Hello ECF! Today I am reviewing for you the Digiflavor Drop Solo RDA! The Drop Solo is the next collaboration between Digiflavor and The Vapor Chronicles after the success of their full-sized Drop rda. So do good things come in small packages, or should they have just left well enough alone? Read below for my evaluation.
I have had the Drop Solo RDA for 4 weeks now and feel I can give a fair assessment of its quality.
This product was sent to me from Digiflavor for the purpose of a review.
Specs
Contents
I received a sample package. Your packaging and contents may vary.
Pics
For Convenience, a full album has been posted, as well as individual pictures
Drop Solo RDA
After the success of the original 24mm Drop RDA, Digiflavor and TVC have teamed up again to produce a single coil, 22mm version of it. I actually never bought the Drop RDA as I had a Dead Rabbit that I was very happy with, but it did always intrigue me as I tend to have a bit of shinyitis. So this review will not have a performance comparrison to the OG Drop but I will try to point out design similarities and differences between the two. There are some things that I like about the Drop Solo, and there are some things that I don't like. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump off this review and start at the best place possible: the top.
Final Thoughts
Pros
Purchasing
Thank you...
...for your attention ECF. I hope you all have a great weekend!
I want to give another shoutout to Digiflavor for giving me the opportunity to provide this community with this review and giveaway. If you want to check them out, you can follow them on their Facebook or Instagram pages.
Also, if you want to keep up with me, you can follow me on Instagram.
I have had the Drop Solo RDA for 4 weeks now and feel I can give a fair assessment of its quality.
This product was sent to me from Digiflavor for the purpose of a review.
Specs
- Diameter: 22mm
- 5mm deep juice well
- Stainless Steel construction
- PMMA Low Profile cap
- Two Post terminal build deck (single coil)
- Horizontal stepped airflow control
- Conical top cap
- Squonk and solid 510 pins
Contents
I received a sample package. Your packaging and contents may vary.
- Drop Solo rda
- PMMA Drip Tip, Top Cap, Mid Cap, and 24mm beauty ring
- Contoured PMMA Drip Tip
- Regular and bottom feed pin
- 510 Drip tip adapter
- Spare parts pack
- Tri tool
- Allen key
- 2 x 0.35ohm coil
- User Manual
Pics
For Convenience, a full album has been posted, as well as individual pictures
- Album
- Contents
- Drop Solo
- Spare Parts
- PMMA Set
- Drip Tip
- Bottom
- Adjustible Airflow
- Build Deck
- Vertical Build
- On Mod
- Build1
- Build2
- Wicked
Drop Solo RDA
After the success of the original 24mm Drop RDA, Digiflavor and TVC have teamed up again to produce a single coil, 22mm version of it. I actually never bought the Drop RDA as I had a Dead Rabbit that I was very happy with, but it did always intrigue me as I tend to have a bit of shinyitis. So this review will not have a performance comparrison to the OG Drop but I will try to point out design similarities and differences between the two. There are some things that I like about the Drop Solo, and there are some things that I don't like. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump off this review and start at the best place possible: the top.
Drip Tip/Top Cap: The Drop Solo comes with a contoured, frosted, PMMA 810 drip tip. It's quite small for an 810 drip tip, but the contours make it very comfortable when taking a hit. It also includes a "straight" drip tip for the PMMA top cap. Not really a fan of these and I just don't care for them. These drip tips don't really fit into Goon-styled 810 top caps. They are just a bit smaller and wiggle around a lot. However, 810 drip tips fit into the Drip Solo top cap fine.
The top caps of the standard and PMMA are almost identical. They both have a slight conical shape on the inside and stepped airflow adjustment. However, the PMMA version is a bit smaller and doesn't technically have the step adjustment for the 4 holes at the top of the barrel. While you can use the PMMA cap on the metal barrel, you will never be able to have the top 4 airflow holes all the way open because of how the PMMA barrel is designed. The metal top cap cannot be used with the PMMA barrel.
Barrel/Airflow: The metal barrel has the T-shaped, 10-hole airflow, similar to the OG Drop. Airflow is adjusted in a step manner from the top down via the top cap. Each hole can be individually shut off within each tier of airflow. I actually really like the way this airflow is setup as you can really dial it up or down to your preference and hit your sweet spot. I have a few concerns with this airflow. 1) The top row of 4 holes seems unnecessary as you really need to fold your coil down for best placement and that top row is just going to go right over the top of your coil. Then again, you can shut that row down, so it's kind of a non issue. 2) The T shape airflow seems like it would work better for a Vertical build, yet mostly everyone is going to be doing horizontal builds in here. More on Vertical build in the Performance section. Another feature I like with the barrel is the indentions cut into each side on the bottom. These line up with spots on the deck that make sure your airflow is always lined up with your coil. One more thing to mention about the barrel; laser etched under the airflow is DROP, on one side, and SOLO on the other.
The PMMA barrel is slightly different. The barrel of this cap is slightly shorter than the metal one. The PMMA piece is meant to be a shorter cap and do achieve this, the airflow is different and removes that top row of 4 airflow holes. As I feel that row is unnecessary anyway, I think this is the ideal setup for the airflow. Aside from that, everything else is identical to the metal barrel.
