i much prefer to buy their RBA to use in my nord
That’s the rub precisely. What does this thing have that an actual Nord doesn’t? Personally I’d be marginally tempted to buy a hotcig branded product over a SMOK branded product in general. Hotcig has no reliability reputation at all, but SMOK’s is actively bad. Which is worse? Bad credit or no credit?
It’s larger and therefore has a bigger battery. Also has more features. Could be a positive or negative depending.
SMOK’s reputation is one of decent design and miserable production. Is the SMOK better designed? Hard to know. Is it better built? Also hard to know. It’s somewhat doubtful though.
What is probably needed is a head-to-head comparison.