As a new member of ECF, as well as a new... umm, 'vaperer'?, PV fan?... (What would the word be for that? Anyway...), I want to be able to contribute back to the community. I may be reinventing the wheel with this review, but I thought it might be helpful. I wasn't sure if this was the right forum to post this kind of review in, as it's an overall review about the product and the supplier, but looking at the descriptions of the two forums, "This forum is for posting reviews of e-cigarette products only. If it is not a review, it does not belong here" vs "This board is for thanking suppliers for good service, or for service / delivery issues", this one seemed more appropriate. mods, feel free to move or delete as you feel is appropriate.
For the record, I do have experience with reviews. I am a former contributor on a DVD/bluray/anime/video game review site, I'm just not active at this time due to various personal time constraints (make no mistake, reviewing stuff is almost a full time job, one that is not that easy. The owner of the site is still asking me when I'm going to start up again). Since I'm not trying to plug anything, I'll not mention the site right now.
If anyone thinks that pictures would add to this, I'm more than willing to take and post some. Again with the reinventing the wheel bit.
DISCLAIMER: I write honest reviews and tend to not pull punches. I don't 'swear like a sailor' in my reviews, but I'm also going to call things as I see them. If any other suppliers want to have me review things, I'm more than happy to do so, just contact me for shipping info.
Seriously, if a supplier does want me to review something, contact me. Just keep in mind that I am new at this vaping thing, and I don't play favourites. You have been warned.
So, without further waffling, here is my writeup/review. It turned out longer than I originally thought it would, but I wanted to cover what I thought the newbie to vaping might be concerned about. I hope someone finds it useful.
One of the many, many, many things that a person new to the vaporiser world has questions about is where to buy one. Online, tobacco stores, mall kiosks, it's rather confusing. Which seller is reliable? Which one is honest? Are they real hardware or knockoffs? The number of choices available to the new PV user is enough to make one's head spin (I know mine did).
Eventually, you will have to make a choice, 'pull the trigger' and hope for the best. I went through this very process not long ago, so I know your pain and confusion.
I finally took a chance on a seller after lots of researching of prices, availability, and reputation here on the forums, and that seller was cignot.
Cignot.com offers for sale some of the same items that other sellers do, they just don't offer said items with a nice box (think retail vs OEM computer hardware). This often translates into lower prices for the buyer.
At the time of this writing the cignot web site doesn't look like much: A basic layout that reminds me of the stock templates from frontpage. As someone who has worked in IT for many years, this was a warning sign to me as many fly-by-night sellers will use a template to get a site up as quick as possible, sell you junk and then become impossible to contact. Add to that the semi-young age of the site (domain was originally registered in June 2009, less than a year old) and the low prices, I was a bit hesitant. But after searching the forums a bit more, I placed my order and I am very happy to say that it turned out to be a case of not judging a book by it's cover. It seems that cignot takes their no-fancy-box approach and applies it to the site. This isn't a bad thing really, as it makes for a web page that is quick to load and respond. Beats the heck out of many site that have so much Adobe Flash things on them that viewing the page makes other programs on the computer start to stutter (and wow, are there more than a few of those).
Cignot offers eight different starter kits based on two models, the Joye 510 and eGo, with the 510 having the most options. Myself, I chose the 510 with PPC kit, which is the most expensive 510 kits as well as listed as their most popular. Cignot does offer other items as well, such as liquids (AKA ejuice) and accessories (Batteries, atomizers, and a really neat looking 10-battery charger). For this review, I'm sticking on what I have direct experience with.
This package, like the others that cignot offers, is customizable, offering the customer a choice of:
My order shipped surprisingly quick, especially considering that I placed the initial order with a credit card around 2 or 3 AM on a Monday (what can I say, Im a night owl) and my package arrived Wednesday.
In the bubble wrap package was the following:
The cartridges were individually wrapped in a heat sealed plastic (I was reminded of hard candy) and packaged in their own separate box. Each cartridge has its own silicon-material-looking cap and was filled with what is claimed to be a USA mix Marlboro, high nicotine level (24 mg). I'll go into this a bit later...
The charger appears to be a world-wide model, as the power cord is removable, which was a good thing, as the included cord was short... very short... damned short... so freaking short one had to wonder why it was even included short (I measured it. Taking into account the parts that go into the wall outlet and the charger itself, it's about 9 inches long. Something that you might want to keep in mind). Fortunately, I had a spare cord with the same plug design from an old IBM ThinkPad laptop power brick that was much longer.
