UKC

Hi all

In the near future I will be looking to expand my rack with some smaller cams and think I have narrowed the selection down to a choice between these two. The only small cams I have been able to get my hands on to use are the old CCH aliens (really liked) and the BD (3CU??) which I liked a lot less, they felt fiddily and I was less confident in their placements. As the two brands mentioned are both "copies" or improvements of the aliens I am hopeful they will be as good if not better than the old style.

Is there any real difference between the totems and fixe evos? They appear very similar and the fixe units appear to go down to a smaller size. Have the QC issues I keep hearing about with the fixe evos been sorted? Anyone used both and can offer a preference?

Any advice on this would be much appreciated as they are obviously a major investment which will hopefully accompany me for many years.

Cheers

In reply to DampRice:

I have the Totem basics, and they are brilliant. They look and feel really well made, seat well, and just generally feel solid and inspire confidence when you get them in.

Like you, I also considered the Alien Evos, but struggled to find any feedback, outside of the reports of poor QC on some of the US forums. I am tempted by the black one as there doesn't seem to be a black Totem basic coming, however the fact that they can't even spell check their adverts does put me off somewhat...

http://www.fixehardware.com/shop/cch-aliens/alien-lite-black-cam-a301/

'Increasedd strenght' indeed.

Maybe UKC can get a review done for us??????

In reply to Phi:

Thanks for this, think I am leaning towards the totems purely because of the lack of positive feedback from the fixe version.

In reply to DampRice:

I've not held the production version of the Evo in my hand, but from the looks of the preproduction version, the totem quality is streets ahead...

In reply to DampRice:

There have been a few threads on this - the Totem basics are simply awesome. The Fixe version, not so much. QC issues aside, the Totems just feel better in the hand and feel like they've been built to a higher standard.

In reply to DampRice:

I've got some of the evos, and I do like them. I did initially buy them because of the extendable sling, which I've needed to use maybe 3 times. In hindsight the extension is pretty minimal and not really a useful feature. I do like having the black evo - but I've barely ever used it (at the grades I climb, it isn't very necessary). It is worth noting that the black evo does not have the springs inside the lobes - i.e. the design between the blue evo and the black evo is different.
I have held and played with (but not used) a totem basic, and really did rate the workmanship. I thought the actual cam lobes were a better design, but the trigger system and thumbloop was pretty much similar to an evo.

If I were to re-buy, I'd strongly consider the totems as well (not totem basics), since they're now going to do a small black one, which is about the same size range as the blue alien.

In reply to DampRice:

Get the totems, they're ace

Thanks all. Think that pretty much settles it for the totems.

In reply to DampRice:

Hello,

I've been using Totem Basics for over a year now and love them for all the reasons mentioned above. For a size smaller I find that the Metolius Mastercam 00 compliments the set nicely and are also very good cams. You can pick them up at a decent price as well.

Col.