Hi All, Anthony Vapes back here with my review of the vaporesso Armour Pro Kit. Please see bottom for disclaimers and links. Note i had a beta version and a final version. The review will be of the final version
Introduction:
The Vaporesso Armour Pro is a kit that contains their latest mod the Armour, paired with their Cascade baby tank. The Armour Pro is a single 2x700 mod (takes 21700, 20700 or 18650 with included adapter) mod rated at 100 watts and is styled like a tall skinny mod not much bigger than an aspire spryte pod with a full color screen and fire bar. In general vaporesso has made some of the best mods for the price point lately so we’ll see if the armour pro can stack up. Looking around i see the mod itself online for around 30-40 USD and the kit version for around 45-60 USD so pretty standard price point. It’s available in 6 colors, Black, Blue, White, Silver, Green, and Red/Blue. All colors come with a black tank except the white which comes with a Silver tank.
Manufacturer's Specs: Mod
album
Initial Impressions and features
When I first got this Mod, I was impressed by how small it was. It’s easily the smallest single 2x700 mod i’ve come across so far and smaller than or equal in size to many single 18650 mods. It’s very compact. I first received the betal white one which looked great and then a couple of weeks later got the final version black one. The only difference i noticed was the beta one battery door was a little hard to close with a 21700 battery but the final version closed much easier. I was also impressed at the fire bar. The screen is built into it which is a nice color screen as well. It comes with a cascade baby tank which I already reviewed so won’t discuss it much in this review but overall I was pretty impressed with this mod from the start.
Watt Mode Performance (chart and spreadsheet in picture album)
Now let’s get into some data. I ran my normal testing. I used Samsung 30T batteries for the testing. I also upgraded to the latest firmware (v1.04). Testing resistances were done at .12, .15, .2, and .6 ohms. wattage points were max (100), 80, 60, 40 and 20. At .12 ohms it maxed out at 89 watts and 27 amps. For the rest of the testing it was a little on the low side 2-8 watts. Struggles a little at suck the low resistance which is pretty typical for mods. At .15 it maxed out at 96 watts. The rest were pretty good hitting slightly low across the board 1-4 watts. For the .2 test it maxed out at 98 watts. Again pretty good but a little on the low side 3-4 watts except at 20 where it was spot on. For the .6 testing it maxed out at 107 watts and 7.994 volts. For the rest of the testing 1-5 watts high. The volts shows there is a boost circuit in this mod like most vaporesso mods and most single battery mods.
Overall I felt the performance of this mod was pretty good. It struggled slightly with the .12 ohm build which is pretty normal. It mostly hits slightly weak but doesn't feel that way due to the pre-heat which i’ll go over in a second. I was able to get 107 watts max, so I consider it to be accurately rated at 100 watts. The 7.994+ volt limit shows there is a boost circuit. Their manual does not list an amp limit or volt limit on this mod. The most i got for amps was 7 with a .12 ohm coil which is in the average range for single battery mods where most are 25-30. The mod got warm when stressing it at 100 and takes on heat form the atomizer but never got hot but did go into temp protect and I had to let it cool down. Like all mods don’t use them at max but it’s fine to use at 80 or less in everyday usage. Also don’t use 100 watts with 18650 batteries save that for the really good 21700 batts like the samsung 30T. For people’s normal vaping habits and the safe limits the mod won’t run hot. One issue i had with this mod however is the normal preheat does not function correctly. Soft and Hard work fine but normal works like a hard preheat would when normal should have no pre-heat. I hope they fix it via a firmware update as it’s an easy fix. The mod also fires very fast. The watt curve mode works excellent and doesn't have any issues or built in pre-heats and performs as it should.
Simplified TLDR Power Performance summary
Mod performance is really good. Mostly hits just a few watts off on the low side for low resistance and for higher resistances a few watts on the high side. Accurately rated for watts (107), Yes boost circuit, average amp limit of 27. Volts tested at 7.994+ (limited by watts) so should never be an issue. Normal preheat does not function correctly and acts like a hard pre-heat. Watt curve mode works great as it should.
Temperature Control Performance
Using SS316 wire in SS mode (and TCR set to 92) I tested 7 builds. 1 simple round single, 1 simple round dual, 2 large fancy single coils builds, and 1 large fancy dual coil builds, and the freemax mesh pro SS316 coil and the fireluke mesh SS mesh coil. The mod has full adjustable watts and full adjustable TCR. With that said in SS mode with the 92 TCR (default for that mode is 109) Every build worked excellent. Even the premade mesh coils with no issues. All of them gave me a warm vape in the 430F to 470F range as it should be. Throttle is nice and smooth and good dry hit protection. Pretty impressed overall with the TC performance of this mod and no complaints and doesn't really need any tweaking outside of setting the correct TCR for SS316 wire.
