After dealing with the DNA40 for about a month now, I thought I'd post my personal thoughts and opinions about it.
I'm sure some of what I say will get some peoples panties in a bunch, but again this is my thoughts and opinions based personal experience while dealing with the DNA40.
First I'm going to use the word IF.
Because IF you get a good board (crap shoot), and IF manage to get a good Ni200 coil build (PITA) and get said coil wicked properly without totally hosing up your coil, and IF you can get all of that to work in conjunction consistently, every time you hit the fire button it's a wonderful vaping experience.
But the sad truth is that's a lot of unnecessary IF's and its my opinion that the DNA40 is not yet ready for mainstream use, and certainly not ready for the average end user, I agree with Robert Ellis that Evolv, and the beta test team screwed the pooch on this one big time, and rushed a product out prematurely, that honestly should still be behind closed doors in intensive beta testing, IMO was rushed out 3-6 months prematurely.
Where is Evolv in all of this? why hasn't Evolv made any public statements since the release, the answer is Evolv is now in damage control mode, not only to end users, but venders, and mod manufacturers, and it did not have to be this way, lets just for a moment say the boards that the beta team received didn't have all the issues that the production boards are experiencing QC testing alone should have halted production and release.
I don't know how Evolv does their quality control, but clearly they are lacking in that department, very few if any glitchy should have ever been shipped out.
I would like to think that Evolv has learned from this, and stepped up their quality control, by testing each board before being shipped, yet it is still a crap shoot on if you will receive good board or not, I'm on my third RMA board that I just received directly from Evolv on Thursday 11/20/14 and I soldered in barely 24 hours ago and already I have display anomalies, and glitching, albeit not as bad as the first 2 but is going to have to be replaced yet again, now I'm a tinkerer so it doesn't really bother me to have to keep replacing boards, but the issue is I shouldn't have to be replacing so many boards, nor should you, or venders and mod manufacturers.
It's just bad business to keep repeatedly shipping out untested, unverified boards, Evolv needs to halt production completely, pull and test every board they have on hand right now, cull out the problematic boards, and run test the rest for 48-72 hours before shipping out, and then restart production, pulling and testing a a random cross section of boards and if any of those boards fail then that entire batch needs to be tested, at this point in the game a month after release there should not be any glitching boards leaving Evolv, come on even the Chinese can do better than this, I expect more from a reputable American company.
Instead of posting a Evolv/DNA40 rant, I should be singing Evolv/DNA40 praises, but sadly I can't not at this stage, Evolv you need to wake up and smell the vapor, I'm sure there are many good boards out there doing what they are supposed to do, but it seems to me there are even more that are not.
From a Customer service stand point, every negative feedback is a very bad thing, and could be detrimental for the reputation of a company.
For those of you that are on the fence about getting a DNA40 I would recommend you wait and watch a few months, because there is still too high of a probability that you will have to return your board or device for repairs or replacement, and at this point it would be a crap shoot whether the replacement would be any better.
Here is some pics of random glitching my current replacement board is doing.
I also get the full scrambled screen glitch which I haven't taken a picture of yet.
I'm sure some of what I say will get some peoples panties in a bunch, but again this is my thoughts and opinions based personal experience while dealing with the DNA40.
First I'm going to use the word IF.
Because IF you get a good board (crap shoot), and IF manage to get a good Ni200 coil build (PITA) and get said coil wicked properly without totally hosing up your coil, and IF you can get all of that to work in conjunction consistently, every time you hit the fire button it's a wonderful vaping experience.
But the sad truth is that's a lot of unnecessary IF's and its my opinion that the DNA40 is not yet ready for mainstream use, and certainly not ready for the average end user, I agree with Robert Ellis that Evolv, and the beta test team screwed the pooch on this one big time, and rushed a product out prematurely, that honestly should still be behind closed doors in intensive beta testing, IMO was rushed out 3-6 months prematurely.
Where is Evolv in all of this? why hasn't Evolv made any public statements since the release, the answer is Evolv is now in damage control mode, not only to end users, but venders, and mod manufacturers, and it did not have to be this way, lets just for a moment say the boards that the beta team received didn't have all the issues that the production boards are experiencing QC testing alone should have halted production and release.
I don't know how Evolv does their quality control, but clearly they are lacking in that department, very few if any glitchy should have ever been shipped out.
I would like to think that Evolv has learned from this, and stepped up their quality control, by testing each board before being shipped, yet it is still a crap shoot on if you will receive good board or not, I'm on my third RMA board that I just received directly from Evolv on Thursday 11/20/14 and I soldered in barely 24 hours ago and already I have display anomalies, and glitching, albeit not as bad as the first 2 but is going to have to be replaced yet again, now I'm a tinkerer so it doesn't really bother me to have to keep replacing boards, but the issue is I shouldn't have to be replacing so many boards, nor should you, or venders and mod manufacturers.
It's just bad business to keep repeatedly shipping out untested, unverified boards, Evolv needs to halt production completely, pull and test every board they have on hand right now, cull out the problematic boards, and run test the rest for 48-72 hours before shipping out, and then restart production, pulling and testing a a random cross section of boards and if any of those boards fail then that entire batch needs to be tested, at this point in the game a month after release there should not be any glitching boards leaving Evolv, come on even the Chinese can do better than this, I expect more from a reputable American company.
Instead of posting a Evolv/DNA40 rant, I should be singing Evolv/DNA40 praises, but sadly I can't not at this stage, Evolv you need to wake up and smell the vapor, I'm sure there are many good boards out there doing what they are supposed to do, but it seems to me there are even more that are not.
From a Customer service stand point, every negative feedback is a very bad thing, and could be detrimental for the reputation of a company.
For those of you that are on the fence about getting a DNA40 I would recommend you wait and watch a few months, because there is still too high of a probability that you will have to return your board or device for repairs or replacement, and at this point it would be a crap shoot whether the replacement would be any better.
Here is some pics of random glitching my current replacement board is doing.
I also get the full scrambled screen glitch which I haven't taken a picture of yet.
