Disclaimer - I am not associated with or have any financial interest in any e-cigarette/personal vapor manufacturer or supplier and have no association with any vendor other than as a customer. This is my, unsolicited, opinion and is worth what you are paying for it. Your results WILL vary from mine and will probably vary from day to day as well.
I smoked tobacco cigarettes for about 50 years, yeah I'm THAT old, with Marlboro as my favorite brand. I smoked up to three packs a day at my peak, but had tapered back down to under a pack recently. I have quit before using "the patch" and Nicotrol, but have ended up going back each time, even after several years of not smoking. I guess I miss the manual rituals and oral gratification or something. My wife suggested I try an e-cig as an alternative with less dangers, and, to get rid of my snoring.
I looked around at e-cigs and settled on the ProSmoke. Their claim of being "the best" is the same claim made by almost every one out there, but the size and look were what sold me. I was looking for an e-cig that closely resembled a traditional cigarette. That, combined with their case, which is like a pack of cigarettes, convinced me they were going to be the one for me. The three piece design, battery, atomizer and cartridge, made sense to me from a mechanical standpoint. Their pricing seemed competitive so I ordered a starter kit. When it arrived, I was disappointed to find I had to charge the batteries for 8 hours prior to the first use, so it was the next day before I got to use it.
The kit contained two batteries, two atomizers, a pack of five cartridges, the case/charger, a USB to battery cable and a USB wall adapter. The packaging was nice and it did arrive fairly quickly.
I was surprised at the amount of smoke/vapor that I got on my first drag. The taste, and what I later found out is "throat hit" were quite good. I figured that this was the way to go. There was no smell, no ash and I was still "smoking", a big reflief. On the other hand some problems began to crop up.
The "form factor" being the size of a cigarette is a real limitation. The small battery size, probably around 100-125 milliamp hours, severely limits how long they last. So I ordered two more batteries and some more cartridges. Then I found out the cartridge life is also very short due to its size limited capacity. This was going to get expensive really fast if I kept buying new cartridges, so I bought a tobacco and a vanilla flavored liquid so I could refill the cartridges.
I read another ProSmoke review here and the reviewer said he uses 15 to 20 drops to fill a cartridge. What he didn't say is that those drops have to come from an 18 or 20 guage needle in a syringe. If you use that much from an eyedropper or drip bottle, you're going to have a puddle under the cartridge and a really wet, bad tasting cartridge on your hands. After some trial and error I found out that the actual capacity of a cartridge is about 0.1 milliliter, that's right, one tenth of a milliliter. Most of the cartomizers on the market have a 1.0 milliliter capacity so that makes a ProSmoke cartridge roughly ten times as expensive. Now that's a downer.
My first real test of the system came on a trip to Deleware, about an hour drive for me. The ProSmoke worked fine on the way, but when I almost got to where I was going it stopped working. After trying a new cartridge and battery I found out the atmozer had failed, and of course, no spare. Luckily my wife had a Blu disposable with her and I used that for the rest of the day. That atomizer had lasted less than two weeks for me. When I got home I ordered two more atomizers at almost $13 each, plus shipping. The cost of the ProSmoke kept going up, not down.
The overall life was driving me crazy. I was always either changing a cartridge, changing a battery, charging a battery, changing an atomizer or filling cartridges, and filling cartridges counting 15-20 drops from a syringe is a pain in the .... to say the least. I found that I could use up a cartridge while walking the dog for about a mile walk. That sure isn't more than a pack of cigarettes worth. I know I was using it more heavily than tobacco, but still that seemed far too little cartridge life to me. Of course, the battery would go dead as well. I ended up with four batteries and, sometimes, ran out of batteries if I was vaping a lot.
The cigarette style form factor is great for a smoker, but not a practical size unless you are a very light smoker. The physical limitations on the battery and cartridge capacities make any reasonable life from them just not possible. The "bic" pen sized e-cigs have a tremendous advantage becasue they are larger, but still small enough to be easy to handle and hold. ProSmoke did help me a lot in terms of getting off tobacco and I don't want to be completely negative here, but I was rather disappointed in the performance, or lack there of, and expense compared to the claims on their website. When you consider the small capacity of the cartridge and the relatively short life of the atomizer versus the cost of cartomizers the ProSmoke is far more expensive.
