smokn
And, like I mentioned a few more to come after this. If you know of a good e-cig / e-smoke company / vendor that I should contact, please shoot me an email at linc dot fessenden at gmail dot com and I’ll see if they are interested in me doing a review! Also, feel free to email me if you have any questions, or want/need recommendations as well!
smokn
I did receive my package of zero nic samples from V2 yesterday. It was absolutely amazing! These are *extremely* smooth! If you find the full strength cartomizers a little heavy for you, you simply MUST try this, just order a set with a smaller amount on nicotine and you should be completely set. Great stuff, guys!
Linux Mint
WTH Mint-14!? Cinnamon runs at 17% cpu (doing NOTHING), Gnome3 at 7.x%, xfce at 2.x% and Fluxbox at 0.x%… GAHHH! FIX ME PLEASE!!!
As I mentioned, V2 sent me a lot to review – one of their Ultimate kits (last pic). What I will do, however, is start with what you get with their most affordable kit, the Express kit, and talk about the extras afterward.
The Express kit, which retails for $25, has just what you need to get started with e-cigs. It includes one of their batteries, one cartomizer equal to 1-2 packs of cigarettes, and a charger. Personally, I would love to see them upgrade this kit to add a couple more cartomizers, but you are still seeing good value for the price. There is a good deal of quality in these products and V2 is not afraid to show it off. They are one of the few vendors that go as far as listing all the specifications of their product for caparison, while most vendors only say things like “Best on the market”. For instance, you can easily find out that the Express Kit’s battery, their “standard” battery, is a 4.2 volt, 110mm, 250 mAh battery that should run you a good (estimated) 200 puffs per charge and should charge completely in 3 hours. There is some good and relevant information in there a person just might want to know before purchase!
There is quite a pile of flavors available to make your selection from. My favorites were the menthol flavors. and the Mint Tea in particular. All of them, however, are quite good. The cartomizers make a nice medium bodied vapor (depending on how heavy you drag), and I found the full strength to be quite throaty, but tasty all the same. I asked if the throatyness went away with the nicotine level and was told they would send me a few with no nicotine to check out, however I haven’t yet received them to test. I’ll let you all know what I think when I do. In the mean time, make sure to pick up one of their flavor samplers, which sell for only $17 but contain all their flavors for you to test (and is the equivalent of about a carton of cigarettes too!)
The hard case ($20) I received to try out was actually pretty interesting. It’s not much longer than a battery and about as wide as a pack of cigarettes and half as thick. This thing is really sturdy and has this nifty sliding top. You can easily fit either a battery or two and some cartomizers in there for travel. It makes for a very sophisticated looking carrier.
The soft case ($20), however, was the case I really preferred. It’s a good rugged looking fabric type case and there is a wad of room in there for several batteries (3 in their own pockets), a USB charger and a hand full of cartomizers as well as some other miscellaneous stuff, if you are so inclined. There is, however, one problem with this case. Each cartomizer comes with this little rubber cap or condom to keep it fresh. With this cap on, the cartomizers will not clip in their holders. What I did to get around this was to offset the caps on each end so that the middle of the cartomizer is clear to clip into its holder, but it just seems to me that the clips themselves ought to be wide enough to accommodate the cartomizer with the caps on?
One other accessory I found oddly implemented was the lanyard ($8). I can see such a thing being *extremely* useful for people, however, it appears, on the website anyhow, that the correct method of deployment is to put the led-end of the e-cig into the lanyard cap. I wonder if the cartomizers would leak, carrying them around all day upside down, or at least have the fluid drain away from the atomizer end a bit. I do want to explicitly state, however, that during the time I wore this and tried it out it appeared to function just fine… But it still looks weird to me 🙂
I was really impressed with their PCC (Portable Charging Case) for $50, which bears a striking resemblance to the hard case described above. This is a bit longer than the hard case, a bit wider, and, of course, heavier since it has the capacity in it to be able to recharge an e-cig battery for you on the go. It’s simple enough to use. You screw the battery into the connector, close the case and hold down the button on the back for a second or two. The case has led status lights to show you not only how much charge the case itself has, but how much charge is in your e-cig battery as well. I really liked this, and like the hard case it also has the sliding top and room for a battery or two with space for some of your favorite cartomizers as well and, if you get the XL version you can use it to charge other devices as well like cameras and phones.
