Loklik iCraft review: A Cricut alternative with good reasons to explore

Crafting, in its many guises, has rocketed in recent years, as more people discover a love for it, partly I imagine, thanks to the multitude of YouTube channels and social media types sharing their creations.

Most creative types will have at least a passing familiarity with the brand Cricut, who make cutting machines for all manner of materials. They aren't alone in this though and some of the alternatives are offering equally useful devices, including those from Loklik, who also make heat presses, which partner nicely with HVT cutting machines.

So, what do these things actually do? Well, they most often look not dissimilar to a desktop printer but rather than moving a print head across pape,r they move a tiny blade, or a pen, instead. A tacky cutting mat is used to hold material in place, which is fed through the machine, and then spat out once the design is complete.

At this point, weeding needs to be done, which is the process of removing unwanted material from the design. This could be the centres of letters in an HVT (heated vinyl transfer) or areas of a card design.

I've used a number of these machines, as well as heat presses (you can check my review of Loklik's own heat press, and I've spent some time with the iCraft to see how it stacks up.

What's in the box?

The iCraft ships alongside a few necessities including the cutting mat, weeder, a tool and a pen holder, two blades and a double-ended pen, plus a power and a USB cable. There's also a neat little caddy for keeping the above organised, which clips to the left side of the machine. The iCraft is available in a few colours so check their site for the latest options.

The iCraft is about the width of a desktop printer but is much shallower at about five inches, so it will fit on many desks and is easy to store if only used occasionally. That said, you will need to leave some room behind it when cutting, as the cutting mat is fed through as it works, meaning you need around ten inches or so clearance.

Setup is a doddle and one of the easiest of any device I've used. Simply plug in the power, download and install the software, add the tool of choice and off you go. While Loklik supply a USB cable it does have Bluetooth, which is stable and connects flawlessly and makes it easy to connect to Android or iOS devices too.

Tools are easy to swap. Just open the latch on the cutting head and lift out the holder. Then you can insert a different blade, or move to the pen holder and slot a pen in.

It couldn't be much simpler.

Setup & Software

Loklik's Idea Studio software is what you'll use to lay out designs, import from elsewhere, as well as define the job settings. This software is a free download and all you need is to register. It's free, so no single purchase or subscription is needed. Once downloaded you'll gain access to a growing library of designs and assets, with a one-click 'add to canvas' button. There are of course tools for creating your own designs. The tools on offer are fairly basic but clearly labelled and easy to use. Personally, I prefer to use Illustrator for this and export .svg files, which Idea Studio imports without any issue.

As with so many creative applications these days, there is an AI option, which you can use to type a prompt, generating designs. I'm less a fan of this but some people may find it useful.

No matter how or where you create your designs, Idea Studio is where you will manage the job and this is again pretty straightforward. You define the material you are using, then tell it whether you are scoring, cutting etc. When using HVT you need to mirror your design; thankfully there's a simple one-click option for this and the app will prompt you too.

Press the button, load your material and then press play on the iCraft and watch as it starts cutting away.

Performance

The iCraft is capable of cutting quite an array of materials. The Loklik site states over 100, including card stock, vinyl and papers. I found the 180gsm card cut very well, with sharp corners, nice smooth curves and perfectly straight lines. More taxing for these machines can be HVT so I was interested to test these out.

I'm pleased to say that the results here were just as good, with lovely clean cuts that aid the weeding task.

Using the pen, which has both a soft felt tip and a harder finalise nib, worked a treat too, drawing designs far faster and more accurately than I could do by hand. I do wonder if the use case for this is that necessary though, as surely a printer would be just as good. That said, if you don't have a printer, or you want to print longer jobs then you can do that here, as the iCraft is only restricted in the width of material. You can pass through rolls of material, making it pretty easy to cut or draw designs that are long and thin. The max width is 12" but there's no quoted maximum.

Once a job has been created in Idea Studio and sent to the iCraft, you line up the material on the cutting mat, then insert that into the guides on the device, press the feed button to finish loading, then the play button and off it goes.

I appreciate machines that do their job in relative peace. I've had lasers and 3D printers, even paper printers, that make more noise than is appropriate for a desktop machine, but the iCraft is very quiet. Loklik states 60db for it in use, which is pretty quiet and low enough to have a phone or Skype call with it running next to you.

Once the job is finished you need to weed. This means removing the job from the iCraft and then removing any waste material. If you're cutting text, for example, you will need to remove the centre of letters like 'o' or 'e'. Loklik provides a weeder for this job, which is essentially a sharp pointed piece of metal in a comfortable hand grip. This works well and I was easily able to weed the HVT sheets I used for designs intended for T-shirts. Various weeding tools are available and I would suggest trying a few, as some will work better, depending on the job and material being used.

All in all my experience with the Loklik iCraft has been fantastic and it will be a staple in my studio and will reused for creating all sorts from custom merch for my channels to gifts, labels and personalised greetings cards, plus a few art projects I'm planning.

Who is it for?

If you regularly work with vinyl designs, cut paper or card for projects, or want to explore new ways of working with materials for your hobbies, then the iCraft could be the perfect tool for the job.

Buy it if

• You want a compact cutting machine
• You work with a variety of materials
• You need it situated away from your computer (Bluetooth is great)

Don't buy it if

• 12" max cutting width is too small