Other Usage Notes
The mod uses a standard 5 click to turn on and off. The menu system is good and easy to navigate. It has a seperate menu button like most newer vaporesso mods. You use 3 clicks to enter the menu or hold menu to have it jump to the mode you are on in the menu. Then you use up and down to cycle to the mode you want and menu to accept. It has Power (with hard, normal, and soft preheat options),TC for Ni, Ti, SS, Watt curve mode, Voltage Curve Mode, VV mod (variable voltage) and bypass mode. In the TC options you can change your wattage and lock resistance. They also have a super player mode which is just described as “adaptive to all mainstream RDA tanks” which to me makes little sense and does not explain enough of what it’s supposed to do for me to test it properly but it appears to want to be an auto watts mods. I personally would rather have control of my settings. In the settings there is an auto mode which says “The auto function taking away any operation difficulties switching between preheats” and a smart setting which claims “when you turn on the smart function it can change intensity according to the coils resistance levels within a safe limit in VW mode. Maybe sounds like a replay type thing but again they really don’t explain it enough to test against any claims. They need to do a better job with explaining these new features if they want me to test if they work properly so i turned them both off and didn't mess with it. Auto is on by default and smart is off by default. Tapping fire acts like a back button while in the menu. Clicking fire 3 times locks the device settings but can still fire. In the settings you can also change the theme color, set the clock, the screen timeout, and check or reset your puff counter.
The Vaporesso Armour Pro adjusts by .1 watt increments however if you hold the adjust buttons down instead of tapping it does move by 1 watt increments. Not a bad setup overall. It also does not round robin wattage which isn’t a big deal but kinda annoying during my testing. The mod itself is built solid with no rattle at all, and has a good weight. Feels solid but not heavy. The Battery door is a standard bottom latch and It’s easy to get batteries in and out without damaging wraps and takes 1 21700, 20700 or 18650 battery.
The paint looks nice and doesn't scratch off, and i have no visible wear on mine. The white and black both look great with a matte finish. The fire bar is nice and clicky and quite large allowing you to just squeeze the mod to fire. I love the fire bar on this mod. It works well and It never gets stuck or anything though which is as it should be. The 510 pin gave me no issues and every atomizer i used on it worked great with no gaps. The mod handles 25mm atomizer with no overhang. The screen is a nice size .96 inch color screen that is nice and bright and easy to see. Even in sunlight it’s pretty visible. Love the screen on this thing and it’s built into the fire bar. Also for branding the mod itself is pretty nice overall and not heavily branded. There is a Armour Pro on each side above the small color strip and vaporesso barely visible on the back side. They list 2 amp charging as well but i don’t recommend charging internally in your mods and I don’t test charge rates. I did charge it a few times with no issue though and one of the coolest features it has is when charging not only does it show your charge % but it also shows you how many minutes until a full charge which is nice.
Cascade Baby tank
The kit comes with a cascade baby tank. It uses the same GT coils as the NRG and cascade baby tanks as well but doesn't use the larger GTM coils of the full size cascade SE tank. I’ve already reviewed the coils several times over with the NRG reviews and even the cascade baby tank itself in my cascade one plus review so i won’t spend too much time with it but in general the vaporesso coils aren't very good and need to be worked on with the exception of their mesh coil which performs pretty good as an average mesh coil but not as good as the better ones on the market. Still if you have a GT coil tank it’s the one to get.
The tank itself is a nice capacity of 5ml which is great for a tank. It follows the same design as the cascade SE but without the bulging out tank on top of the coil and in a smaller size. It’s a 24.5mm tank. The top fill is pretty cool as it’s a slide back but locks into place. You have to pull it up to slide it back and expose the fill hole then when you slide back into place it’ll snap down and lock so it can't open by accident. Very nice design. The threading on this was also nice and much improved from the full size cascade SE tank which had really poor threading on the base. You can also replace a coil with an almost full tank which is nice. It works well overall and has some nice design to it but all in all it’s an average tank with the mesh coil and below average with other GT coils. Not a bad tank to start with but not one of the best on the market either.
Pros:
So with all that said, do I recommend this kit or not? I’ll start with the mod itself and while I don’t do a hard yes or no, this one leans so heavy towards the yes it tips over. It’s the best single 2x700 mod and best single battery mod overall i’ve used this year. It’s small size and great performance in both power and temp mode make it just a great option for anyone looking for a single battery mod. It’s excellent and hard to say anything bad about it. The tank is fine for a beginner tank if you wanted the kit version but there are better tanks you can buy separate so take what you will from that. I’ve added the mod to my sheet of recs linked down below.
