LELO Mona 2 luxury G-spot vibrator review (plus comparison to an affordable alternative)

You prob­a­bly don't need an intro­duc­tion to LELO. They were once revered as the lux­u­ry "it" brand, and I under­stand why. LELO offered sleek, body-​safe, and woman-​oriented Pleasure Objects that were ahead of their time. Despite the price hikes, the gim­micks, and the PR night­mares of recent years, the aver­age per­son thinks of LELO as upscale and fan­cy. And because of that brand recog­ni­tion, you don't turn down review­ing a LELO Mona 2 if you're an up-​and-​coming sex blogger.

The LELO Mona 2 is a sta­ple in many sex blog­gers' col­lec­tions, and for a good rea­son: it's hard to top its ver­sa­til­i­ty. This G‑spot vibra­tor has a fill­ing 1.45" wide swell, an angled neck, and ten speed set­tings with grad­ual incre­ments. And the high­est speed is pow­er­ful for the LELO Mona's size class.

Whether I use it inter­nal­ly or exter­nal­ly, the result is long, shak­ing, over­whelm­ing orgasms. I come quick­ly but spend ample time hav­ing anoth­er one and anoth­er one and anoth­er one. What's not to love?

Well, the LELO Mona costs $169 at full price.

Let that sink in for a minute.

The brand can't swin­dle me with silk and suave alone. Sure, I might drool over a lux­u­ry met­al vibrator's looks, and when an expen­sive oscil­la­tor pro­vides some­thing gen­uine­ly unique, I pub­licly declare my love for it.

But the LELO Mona isn't that. Even though it's a fan­tas­tic G‑spot vibra­tor, I'd rather save mon­ey if some­thing comes close enough. It's like how some peo­ple who adopt­ed the iPhone stay loy­al to the brand, even when there's a com­pa­ra­ble but more afford­able Android that suits their needs. That's not me. Not when I know that qual­i­ty, body-​safe sex toys are wide­ly avail­able now, at far low­er prices than LELO's.

Affordable alternatives to LELO products

The Blush Novelties Hop Cottontail, for exam­ple, has a sim­i­lar head shape to the LELO Gigi 2, but is way more pow­er­ful for $30–70 less, depend­ing on where you get it. That's a low bar to jump, though; the Gigi 2 is under­pow­ered as fuck. If you want a vibrat­ing LELO Ella, try a Picobong Moka instead (Picobong is a sis­ter com­pa­ny of LELO).

LELO's Mona 2 has a more robust build and stronger vibra­tions. In all fair­ness, it's the best insertable vibra­tor I've ever tried. But it's not so much bet­ter that it's untouch­able. Allow me to intro­duce you to the next best vibra­tor— one that's about $125 less.

No, that's not a typo. My holy grail recharge­able vibra­tor, the BMS Factory Pillow Talk Sassy, is $48.60 (with code SUPERSMASHCACHE at Peepshow Toys) and very sim­i­lar to the $169 Mona 2. There are some dif­fer­ences where the Mona out­per­forms the Sassy, but the Sassy has the two most impor­tant fac­tors going for it: price and rumble.

This review dis­sects all of the dif­fer­ences so that you can decide for your­self whether the Mona 2's price is worth it. If the Sassy isn't the vibra­tor for you, I've includ­ed two oth­er Mona 2 alter­na­tives to check out.

Overall shape and build

From the side view, these two vibra­tors have sim­i­lar G‑spot curves, though the Mona's is more tapered and pointy at the tip. The insertable length is the same, at 4.5", and the width is almost the same— the Sassy's head is a lit­tle fuller. BMS Factory's Pillow Talk sil­i­cone is only the slight­est bit more draggy.

The dif­fer­ences are more pro­nounced as you move down the shaft and han­dle. The LELO Mona 2 has a rigid, silicone-​coated ABS plas­tic body, while the Pillow Talk Sassy has a flex­i­ble neck and hard head. You can thrust more aggres­sive­ly with the Mona because of its firm­ness. However, with the vibra­tions turned on, the Sassy is plen­ty intense too.

The Mona also has a more con­toured han­dle and com­plete con­trol inter­face, while the Sassy has one Swarovski crys­tal but­ton at the base. More on that later.

Power and rumble

When I halfway sub­merge the heads in water, both splash a lit­tle. However, the Sassy's splash and water dis­place­ment are way more notice­able. Though their high­est speeds are com­pa­ra­ble in pow­er, the Sassy's is lower-​pitched with a slight­ly big­ger range of motion. This afford­able alter­na­tive notably has deep­er, rum­bli­er vibra­tion qual­i­ty than the LELO Mona 2. Click to zoom in on the images below or watch the video on my Instagram.