The PPC was also packaged in it's own box with it's one and only accessory, a 29 USB to mini-USB cable. The cable feels kind of flimsy to me, and I'm not sure if I would want to use it for anything that transmits data, but it's included as a way to charge the case, which makes it OK. I can tell you that the case will charge just fine from a 'normal' mini-USB cable as well (at least, the ones I have already attached to my computer charge it just fine, and I use those for transmitting data).
One thing I do want to mention... When I was putting my unit in the PPC, I noticed that when I put in my second atomiser and cartridge assembly, it stuck up too far to close the case, unless I put the assembly atomiser down ( I was trying to put it cartridge down in case the liquid leaked out). Looking inside the slot, I saw what looked like a cap for a cartridge stuck at the bottom. Thinking that it was stuck in there by accident at the factory, I pulled it out and found that it was actually a ring of the same material used for the caps on cartridges. I'm assuming that it was placed there to cushion the atomiser when it's in the box, but as I don't want to have to try to clean up the mess if liquid leaks out of the cartridge when it's atomiser down, I'm leaving it out so I can store it cartridge down.
As for the 510 itself, looking at the atomiser units, what I received appears to be genuine Joye 510 hardware (either that, or the knockoffs have gotten really, really good). The atomisers also shipped with a round tip cartridge on them (protection during shipping I'm guessing). While they don't have caps or wadding, they do appear to be fully functioning cartridges, so I'm keeping mine to use for testing new juices (drip the juice on the atomiser, cap and puff away).
And the amount of of vapor it produces... Oh my, wow. I can blow rings with it like I can with a real cigarette. Everyone I've shown it to is amazed. The liquid used does have it's own effect on the vapor production, but still... just wow.
I'm not going to get into too much depth with the batteries, as we all know what they are and what they do, but I will make some observations in regards to the automatic battery.
When I ordered mine, I specified a purple LED. Indeed, it is purple, but it's more or a bluish purple to my eyes. I would have expected more red in my purple (cue the you got peanut butter in the chocolate jokes), but that's personal preference.
The automatic battery acts like one would expect: You inhale, it turns on, but there is one catch... it's very sensitive. Too sensitive in my opinion. Blowing into the cartridge will turn it on, sighing with it in my mouth will turn it on. I saw all the posts in the forum talking about how sensitive these things were, and now I see what they mean.
After doing some more research, I have a theory on why they are so sensitive. There appears to be two types of switches in use for automatic batteries, a mic switch and a vacuum switch. The 510 auto battery I have appears to be a mic switch. This explains why it's so bleeding sensitive compared to the auto battery on the Xhale O2 I have. I have seen one supplier who offers batteries that use vacuum switches on their auto batteries, and would love to get my hands on one try (and review, hint hint ;-)). But until that point, I have to say that I'm disappointed with the 'standard' 510 auto battery: it's just too twitchy (mine was flashing on and off when I opened my package. I think it was due to the cold and being bounced around. The jury is still out if it was damaged at all due to this, so I'm keeping it around mainly for when I'm sitting at my computer).
Now as for the included pre-filled cartridges... This is hard to say as taste, likes and dislikes are very subjective. Personally, I love combination pizzas, just hold the pepperoni. Others I know of think that not having pepperoni on a pizza is a act of high treason, so what I think may be the diametric opposite of you, so take this part with a grain of salt.
I'm going to assume that these are pre-filled at the factory because frankly, in my opinion, these had some of the nastiest tasting juice available (especially compared to Wyatt Earp 24mg, which I received in my order from freedom smoke usa. But that's another review). Now I have been over seas and smoked cigarettes made in other countries, even the same brands as what's available here in the USA, so I know that the blends used will vary depending on the region, but damn, that juice was nasty. I don't know if it's just cheap juice or that's how a Marlboro tastes in China, but wow, just rinse those things out and put in your own juice.
As for the other bottles of juice (as I mentioned earlier, USA mix Marlboro and what I believe is supposed to be Kent), I believe that I should have picked the mint. It's been years since I smoked a real Marlboro or a Kent, so they might taste like this. If so, I'm glad I switched to American Spirits.
All in all, I have to say that I'm very happy with my purchase from cignot. It shipped quickly, arrived in one piece (possible auto battery damage non-withstanding), included all the advertised items, and was priced very well ($65 US dollars at the time of writing). One could do a lot worse. I'm happy to recommend cignot.com to my friends (I believe that one pair is planning on ordering from there) and I would buy from them again with confidence.