This is Anthony Vapes just keeping it honest, hopefully you all can say the same and i’ll catch you on my next review.
Product Disclaimer
This product was sent to me from Vaporesso
Review Disclaimer
Due to possible QC difference your experience may vary.
Reviewer Disclaimer
I’ve been doing vape reviews since late 2016 and have done around 200 reviews to date. I enjoy helping vapers on forums as well and helping contribute to the great vape community. I’m not an “out of the box” reviewer. I do my best to be thorough at all times and have enough experience with many products to tell what’s good and what’s not. All mods get tested with an oscilloscope and stress tested and results are posted in my reviews.
Recommendations and Past Review Links
written reviews list here
Youtube Channel here
Spreadhseet of Recommendations here
Best of 2018 so far list here
Best of 2017 list here
Introduction:
The Vaporesso Armour Pro is a kit that contains their latest mod the Armour, paired with their Cascade baby tank. The Armour Pro is a single 2x700 mod (takes 21700, 20700 or 18650 with included adapter) mod rated at 100 watts and is styled like a tall skinny mod not much bigger than an aspire spryte pod with a full color screen and fire bar. In general vaporesso has made some of the best mods for the price point lately so we’ll see if the armour pro can stack up. Looking around i see the mod itself online for around 30-40 USD and the kit version for around 45-60 USD so pretty standard price point. It’s available in 6 colors, Black, Blue, White, Silver, Green, and Red/Blue. All colors come with a black tank except the white which comes with a Silver tank.
Manufacturer's Specs: Mod
- Dimensions: 91.4mm by 38.5mm by 27mm
- Single High-Amp 18650/20700/21700 Battery - Not Included
- Innovative OMNI Board 4.0 Chipset
- Insta-Fire - 0.002 S Firing Speed
- Wattage Output Range: 5-100W
- Temperature Control Range: 200-600F
- Min Atomizer Resistance: 0.03ohm
- Support Nickel, Titanium, and Stainless Steel Heating Elements
- Smart Variable Wattage - Hard, Normal, Soft
- Temperature Coefficient of Resistance Adjustments (TCR)
- Customized Curvature of Temperature (CCT)
- Customized Curvature of Wattage (CCW)
- Bypass Mode
- Intuitive 0.96 Inch OLED Full-Color Display
- Oversized Firing Bar
- Three Adjustment Buttons
- Durable Aluminum Alloy Construction
- In-Mould Labeling (IML) Injection - High-Resistant
- All Metal Oversized Firing Button
- Micro USB Port - 2A Max Charge
- 510 Connection
- 24.5mm Diameter
- 5mL Juice Capacity
- Superior Stainless Steel Construction
- Pyrex Glass Reinforcement
- Isolation Structure Design - Separates Juice & Coil Chamber
- Vaporesso GT Coil System
- 0.3ohm GT CCELL 2 Coil - rated for 35-40W
- 0.18ohm GT Mesh Coil - rated for 50-90W
- Triple Triangular-Shaped Airflow Control
- Delrin Wide Bore Drip Tip
- Slide-n-Fill Design - Convenient Top-Fill
- 510 Connection
- 1 Armour Pro 100W Box Mod
- 1 Cascade Baby Sub-Ohm Tank
- 1 0.3ohm GT CCELL 2 Coil
- 1 0.18ohm GT Mesh Coil
- 1 Micro USB Cable
- Instructional Manual
- GT1 .2 ohms 50-78 watts
- GT2 .4 ohms 40-80 watts
- GT4 .15 ohms 30-70 watts
- GT6 .5 ohms 40-100 watts
- GT8 .15 50-110 Watts
- GT CCELL .5 ohms 20-50 watts (ceramic coil)
- GT CCELL2 .3 ohms 35-40 watts (ceramic Coil)
- GT Mesh .18 ohms 50-85 watts
album
Initial Impressions and features
When I first got this Mod, I was impressed by how small it was. It’s easily the smallest single 2x700 mod i’ve come across so far and smaller than or equal in size to many single 18650 mods. It’s very compact. I first received the betal white one which looked great and then a couple of weeks later got the final version black one. The only difference i noticed was the beta one battery door was a little hard to close with a 21700 battery but the final version closed much easier. I was also impressed at the fire bar. The screen is built into it which is a nice color screen as well. It comes with a cascade baby tank which I already reviewed so won’t discuss it much in this review but overall I was pretty impressed with this mod from the start.
