We own several Selfie Sticks as it seems many companies are now giving them away as swag at industry conferences. The downside? Those free sticks are often riddled with logos, come in bright colors that may not fit your style (and in general look a little cheap,) and are often built in bulk with manufacturing discounts to a poor quality standard. We have several selfie sticks and they all have their flaws. I was skeptical about a $20 ($50 retail) selfie stick in what seems like a tourist and fad driven product demographic.

Pros:

*The packaging is what stood out to us immediately- I could tell these was a higher end photography/tech accessory. The box was well sealed and made from a beautiful (yes, cardboard can be beautiful) cardboard material with an inner plastic shield that held all of the products parts in place perfectly. This was not your usual stick attacked to a cardboard backing covered in plastic. We can't say that the term 'memory journalist,' means anything to us, but it certainly sounds fancy.

*Our first reaction was a sort of awe. The brushed stainless steel finish of the selfies casing is beautiful and matches some of our more expensive photography equipment. The matching silicone grip seems well seated around the trigger button with no loose seams. In fact, that button is a big selling point for us, as it sticks up and offers an easy press that will not cause jerks when taking your photos. In the past we have leaned towards remote based selfie sticks because of such issues, but these trigger is seamless and easy to engage with minimal effort.

*The device grip has a great range of adjustments and a full range of pivoting motion for left handed or right handed photography and a wide array of angles. It does NOT come off of the stick (like some do,) so it cannot be attached to gorilla pods or other stands. We use the removable grip selfie heads to transition our photography gear into quasi phone stands- but we like the idea that the Memory Journalist is securely one piece. We take it as a sign that it is sturdy and well built.

*This stick is a bit heavy in the hand, in a well build way, but very light to hold when extended. The phone grip locks into it's angle with the side twist clamp and does not roll or move during photos. In fact, we'd say our Samsung Glaxay S4, in bulky case, feels very easy to manage at the maximum 34" extension length.

*When not in use this is one of the most compact selfie sticks we've seen as the head actually folds down along the rod, as to cradle it.

*The Bluetooth functionality is a very slick innovation in selfie stick technology. Full charge time seemed to be about an hour and we've gotten hours of paired shooting out of it so far on that single charge. Note, the light on the bottom (by the charging port) will turn blue when it is charged and also when you turn it on. And pairing? It was intuitive and our Galaxy S4 discovered it in no time.

Cons:

*This selfie stick is so nice we consider it a photography aid- I really wish it came with a storage pouch for protection.

*It's a pet peeve of ours when a device comes without some sort of charge out of the box. We want to play with our tech right a way and it was a bummer that we had to immediately plug it in and wait.

*The included charge cable is a little sorter than we'd like.

In all we are more than pleased with this selfie stick and think it will be hard to find any model better- The other half says it is too pretty to haul around and is worried it will get scuffed up, but so far so good. I'd have to say the biggest pro with this stick is that trigger button and how easy it is to engage without jerking the stick around!