But my cli­toris is a far more crit­i­cal judge than my ears, palms, or a bowl of water. It rec­og­nizes how much dif­fer­ence a vibrator's shape makes. And I will begrudg­ing­ly admit that, for the first orgasm of a ses­sion, it's slight­ly eas­i­er to get off with the LELO Mona's pointy tip than the Pillow Talk Sassy's egg-​shaped head. Both vibra­tors result in the gasp­ing and shak­ing that would make my boyfriend jealous.

But once the plateau dips down, the Sassy more read­i­ly rock­ets my arousal meter back up to the cli­max zone. Even on the high­est speed, the Sassy is not as numb­ing dur­ing extend­ed ses­sions for me, thanks to its rumble.

Speed range

On the low end of the spec­trum, the Mona 2 has a broad­er range of speeds. Its first set­ting is so mild that I can bare­ly dis­cern that it's mov­ing at all. Meanwhile, the Pillow Talk Sassy's first set­ting is a basslike purr that can still get me off with enough pres­sure. That's enough vari­a­tion for me. Even though I'm sen­si­tive to vibra­tions and can appre­ci­ate a gen­tle vibra­tor, I'd prob­a­bly nev­er use the LELO Mona 2's bot­tom three speeds.

Thank good­ness that, like with the Pillow Talk Sassy, I can hold down the Mona's "increase" but­ton to more quick­ly increase the speed. The Mona has so many speed set­tings that, for prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es, the change is grad­ual. Turning up the Mona 2's speed is stop-​motion, while turn­ing up the Sassy is only slight­ly smoother, like a reg­u­lar video. And that's where the sim­i­lar­i­ty between the two vibra­tors' con­trols ends.

Control interfaces

The Pillow Talk Sassy has one but­ton. Press to turn on or off. Hold the but­ton up the speed. That's it. That annoys some peo­ple because most vibra­tors turn on when you hold the but­ton and jump to the next speed when you press it. On the flip side, you can instant­ly turn the Sassy off if, say, you for­got to lock the door, and some­one walks in. You can't do that with the Mona.

The Mona 2 has a full, 4‑button con­trol pan­el, as lux­u­ry sex toys should. Two of the but­tons change speed, while the oth­ers change the pat­tern set­ting. You can com­bine speed set­tings with five pat­terns: two puls­ing rhythms, two with wavy esca­la­tions, and one ran­dom­ized. Of those, the only one con­sis­tent enough to do any­thing for me is the fast puls­ing. Otherwise, I'll prob­a­bly nev­er use them.

While I appre­ci­ate the speed decrease option, the Mona 2's con­trol pan­el doesn't add much to the expe­ri­ence for me. The Sassy's low­est speed is pow­er­ful enough after orgasm that I can quick­ly turn it off and on and ramp up the pace again, with­out dis­rupt­ing the expe­ri­ence. As well, the Sassy's but­ton is more com­fort­able to press than the Mona 2's stiff con­trol pan­el. Sometimes I'd think I pressed a but­ton, but noth­ing would change.

If you care about tighter con­trol and a full pan­el of but­tons, the Sassy might not be the best fit for you. But I implore you to think twice about get­ting a LELO Mona.

The true price of a LELO product

If you must have a LELO Mona 2, buy it from the love­ly and inclu­sive peo­ple at Spectrum Boutique so that it bal­ances out a lit­tle. The mon­e­tary prices are far from the only things I dis­like about LELO.

For one, LELO's (and its sis­ter com­pa­ny, Picobong's) once-​basic line-​up is now full of gim­micks galore. A dry-​clean only dick tux. A smart­phone remote con­trol app that doesn't allow you to access all of the set­tings right away. The Mona Wave, a $150 imposter that sways back and forth against your G‑spot— but does it so slow­ly and with such shit­ty vibra­tions that you'd get more sat­is­fac­tion from a $60 alter­na­tive.

A company that makes unsafe condoms

But those shit­ty prod­ucts are noth­ing com­pared to when LELO released the Hex con­dom. It's a tex­tured con­dom with a graphene-​inspired design for strength— far from their claim of being the only con­dom inno­va­tion in the past 70 years. Haughty and pre­ten­tious mar­ket­ing aside, the con­dom itself seems benign enough, right?