Watt Mode Performance (chart and spreadsheet in picture album)
Now let’s get into some data. I ran my normal testing. I used Samsung 30T batteries for the testing. I also upgraded to the latest firmware (v1.04). Testing resistances were done at .12, .15, .2, and .6 ohms. wattage points were max (100), 80, 60, 40 and 20. At .12 ohms it maxed out at 89 watts and 27 amps. For the rest of the testing it was a little on the low side 2-8 watts. Struggles a little at suck the low resistance which is pretty typical for mods. At .15 it maxed out at 96 watts. The rest were pretty good hitting slightly low across the board 1-4 watts. For the .2 test it maxed out at 98 watts. Again pretty good but a little on the low side 3-4 watts except at 20 where it was spot on. For the .6 testing it maxed out at 107 watts and 7.994 volts. For the rest of the testing 1-5 watts high. The volts shows there is a boost circuit in this mod like most vaporesso mods and most single battery mods.
Overall I felt the performance of this mod was pretty good. It struggled slightly with the .12 ohm build which is pretty normal. It mostly hits slightly weak but doesn't feel that way due to the pre-heat which i’ll go over in a second. I was able to get 107 watts max, so I consider it to be accurately rated at 100 watts. The 7.994+ volt limit shows there is a boost circuit. Their manual does not list an amp limit or volt limit on this mod. The most i got for amps was 7 with a .12 ohm coil which is in the average range for single battery mods where most are 25-30. The mod got warm when stressing it at 100 and takes on heat form the atomizer but never got hot but did go into temp protect and I had to let it cool down. Like all mods don’t use them at max but it’s fine to use at 80 or less in everyday usage. Also don’t use 100 watts with 18650 batteries save that for the really good 21700 batts like the samsung 30T. For people’s normal vaping habits and the safe limits the mod won’t run hot. One issue i had with this mod however is the normal preheat does not function correctly. Soft and Hard work fine but normal works like a hard preheat would when normal should have no pre-heat. I hope they fix it via a firmware update as it’s an easy fix. The mod also fires very fast. The watt curve mode works excellent and doesn't have any issues or built in pre-heats and performs as it should.
Simplified TLDR Power Performance summary
Mod performance is really good. Mostly hits just a few watts off on the low side for low resistance and for higher resistances a few watts on the high side. Accurately rated for watts (107), Yes boost circuit, average amp limit of 27. Volts tested at 7.994+ (limited by watts) so should never be an issue. Normal preheat does not function correctly and acts like a hard pre-heat. Watt curve mode works great as it should.
Temperature Control Performance
Using SS316 wire in SS mode (and TCR set to 92) I tested 7 builds. 1 simple round single, 1 simple round dual, 2 large fancy single coils builds, and 1 large fancy dual coil builds, and the freemax mesh pro SS316 coil and the fireluke mesh SS mesh coil. The mod has full adjustable watts and full adjustable TCR. With that said in SS mode with the 92 TCR (default for that mode is 109) Every build worked excellent. Even the premade mesh coils with no issues. All of them gave me a warm vape in the 430F to 470F range as it should be. Throttle is nice and smooth and good dry hit protection. Pretty impressed overall with the TC performance of this mod and no complaints and doesn't really need any tweaking outside of setting the correct TCR for SS316 wire.
Other Usage Notes
The mod uses a standard 5 click to turn on and off. The menu system is good and easy to navigate. It has a seperate menu button like most newer vaporesso mods. You use 3 clicks to enter the menu or hold menu to have it jump to the mode you are on in the menu. Then you use up and down to cycle to the mode you want and menu to accept. It has Power (with hard, normal, and soft preheat options),TC for Ni, Ti, SS, Watt curve mode, Voltage Curve Mode, VV mod (variable voltage) and bypass mode. In the TC options you can change your wattage and lock resistance. They also have a super player mode which is just described as “adaptive to all mainstream RDA tanks” which to me makes little sense and does not explain enough of what it’s supposed to do for me to test it properly but it appears to want to be an auto watts mods. I personally would rather have control of my settings. In the settings there is an auto mode which says “The auto function taking away any operation difficulties switching between preheats” and a smart setting which claims “when you turn on the smart function it can change intensity according to the coils resistance levels within a safe limit in VW mode. Maybe sounds like a replay type thing but again they really don’t explain it enough to test against any claims. They need to do a better job with explaining these new features if they want me to test if they work properly so i turned them both off and didn't mess with it. Auto is on by default and smart is off by default. Tapping fire acts like a back button while in the menu. Clicking fire 3 times locks the device settings but can still fire. In the settings you can also change the theme color, set the clock, the screen timeout, and check or reset your puff counter.