BOTTOMLINE - Look into a slightly larger model from someone who doesn't make claims about their cartridge and battery life. You'll save yourself a lot of time, money and diappointment in the end.
I smoked tobacco cigarettes for about 50 years, yeah I'm THAT old, with Marlboro as my favorite brand. I smoked up to three packs a day at my peak, but had tapered back down to under a pack recently. I have quit before using "the patch" and Nicotrol, but have ended up going back each time, even after several years of not smoking. I guess I miss the manual rituals and oral gratification or something. My wife suggested I try an e-cig as an alternative with less dangers, and, to get rid of my snoring.
I looked around at e-cigs and settled on the ProSmoke. Their claim of being "the best" is the same claim made by almost every one out there, but the size and look were what sold me. I was looking for an e-cig that closely resembled a traditional cigarette. That, combined with their case, which is like a pack of cigarettes, convinced me they were going to be the one for me. The three piece design, battery, atomizer and cartridge, made sense to me from a mechanical standpoint. Their pricing seemed competitive so I ordered a starter kit. When it arrived, I was disappointed to find I had to charge the batteries for 8 hours prior to the first use, so it was the next day before I got to use it.
The kit contained two batteries, two atomizers, a pack of five cartridges, the case/charger, a USB to battery cable and a USB wall adapter. The packaging was nice and it did arrive fairly quickly.
I was surprised at the amount of smoke/vapor that I got on my first drag. The taste, and what I later found out is "throat hit" were quite good. I figured that this was the way to go. There was no smell, no ash and I was still "smoking", a big reflief. On the other hand some problems began to crop up.
The "form factor" being the size of a cigarette is a real limitation. The small battery size, probably around 100-125 milliamp hours, severely limits how long they last. So I ordered two more batteries and some more cartridges. Then I found out the cartridge life is also very short due to its size limited capacity. This was going to get expensive really fast if I kept buying new cartridges, so I bought a tobacco and a vanilla flavored liquid so I could refill the cartridges.
I read another ProSmoke review here and the reviewer said he uses 15 to 20 drops to fill a cartridge. What he didn't say is that those drops have to come from an 18 or 20 guage needle in a syringe. If you use that much from an eyedropper or drip bottle, you're going to have a puddle under the cartridge and a really wet, bad tasting cartridge on your hands. After some trial and error I found out that the actual capacity of a cartridge is about 0.1 milliliter, that's right, one tenth of a milliliter. Most of the cartomizers on the market have a 1.0 milliliter capacity so that makes a ProSmoke cartridge roughly ten times as expensive. Now that's a downer.
My first real test of the system came on a trip to Deleware, about an hour drive for me. The ProSmoke worked fine on the way, but when I almost got to where I was going it stopped working. After trying a new cartridge and battery I found out the atmozer had failed, and of course, no spare. Luckily my wife had a Blu disposable with her and I used that for the rest of the day. That atomizer had lasted less than two weeks for me. When I got home I ordered two more atomizers at almost $13 each, plus shipping. The cost of the ProSmoke kept going up, not down.
The overall life was driving me crazy. I was always either changing a cartridge, changing a battery, charging a battery, changing an atomizer or filling cartridges, and filling cartridges counting 15-20 drops from a syringe is a pain in the .... to say the least. I found that I could use up a cartridge while walking the dog for about a mile walk. That sure isn't more than a pack of cigarettes worth. I know I was using it more heavily than tobacco, but still that seemed far too little cartridge life to me. Of course, the battery would go dead as well. I ended up with four batteries and, sometimes, ran out of batteries if I was vaping a lot.
The cigarette style form factor is great for a smoker, but not a practical size unless you are a very light smoker. The physical limitations on the battery and cartridge capacities make any reasonable life from them just not possible. The "bic" pen sized e-cigs have a tremendous advantage becasue they are larger, but still small enough to be easy to handle and hold. ProSmoke did help me a lot in terms of getting off tobacco and I don't want to be completely negative here, but I was rather disappointed in the performance, or lack there of, and expense compared to the claims on their website. When you consider the small capacity of the cartridge and the relatively short life of the atomizer versus the cost of cartomizers the ProSmoke is far more expensive.
BOTTOMLINE - Look into a slightly larger model from someone who doesn't make claims about their cartridge and battery life. You'll save yourself a lot of time, money and diappointment in the end.
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