For the record, I do have experience with reviews. I am a former contributor on a DVD/bluray/anime/video game review site, I'm just not active at this time due to various personal time constraints (make no mistake, reviewing stuff is almost a full time job, one that is not that easy. The owner of the site is still asking me when I'm going to start up again). Since I'm not trying to plug anything, I'll not mention the site right now.
If anyone thinks that pictures would add to this, I'm more than willing to take and post some. Again with the reinventing the wheel bit.
DISCLAIMER: I write honest reviews and tend to not pull punches. I don't 'swear like a sailor' in my reviews, but I'm also going to call things as I see them. If any other suppliers want to have me review things, I'm more than happy to do so, just contact me for shipping info.
Seriously, if a supplier does want me to review something, contact me. Just keep in mind that I am new at this vaping thing, and I don't play favourites. You have been warned.
So, without further waffling, here is my writeup/review. It turned out longer than I originally thought it would, but I wanted to cover what I thought the newbie to vaping might be concerned about. I hope someone finds it useful.
--***--
One of the many, many, many things that a person new to the vaporiser world has questions about is where to buy one. Online, tobacco stores, mall kiosks, it's rather confusing. Which seller is reliable? Which one is honest? Are they real hardware or knockoffs? The number of choices available to the new PV user is enough to make one's head spin (I know mine did).
Eventually, you will have to make a choice, 'pull the trigger' and hope for the best. I went through this very process not long ago, so I know your pain and confusion.
I finally took a chance on a seller after lots of researching of prices, availability, and reputation here on the forums, and that seller was cignot.
Cignot.com offers for sale some of the same items that other sellers do, they just don't offer said items with a nice box (think retail vs OEM computer hardware). This often translates into lower prices for the buyer.
At the time of this writing the cignot web site doesn't look like much: A basic layout that reminds me of the stock templates from frontpage. As someone who has worked in IT for many years, this was a warning sign to me as many fly-by-night sellers will use a template to get a site up as quick as possible, sell you junk and then become impossible to contact. Add to that the semi-young age of the site (domain was originally registered in June 2009, less than a year old) and the low prices, I was a bit hesitant. But after searching the forums a bit more, I placed my order and I am very happy to say that it turned out to be a case of not judging a book by it's cover. It seems that cignot takes their no-fancy-box approach and applies it to the site. This isn't a bad thing really, as it makes for a web page that is quick to load and respond. Beats the heck out of many site that have so much Adobe Flash things on them that viewing the page makes other programs on the computer start to stutter (and wow, are there more than a few of those).
Cignot offers eight different starter kits based on two models, the Joye 510 and eGo, with the 510 having the most options. Myself, I chose the 510 with PPC kit, which is the most expensive 510 kits as well as listed as their most popular. Cignot does offer other items as well, such as liquids (AKA ejuice) and accessories (Batteries, atomizers, and a really neat looking 10-battery charger). For this review, I'm sticking on what I have direct experience with.
This package, like the others that cignot offers, is customizable, offering the customer a choice of:
- Battery types (automatic or manual)
- PPC colour (matte black/silver, mirror gold/black/sliver, and 'plain' blue, purple and red)
- LED colours (blue, red, green and purple, or no LED if preferred for those who like to stealth vape)
- Two 5ml bottles of liquid (AKA e-juice) in a variety of flavours, strengths, and type (VG or PG)
My order shipped surprisingly quick, especially considering that I placed the initial order with a credit card around 2 or 3 AM on a Monday (what can I say, Im a night owl) and my package arrived Wednesday.
In the bubble wrap package was the following:
- A Personal Charging Case (packed in a small box)
- A pair of 510 atomizers
- A pair of batteries (I opted for matte black)
- Five pre-filled cartridges (also in their own small box)
- A/C powered battery charger
- Two bottles of juice (I ordered Marlboro and, I believe, Kent flavours, both VG at 6mg)
- Instruction manual (the PCC had it's own manual inside it's box)
The cartridges were individually wrapped in a heat sealed plastic (I was reminded of hard candy) and packaged in their own separate box. Each cartridge has its own silicon-material-looking cap and was filled with what is claimed to be a USA mix Marlboro, high nicotine level (24 mg). I'll go into this a bit later...
The charger appears to be a world-wide model, as the power cord is removable, which was a good thing, as the included cord was short... very short... damned short... so freaking short one had to wonder why it was even included short (I measured it. Taking into account the parts that go into the wall outlet and the charger itself, it's about 9 inches long. Something that you might want to keep in mind). Fortunately, I had a spare cord with the same plug design from an old IBM ThinkPad laptop power brick that was much longer.
