I just started a new job in a new city, and have been doing the hotel thing while we try to find a house here.
Through an amazing feat of dumbassery (yes, I'm coining a new word) I booked, paid for, and checked into a hotel room for an entire week only to discover too late that it's a non-smoking room and they don't have any empty smoking rooms to check me into.
My KGO's are boxed up in my storage unit, and even if I wanted to drive 6 hours to get them, I wouldn't have the first idea of which box to look in. I needed an e-cig, and I needed it NOW. Not next week, not even in 3 days.
So I went to Walgreen's and bought a Blu kit along with a 5 pack of extra cartos.
Here's my impressions:
First, the price. $60 bucks for a starter kit which includes 2 bats, a variety pack of 5 cartos, one of which was menthol and got thrown away unused. Also included a USB bat charger, and a wall plug and charging cord for the really cool part of this "system". The charging case.
The case is roughly the size of a pack of analog 100's. It will hold the "in use" cig, 5 spare cartos, plus a spare bat which it will charge, and do a pretty good job of it.
All in all, I'd have to say this is a well thought out, and well built system. Everything feels solid and dependable.
I'm still, personally, disappointed with it. The only reason being the "smoking experience". With a fresh cart and a 100% charged bat, it's good for 5 or 10 drags, and then it stops doing it for me. I've found that the flavors are detectable, but not what you would hope for.
To be fair, my analog smoking habit is probably what would fall in the "excessive" category. 2 packs of Marlboro reds a day, sometimes 3, and sometimes with some non-filtered thrown in when that's not enough. So I most definitely fall into the "hard to please" category of e-cig customers.
While this Blu kit isn't keeping me from having to venture out into the bitter cold every now and then for the real thing, it has dramatically reduced the number of trips I make. I'm going to be ordering another KGO kit ASAP.
With all that said, I want to throw this in:
Although this gear isn't doing the job for me, as I said above, I fall into the "hard to please" category. There are a lot of things I like about the setup. The pricing is a bit on the high side, but that's just the reality with any and all e-cigs that you
buy locally instead of online. And this stuff was actually a lot less out of line than many others I've seen. I think the charging case is massively cool as hell. It's solid, well designed, well built, and it works great.
In short, although this gear isn't going to work for me, I really, REALLY wish it would. It's a great kit.
While it won't work for someone like me who smoke's a large number of the strongest analogs on the market, I do think it's a great setup for someone who smoke 1/2 to 3/4 of a pack of day of lights, or ultra lights. And there are many more of them than there are of me.
Bottom line?
Good, solid quality gear. Charging case is an awesom feature. Pricing is less out of line than most other "brick and mortar" options. Would HIGHLY recommend to a light smoker looking for an alternative, but would have to advise a heavy full flavor smoker that it might not be up to their requirements.
I paid $80 for the starter kit descrived above, plus a 5-pack of cartos ($15). Even though it's not going to work out for me, I do not feel at all cheated. The only "failure" of the product was in not meeting my demands, which I freely admit are on the excessive side. My plan is to pass this along to my wife, who is the type of smoker that this product was probably meant for, and I anticipate that it will do a great job for her.
Good kit
IF you fall into the category of smoker that it will work for.