Except you can con­tin­ue to use the con­dom when it has a hole or a tear in it, and that's not a good thing. You could even poke holes in Hex con­dom, fill it with water, and use it to water your plants.

LELO has not only cre­at­ed such a mon­stros­i­ty but is also proud of this design flaw. They call it a fea­ture. I find this fact any­thing but benign.

 

I don't know about you, but if my con­dom were com­pro­mised, I'd pre­fer it rip­ping as con­spic­u­ous­ly as pos­si­ble, and I'd want to know ASAP. That way, I could prompt­ly take appro­pri­ate action. I wince when­ev­er I see peo­ple defend­ing the Hex, and I have to remind myself, "If they want to keep using a bro­ken con­dom, that's their choice."

Endorsing an abuser

LELO also had Charlie Sheen, a known abuser of women, be the spokesper­son for the LELO Hex. Marvy Darling chron­i­cles his list of offens­es and drops the mic with:

[The peo­ple at LELO] only care about women’s health when it sells sex toys. When a woman is beat­en, shot, threat­ened, or stran­gled? Well…

Oof. Lilly has com­piled oth­er sex blog­gers' posts about the shit­storm. "Our cam­paign is not an endorse­ment of the past," LELO's social media man­ag­er respond­ed. "It's about pro­mot­ing con­dom usage, pre­vent­ing STIs, and change."

But they're a multi-​million dol­lar com­pa­ny. LELO could have afford­ed so many oth­er celebri­ties, who don't have vio­lent his­to­ries, to pro­mote con­dom usage. Their choice was a pub­lic­i­ty stunt, and they don't care— any press is good press to them.

More affordable alternatives to the LELO Mona 2

These prod­ucts are friend­lier to both your con­science and wal­let, while still mak­ing your junk happy.

BMS Factory Swan Wand Mini

I've seen review­ers sug­gest the BMS Factory Swan Wand as a rumbly alter­na­tive to the Mona, to which I want to shout, "Aw hell, no!"

Not because the Swan Wand isn't rumbly— and old fuck-​buddy com­pared it to an earth­quake. But its three speed set­tings are like jump­ing from 35 to 70 to 110 miles per hour. Its pow­er is Hitachi-​level. And while both the Magic Wand and Mona 2 are good toys, com­par­ing them is like com­par­ing a bull­doz­er to a Lamborghini.

Maybe you are will­ing to sac­ri­fice pre­cise speed con­trol for more pow­er and rum­ble. Then, by all means, get a Swan Wand Classic. You can find a video of the clas­sic vibrat­ing in a bowl of water on my Instagram. It's a qual­i­ty toy, rum­bli­er than the BMS Factory Pillow Talk Sassy, Swan Wand Mini, and Mona 2 alike, but I don't think it's near­ly as versatile.

Personally, if I didn't want to insert the fat end of the Swan Wand, I prob­a­bly wouldn't feel jus­ti­fied drop­ping $120 on it for only three steady speeds. A Swan Wand Mini might be a good fit for you if you want a petite G‑spot vibe short­er and thin­ner than the Sassy, but it's not as rumbly.

BMS Factory Pillow Talk Sassy

I think the BMS Factory Pillow Talk Sassy is an absolute steal for the price. Hardly any­one knows about it, and ever since I first tried it, I knew that it was my blog's mis­sion to rec­ti­fy this trav­es­ty. I think every­one who is look­ing for a G‑spot vibra­tor on a bud­get should con­sid­er it.

Read my Pillow Talk Sassy G‑spot vibra­tor review here.

Take 10% off a Mona 2 or any other sex toy at Spectrum Boutique

You can use the coupon code SUPERSMASH10 at Spectrum Boutique to take 10% off a LELO Mona 2, Swan Wand, Swan Wand Mini, or any­thing else you want!

Disclaimer

Spectrum Boutique sent me the LELO Mona 2 in exchange for my hon­est and freely-​given opin­ion. I also use affil­i­ate links through­out this post. Clear your cook­ies before click­ing and buy­ing, and the links will bring me a com­mis­sion at no extra cost to you.

The com­mis­sion doesn't change how I feel about LELO. I still think they're a sub-​par com­pa­ny. But I under­stand that you might still want to buy a Mona 2 or SmartWand Large.

Those are two of the few prod­ucts I'd reluc­tant­ly rec­om­mend from LELO because they are bet­ter than the com­pe­ti­tion. Don't get the Hex. Or Mona Wave or Ina Wave. Those suck.