The PPC was also packaged in it's own box with it's one and only accessory, a 29 USB to mini-USB cable. The cable feels kind of flimsy to me, and I'm not sure if I would want to use it for anything that transmits data, but it's included as a way to charge the case, which makes it OK. I can tell you that the case will charge just fine from a 'normal' mini-USB cable as well (at least, the ones I have already attached to my computer charge it just fine, and I use those for transmitting data).
One thing I do want to mention... When I was putting my unit in the PPC, I noticed that when I put in my second atomiser and cartridge assembly, it stuck up too far to close the case, unless I put the assembly atomiser down ( I was trying to put it cartridge down in case the liquid leaked out). Looking inside the slot, I saw what looked like a cap for a cartridge stuck at the bottom. Thinking that it was stuck in there by accident at the factory, I pulled it out and found that it was actually a ring of the same material used for the caps on cartridges. I'm assuming that it was placed there to cushion the atomiser when it's in the box, but as I don't want to have to try to clean up the mess if liquid leaks out of the cartridge when it's atomiser down, I'm leaving it out so I can store it cartridge down.
As for the 510 itself, looking at the atomiser units, what I received appears to be genuine Joye 510 hardware (either that, or the knockoffs have gotten really, really good). The atomisers also shipped with a round tip cartridge on them (protection during shipping I'm guessing). While they don't have caps or wadding, they do appear to be fully functioning cartridges, so I'm keeping mine to use for testing new juices (drip the juice on the atomiser, cap and puff away).
And the amount of of vapor it produces... Oh my, wow. I can blow rings with it like I can with a real cigarette. Everyone I've shown it to is amazed. The liquid used does have it's own effect on the vapor production, but still... just wow.
I'm not going to get into too much depth with the batteries, as we all know what they are and what they do, but I will make some observations in regards to the automatic battery.
When I ordered mine, I specified a purple LED. Indeed, it is purple, but it's more or a bluish purple to my eyes. I would have expected more red in my purple (cue the you got peanut butter in the chocolate jokes), but that's personal preference.
The automatic battery acts like one would expect: You inhale, it turns on, but there is one catch... it's very sensitive. Too sensitive in my opinion. Blowing into the cartridge will turn it on, sighing with it in my mouth will turn it on. I saw all the posts in the forum talking about how sensitive these things were, and now I see what they mean.
After doing some more research, I have a theory on why they are so sensitive. There appears to be two types of switches in use for automatic batteries, a mic switch and a vacuum switch. The 510 auto battery I have appears to be a mic switch. This explains why it's so bleeding sensitive compared to the auto battery on the Xhale O2 I have. I have seen one supplier who offers batteries that use vacuum switches on their auto batteries, and would love to get my hands on one try (and review, hint hint ;-)). But until that point, I have to say that I'm disappointed with the 'standard' 510 auto battery: it's just too twitchy (mine was flashing on and off when I opened my package. I think it was due to the cold and being bounced around. The jury is still out if it was damaged at all due to this, so I'm keeping it around mainly for when I'm sitting at my computer).
Now as for the included pre-filled cartridges... This is hard to say as taste, likes and dislikes are very subjective. Personally, I love combination pizzas, just hold the pepperoni. Others I know of think that not having pepperoni on a pizza is a act of high treason, so what I think may be the diametric opposite of you, so take this part with a grain of salt.
I'm going to assume that these are pre-filled at the factory because frankly, in my opinion, these had some of the nastiest tasting juice available (especially compared to Wyatt Earp 24mg, which I received in my order from freedom smoke usa. But that's another review). Now I have been over seas and smoked cigarettes made in other countries, even the same brands as what's available here in the USA, so I know that the blends used will vary depending on the region, but damn, that juice was nasty. I don't know if it's just cheap juice or that's how a Marlboro tastes in China, but wow, just rinse those things out and put in your own juice.
As for the other bottles of juice (as I mentioned earlier, USA mix Marlboro and what I believe is supposed to be Kent), I believe that I should have picked the mint
. It's been years since I smoked a real Marlboro or a Kent, so they might taste like this. If so, I'm glad I switched to American Spirits.All in all, I have to say that I'm very happy with my purchase from cignot. It shipped quickly, arrived in one piece (possible auto battery damage non-withstanding), included all the advertised items, and was priced very well ($65 US dollars at the time of writing). One could do a lot worse. I'm happy to recommend cignot.com to my friends (I believe that one pair is planning on ordering from there) and I would buy from them again with confidence.