Lastly, they included a Power Cig ($28). This is a USB pass through device, which means you can plug it into any USB port and it’ll use the power from that port instead of relying on battery power. Why would you want such a thing? Well, if you are like me and attached to a computer or laptop all day, or even within reach of an outlet, you could use this instead of a battery and never ever have to work about running low or out of power and you would always have a consistent smoke (vape) throughout the longevity of your cartomizer. No need to stop and recharge or swap batteries out what so ever. Pretty cool! They also have a Notebook Cig on their website for the same price. The only real difference I see between the two is color and cord length. Note that these devices *also* come with a 5 pack of cartomizers 🙂
I would love to comment on the disposable e-cig samples they sent me, however, I gave those to my kid who has been vaping on them for over 2 weeks now. They are *still* working 🙂 I would expect to hear more about these folks here in the future as I am still waiting on the low/no nic carts, plus I am itching to try their beta LiquiMax Blanks and some E-Liquid (and maybe a drip tip or two). How cool do they look!?
Stay tuned and when you go there, tell them Linc sent ya!
smokn
I was really curious what sorts of goodies I would find there, and people have suggested that they actually will let you try their flavors before you buy! You just can’t beat that with a stick! You all know I am a real immediate gratification kind of guy, and this was just too much for me to resist.
I arrived and walked in the door straight into some kind of photo / video shoot, no doubt for some phamous vaping publication somewhere (notice the ph in phamous, pretty clever eh?) 🙂 My wife and I immediately succumbed to the charms of two little mascot doggies who ran up to greet us. There was obviously no turning back now. Once past the cute little diversions, I walked up to the bar (yes a bar) and struck up a conversation with the notably hatted (bowler – bonus points) proprietor.
I was immediately impressed because there they really want to know where you are at with the whole e-smoking experience so they can custom tailor their products to your needs, and for my money, they seem to be pretty good at it! The atmosphere there is nice and relaxed, kind of like bantering back and forth with a sibling. They are refreshingly NOT stuffy or formal there and, with my New York upbringing, I felt completely at home. In fact, I felt their blunt banter quite entertaining!
Along with their obvious expertise, the have a good bit of equipment there for your vaping needs, but this is not the real draw. The real draw there is the amazing flavors of e-juice. Not only are the flavors amazingly good, but the selection is enormous and all my selections were custom made for me on the spot while I waited. Believe it or not, the first flavor I was offered to try was pizza (yes, pizza) and guess what it tasted like? If you said pizza, you would be right on the money! It is a very strange experience to smoke a pizza, let me tell you… After taste testing a variety of flavors, I purchased a bottle of menthol, cinnamon and cola to tide me over until I come back.
As if all this wasn’t enough, I saw something most people have only heard of in storybooks there: Actual Customer Service! A woman came in who apparently had a PV mishap in her travels that day. This device had some sort of malfunction and was smoking – and not in the way one would like. Anyhow, they immediately replaced not only her PV device, but also her atomizer and filled up her tank with enough e-juice to get her where she was going that day, all for **NO CHARGE**. Unheard of you say? I swear on my own bowler hat that I saw it all in person!
Lastly, this place is nice enough to host the local area vaper group’s meetups. Although that is a brilliant business move for a e-juice joint, I also completely believe that this is because they also genuinely enjoy their products and, more importantly, their customers and community. Yup, you guessed it, I will be going back, and I am bringing people with me too! Stop by in person or online and tell ’em Linc sent ya!
V4L Classic VK Slim Starter Kit
I have to say that I sent quite a few emails back and forth with the folks at Vapor 4 Life (thanks Brian) and they were extremely helpful and responsive with answering a variety of questions from this newbie. They also are one of the few companies so far to have provided a custom discount code for me (use TLLTS for 10% off), and that is much appreciated!
Their inexpensive starter kit, the Classic VK Slim Starter Kit retails for $30 and what you get with that is one of their batteries, a five pack of cartomizers in your choice of flavor, a charger and one of their signature carry cases. Yes, that’s $30 for the kit goodies and the equivalent of about a carton of smokes! Good price!
