Blues, there is no "truth." Let's get that right out of the way. Everyone is different, and what's more, not everyone understands how, or why, or even that they are different. We have never before had an alternative to smoking to give us a basis for comparison or even discover that there are different reasons why we smoked, why we kept smoking (apart from the addiction itself), and what the most significant aspect about smoking was that gave us the most satisfaction. These were aspects we never really gave a damn about before because we never really had products that gave us the ability to selectively enhance or reduce one or another aspect independent of others apart from "regular" or "ultra light" or whatever.
So imagine a long-time smoker looking into E-cigarettes. Without knowing anything about that person, you go and suggest a Riva kit. Now, I have no problem with that choice, the Riva is an excellent starter, and hell, even a good all-rounder to have in your kit either as a main or a secondary
vape, so I completely agree with you on that. But there is the very real possibility that a large battery isn't going to do it for that person. They may not easily be able to adjust to its size, or a manual button for that matter. The ease of use that cigarettes provide may be essential to transitioning from analogs to electronics for that person. They may need an automatic 808 that's dead simple to use -- just lift and drag.
It may well be that slim autos may be something that person will outgrow, but here's the thing: That smoker knows absolutely
nothing about their addiction other than that they are addicted. They don't know with any granularity what, specifically, they are addicted to. Is it the physical actions? The
throat hit? The visual cues given by thick clouds of smoke/plumes of vapor? The flavour? A combination of these? Is an unfamiliar form factor going to interfere with the enjoyment of any of these to the point where they may feel like it's not working for them?
They don't know anything about their addiction. More importantly, neither do we. And until that smoker can tell us with more specificity what it is they really need out of an E-cigarette, the best we can do is offer our suggestions and why we believe they work for
us, and then hope that the smoker can gather some clues from that to perhaps better understand what might work for
them.
It might work at first for them, and it might not, regardless of what their first purchase ends up being. What's important here is not what they end up buying. It's what they end up learning about their addiction from it. What works for you is an intensely personal thing because only you can really understand
why it does or doesn't work for you.
To use myself as an example, I started with an eGo 650 kit with some generic tobacco juice at 18mg. I knew nothing about my addiction, or even that there was anything to know other than that I was an addict. What I learned from my first kit was that form factor wasn't a big deal for me -- the eGo was awesome and it worked fantastic for me. I learned that throat hit was the most important aspect of
vaping for me to make it work as well as cigarettes, and that 18mg wasn't enough (at the time). I learned I didn't really like tobacco-flavoured E-juice, even though I though I was supposed to, and that I was much happier with sweeter flavours. I learned that cartridges were fine at first but ultimately didn't last and that there were better options. I learned that I wanted more battery life and bought a 1000mAh battery. I learned that larger atomizers (the B-type) were far better than the 510s my kit came with, but that even cartridges in those didn't last as a satisfying solution.
It took a while, but I learned all of that and a whole lot more, both about E-cigs and about myself as both a vaper and an ex-smoker. And I spent a lot of money to learn that. And I'm
glad I did, because each new thing I bought to try taught me something valuable that I could then use to better define what worked best for me as a vaper. These days I am very attuned to what works for me and why, and yet there are still things I'm learning.
So the truth is that there
is no "truth" to tell Newbies except what the newbies can tell themselves through their experiences. All we can do is fire off what we like and what worked for us in the beginning and why and let them decide from that so that they can form their own opinions about their experiences and begin to better understand their addiction and what does and doesn't work.
I sure wish I knew what I was doing wrong.