The Vaporesso Armour Pro adjusts by .1 watt increments however if you hold the adjust buttons down instead of tapping it does move by 1 watt increments. Not a bad setup overall. It also does not round robin wattage which isn’t a big deal but kinda annoying during my testing. The mod itself is built solid with no rattle at all, and has a good weight. Feels solid but not heavy. The Battery door is a standard bottom latch and It’s easy to get batteries in and out without damaging wraps and takes 1 21700, 20700 or 18650 battery.
The paint looks nice and doesn't scratch off, and i have no visible wear on mine. The white and black both look great with a matte finish. The fire bar is nice and clicky and quite large allowing you to just squeeze the mod to fire. I love the fire bar on this mod. It works well and It never gets stuck or anything though which is as it should be. The 510 pin gave me no issues and every atomizer i used on it worked great with no gaps. The mod handles 25mm atomizer with no overhang. The screen is a nice size .96 inch color screen that is nice and bright and easy to see. Even in sunlight it’s pretty visible. Love the screen on this thing and it’s built into the fire bar. Also for branding the mod itself is pretty nice overall and not heavily branded. There is a Armour Pro on each side above the small color strip and vaporesso barely visible on the back side. They list 2 amp charging as well but i don’t recommend charging internally in your mods and I don’t test charge rates. I did charge it a few times with no issue though and one of the coolest features it has is when charging not only does it show your charge % but it also shows you how many minutes until a full charge which is nice.
Cascade Baby tank
The kit comes with a cascade baby tank. It uses the same GT coils as the NRG and cascade baby tanks as well but doesn't use the larger GTM coils of the full size cascade SE tank. I’ve already reviewed the coils several times over with the NRG reviews and even the cascade baby tank itself in my cascade one plus review so i won’t spend too much time with it but in general the vaporesso coils aren't very good and need to be worked on with the exception of their mesh coil which performs pretty good as an average mesh coil but not as good as the better ones on the market. Still if you have a GT coil tank it’s the one to get.
The tank itself is a nice capacity of 5ml which is great for a tank. It follows the same design as the cascade SE but without the bulging out tank on top of the coil and in a smaller size. It’s a 24.5mm tank. The top fill is pretty cool as it’s a slide back but locks into place. You have to pull it up to slide it back and expose the fill hole then when you slide back into place it’ll snap down and lock so it can't open by accident. Very nice design. The threading on this was also nice and much improved from the full size cascade SE tank which had really poor threading on the base. You can also replace a coil with an almost full tank which is nice. It works well overall and has some nice design to it but all in all it’s an average tank with the mesh coil and below average with other GT coils. Not a bad tank to start with but not one of the best on the market either.
Pros:
- Build Quality of mod
- build quality of tank
- tons of color options
- Power mode performance
- Accurately rated for watts
- good amp limit
- boost circuit
- good menu system
- batteries are easy to get in and out without damaging wraps
- good volt limit
- excellent size and color screen
- watt curve mode
- VV mode
- volt curve mode
- tank is good enough with the mesh coils
- large juice capacity in tank (5ml)
- nice fill method in tank
- excellent fire bar
- handles 25mm atomizers without overhang
- temp mode performance
- normal preheat functions like hard preheat
- smart mode/auto mode/super player mode not explained well enough
- Tanks aren’t matching colors
So with all that said, do I recommend this kit or not? I’ll start with the mod itself and while I don’t do a hard yes or no, this one leans so heavy towards the yes it tips over. It’s the best single 2x700 mod and best single battery mod overall i’ve used this year. It’s small size and great performance in both power and temp mode make it just a great option for anyone looking for a single battery mod. It’s excellent and hard to say anything bad about it. The tank is fine for a beginner tank if you wanted the kit version but there are better tanks you can buy separate so take what you will from that. I’ve added the mod to my sheet of recs linked down below.
This is Anthony Vapes just keeping it honest, hopefully you all can say the same and i’ll catch you on my next review.
Product Disclaimer
This product was sent to me from Vaporesso
Review Disclaimer
Due to possible QC difference your experience may vary.
Reviewer Disclaimer
I’ve been doing vape reviews since late 2016 and have done around 200 reviews to date. I enjoy helping vapers on forums as well and helping contribute to the great vape community. I’m not an “out of the box” reviewer. I do my best to be thorough at all times and have enough experience with many products to tell what’s good and what’s not. All mods get tested with an oscilloscope and stress tested and results are posted in my reviews.
Recommendations and Past Review Links
written reviews list here
Youtube Channel here
Spreadhseet of Recommendations here
Best of 2018 so far list here
Best of 2017 list here