The battery life is good for it’s size and can be purchased in either manual or automatic, and in a variety of colors. I tested some menthol and tobacco flavors of cartomizers and they are very good tasting with a medium to full vapor production and a full throatiness to them. The charger, a wall charger, is interesting in that it sticks your e-cig straight out from the wall and makes your outlet look like it’s trying to take a drag 🙂 The carry case they have (the one they sent me anyway) will hold 2 batteries and 4 cartomizers. Well, sort of. The holes/inserts for the cartomizers are quite tight on the bare cartomizers, which is probably a good thing and keeps things from rattling around in there, however, every cartomizer comes packaged in these little rubber condoms, which keep your cartomizer fresh. With the condoms on your cartomizers, they just do not fit in the case holes, and if you pull the condoms off, you are decreasing the life/freshness of your cartomizers. This is probably not a big deal for a *really* heavy smoker, but I have found each cartomizer to be equivalent to about 2 packs of cigarettes, and the eq of 8 packs of smokes is going to take me long while to go through. I don’t want to dry my carts out and waste them after all 🙂 I have seen a rather easy modification of their case on youtube which completely takes care of that problem and also gives you space in there for even more cartomizers. Make sure to check that out!
Titan Twinset
So here’s the story. They sent me this with some e-juice to try and after reading and following the included directions (more of a panel picture book here) I put this all together to try it and …. burnt the snot out of the thing. It smelled and tasted absolutely horrible! What happened was the battery just jammed and stuck on without enough e-juice in there (really let this thing sit for 10 mins after you fill it initially btw) and burnt up the wicking material inside of the atomozer. I was completely bummed because I *really* wanted to try this and see how different it was compared to using a cartomizer.
I opened up a support ticket on their website and within a few hours (yes, good customer service) they said they would be happy to send me out a complete replacement. No questions asked, no sending the broken one back kind of stuff, no paying for shipping, it just appeared in my mailbox magically two days later! Nice! This is how customer service *should* be! And just to complete the story, the second one worked *way* better 🙂
The Vapor 4 Life website is pretty easy to navigate and find what you are looking for. You will also note that you can connect with them via facebook and twitter, etc.. This is a great idea because they seem to run a lot of specials that they notify you of in the manner. Also, make sure that when you go there, you use our TLLTS discount code for 10% off!
Variety is the spice of life, right?
variety-smoke
The e-cig, itself, is really nondescript. It’s slightly bigger in circumference than a tobacco cigarette and, of course, heavier, but that is to be expected. It looks remarkably like a traditional cig, even down to the line pattern on the battery and the orange led that lights when you puff. What you don’t see at all, however, is a logo of any kind on it.
They sent me the regular tobacco flavor cartomizers, and they have a nice medium vapor (smoke) with just enough throatyness to them. They smoke (vape) like a regular old full flavor cigarette. The taste is quite pleasant for a regular tobacco smoker – very sweet-tobaccoish and not at all chemically. I really enjoyed smoking this while having my morning coffee. It definitely hit the spot!
The battery should last 2 or 3 hours easy and charges pretty quickly. Again, if you were to smoke this at work, there should be no problem with throwing a charge on it if need be in between smoke breaks, etc.. If you really enjoy these, though, you’d be smart to order a spare battery along with your next set of cartomizer refills, which, by the way, are around $11 for a pack of 5 ($22 for a carton of smokes? Yeah!)
Each cartomizer is equivalent to about a pack of cigarettes according to their website, however, it’s my experience that it may be more like 1-2 packs given that you do not waste any of it like you do with a regular cigarette.
If you, like me, are wondering how long that cardboard cigarette case is going to last banging around in your pocket, you will be happy to know that they also offer a bunch of different accessories on their website too. You’ll want to go there soon after your initial purchase and browse the selection. I particularly like the looks of their leather case offering (especially after seeing some other companies cases) and wish they had sent me one of those to *demo* too 🙂
Lastly, these folks were quick to respond to my inquiries, so I believe they have good customer service, and thy shipped *very* quickly, which is fantastic because there are very few places outside NYC where these can be obtained retail.
I say go for it, and when you stop by, tell them Linc sent ya!
smokn