 5

Jimmyjane Form 5 vibrator leaning against a wall.

When people pick up the Form 5 in the sex shop I work at and ask me what it’s for, I feel at a loss for words. I have no earthly idea what it’s for, and I don’t think Jimmyjane does either. Their tagline for the toy is “for him, for her, for us,” which I imagine being parroted by a gender-binary-loving shrug emoji. Get creative! It can do anything! For the only two genders that exist!

In reality, it can do nothing.

This toy looks like a mouth open in a silent scream of confusion, which is exactly how I feel every time I try to use it. How. Why. What. How do I position. I don’t. I don’t understand at all. At first it seems enticing, like the tips should waft pleasurably against my vulva. But they’re not floppy or flexible enough, so pressing them against my body only makes them jab me. Plus Jimmyjane’s terrible motor means they don’t move a lot — they just sadly buzz.

Using the Form 5 means constantly adjusting it, and never to much satisfaction. Sometimes, I shove both tips to the dominant left side of my clit, but usually I gravitate toward flattening the right tip against my clit, so the other tip just kind of pokes the crease between my vulva and my leg. It’s weird and feels like I’m trying to apply a sticker to my genitals. What is this, a slumber party turned circle jerk?

This toy looks like a mouth open in a silent scream of confusion, which is exactly how I feel every time I try to use it.

Never does it make sense to use the toy as “intended,” because that would mean impaling my vulva with the tips as I struggle to access the nub (sorry, Pleasure Dome) buried in the middle. Supposedly Jimmyjane got data on average labia size from the Kinsey Institute to design this toy, which GREATLY CONCERNS ME because I am 150% sure my labia are not abnormal, and in no world can I make this vibrator pleasurably stimulate my labia and clit at the same time.

I can come with the Form 5, sure, but moooom do I have toooo?

In the “for him” part of the equation, I guess you’re supposed to slap your penis down between the flaps like you’re serving up a hot dog? I had my boyfriend try it. It was alright, he reported, but “pretty buzzy… the Hitachi is better.”

And still, still, Jimmyjane doesn’t include a storage bag with their $145 “high end” vibrators. Oh, but they do MANUFACTURE one. You just have to buy it separately. Also, for perhaps the first time, I actually counted the vibration patterns on a Jimmyjane toy and there are THREE? ARE YOU SHITTING ME? Way to cut corners everywhere, Jimmyjane. Oh my god.

Hello Touch X

Jimmyjane Hello Touch X finger vibrator with electrostim., strapped to my hand.

I don’t even know where to begin with the Hello Touch X. First of all, I have to consult the manual every time I go to use this toy, especially in estim mode. And Jimmyjane didn’t deem it important to put symbols on the buttons themselves, instead assuming all customers will tuck the control pack in its totally dorky wrist strap. So… you’re going to look like a dweeb while using this toy. It’s just a fact.





Used solo, the little bastards start cutting off circulation to my (arguably small) fingers the moment I put them on. While the toy does allow me to do movements I wouldn’t normally do with a sex toy, the vibrations are weak and buzzy and could only get me off in times of great need. Having a vag-goo-covered contraption strapped to my fingers also hampers my ability to use my right hand for anything else… and considering my masturbatory MO includes skipping shitty blowjobs in porn and putting everything on hold to compose a brilliant tweet, that’s a problem.

But used with a partner? I hope you’re ready for your relationship to be tested. Literally the first thing my partner said after he started using it on me was “um, I can’t feel your clit. I feel like a teenage boy rubbing through your pants, like, ‘clitoris is between legs right???'”

It was awful. My partner’s manual stimulation skills, which are usually so on point, were severely hindered. His fingers were awkward and imprecise, with too much added girth to be able to surround my clit even if I told him where it was. We felt farther away from each other instead of closer — as if hipster Jimmyjane was standing in the corner going, “hey. ‘Sup. Enjoying my sweet invention?”

The best part of my partner’s fingers on my vulva is feeling his fingers on my vulva. The best part about rubbing my partner’s vulva is feeling my partner’s vulva. The Hello Touch X deprives us of this joy, substituting instead a singular vibration intensity that doesn’t even remotely make up for it.

If, like me, you had lofty dreams of internal stimulation plus vibration against the G-spot, retire that fantasy. Inside a vagina, with barely any movement from my fingers, the pads threatened to slip off. “It’s like we’re being punished for using lube,” I narrated.

But it was inevitable. When I removed my fingers, the pads went bye bye. Queue simultaneous wincing. Queue me extracting the toy by tugging on its flimsy black cord. Queue fishing in my partner’s vagina.

To reiterate: IT WAS AWFUL.

But once we tossed the Hello Touch X away and touched each other with unaided fingers, we felt closer than ever before. Thanks, Jimmyjane!

When I removed my fingers from my partner’s vagina, the pads went bye bye. Queue simultaneous wincing. Queue me extracting the toy from his vagina by tugging on its flimsy black cord.

As for the electrostim, I’m not a fan. It weirdly pulses, which makes me feel like I’m at a physical therapy appointment. My boyfriend described the sensation as “sharp” and made a face when I tried it on him. We both love the Neon Wand, but the Hello Touch X just feels obnoxiously tiny and prickly. Also the fact that there is no digital readout to tell you which setting you’re on is ridiculous and dangerous. I could be on setting 5, I could be on setting 10, I could not have the estim on at all — who knows!

It feels tolerable on my arms, so I (stupidly) thought I could handle it on my vulva. No. Even on a low setting, I cringed and yelped and jerked my hand away.

This is more than enough suffering for my art.

Here’s the deal: if you want estim, get the Neon Wand. If you want a flapping sensation on your clit, consider the Magic Wand Rechargeable with the Flutter attachment. If you just want a vibrator that works really, really well, get the LELO Mona, Eroscillator, or We-Vibe Touch. If you want vibrating fingers, I don’t know what to tell you, honestly. It hasn’t been done well yet.

Jimmyjane, I wanted to review these toys because I still have a smidgen of hope for you. I desperately want people to buy your products and not regret it. I want improvements — deeper motors, user-friendly designs, pleasurable shapes. But they never seem to happen. You keep throwing wads of money into PR campaigns instead. You keep releasing toys that don’t actually feel good or work well. Discerning customers know the truth, and I know the truth: you haven’t produced a single amazing toy. Not one, in all your years.

Please do better.