Build Deck: The build deck on the DS is pretty much exactly like the OG Drop in that you have both your positive and negative post off to one side. Of course, since this is a single coil RDA, one set of those are removed and, being 22mm, the build deck is smaller. Building on the DS is really simple. The posts mantain the drop-and-cut design from the Drop, which makes getting your coils situated a cinch. It is a nice option over a postless deck, espeically for beginner builders. One weird thing to note about the posts is that the negative is not milled into the deck. It is a separate piece held in by a screw on the bottom of the RDA. While this did not cause me any issues, I felt like it was something worth noting. The Solo includes two types of post screws: flat-head grubs, and hex grubs. This is a nice little extra as there are many out there that have a certain preference when it comes to their post screws. The juice well is a pretty decent size and, while I didn't use the DS on a squonk mod, I threw the sqonk pin just to check it out. It protrudes a nice amount from the build deck, so that's going to be a plus.
A major concern for me with the build deck is with having the posts off to one side, there is a whole lot of open space within the RDA. It seems counter-productive for what I would assume is supposed to be a flavor-chasing atty. I feel like all that empty space in there is going to actually reduce the flavor. I guess you can throw a larger build in there to take up more space, but it seems opposite to how someone looking to get a 22mm atty would really want to build it. Different strokes I guess, and this is partially subjective.
Performance: All of that leads us to performance. I used a few different builds inside the Drop Solo, including a triple-core fused clapton, regular clapton, and alien. All coils were SS wire from AVS. While it's not the worst performing atty, I feel like it could have been so much better. I really feel like all the open space insdide of the Drop Solo makes it underperform in the flavor department. It's not that it is bad, I got okay flavor out of it, I just feel like some elements could have been designed better to allow greater flavor. Even with a Vertical build, which seems almost like the best option for the airflow, I did not get as great flavor as I would have expected. I saw Jai Haze do a dual vertical build inside of his and he claimed it produced amazing flavor. I guess that's possible as the extra coil mass would help to reduce the chamber space and help to condense the vapor more, but I did not attempt a build like that.
The top caps of the standard and PMMA are almost identical. They both have a slight conical shape on the inside and stepped airflow adjustment. However, the PMMA version is a bit smaller and doesn't technically have the step adjustment for the 4 holes at the top of the barrel. While you can use the PMMA cap on the metal barrel, you will never be able to have the top 4 airflow holes all the way open because of how the PMMA barrel is designed. The metal top cap cannot be used with the PMMA barrel.
Barrel/Airflow: The metal barrel has the T-shaped, 10-hole airflow, similar to the OG Drop. Airflow is adjusted in a step manner from the top down via the top cap. Each hole can be individually shut off within each tier of airflow. I actually really like the way this airflow is setup as you can really dial it up or down to your preference and hit your sweet spot. I have a few concerns with this airflow. 1) The top row of 4 holes seems unnecessary as you really need to fold your coil down for best placement and that top row is just going to go right over the top of your coil. Then again, you can shut that row down, so it's kind of a non issue. 2) The T shape airflow seems like it would work better for a Vertical build, yet mostly everyone is going to be doing horizontal builds in here. More on Vertical build in the Performance section. Another feature I like with the barrel is the indentions cut into each side on the bottom. These line up with spots on the deck that make sure your airflow is always lined up with your coil. One more thing to mention about the barrel; laser etched under the airflow is DROP, on one side, and SOLO on the other.
The PMMA barrel is slightly different. The barrel of this cap is slightly shorter than the metal one. The PMMA piece is meant to be a shorter cap and do achieve this, the airflow is different and removes that top row of 4 airflow holes. As I feel that row is unnecessary anyway, I think this is the ideal setup for the airflow. Aside from that, everything else is identical to the metal barrel.
Build Deck: The build deck on the DS is pretty much exactly like the OG Drop in that you have both your positive and negative post off to one side. Of course, since this is a single coil RDA, one set of those are removed and, being 22mm, the build deck is smaller. Building on the DS is really simple. The posts mantain the drop-and-cut design from the Drop, which makes getting your coils situated a cinch. It is a nice option over a postless deck, espeically for beginner builders. One weird thing to note about the posts is that the negative is not milled into the deck. It is a separate piece held in by a screw on the bottom of the RDA. While this did not cause me any issues, I felt like it was something worth noting. The Solo includes two types of post screws: flat-head grubs, and hex grubs. This is a nice little extra as there are many out there that have a certain preference when it comes to their post screws. The juice well is a pretty decent size and, while I didn't use the DS on a squonk mod, I threw the sqonk pin just to check it out. It protrudes a nice amount from the build deck, so that's going to be a plus.
A major concern for me with the build deck is with having the posts off to one side, there is a whole lot of open space within the RDA. It seems counter-productive for what I would assume is supposed to be a flavor-chasing atty. I feel like all that empty space in there is going to actually reduce the flavor. I guess you can throw a larger build in there to take up more space, but it seems opposite to how someone looking to get a 22mm atty would really want to build it. Different strokes I guess, and this is partially subjective.
Performance: All of that leads us to performance. I used a few different builds inside the Drop Solo, including a triple-core fused clapton, regular clapton, and alien. All coils were SS wire from AVS. While it's not the worst performing atty, I feel like it could have been so much better. I really feel like all the open space insdide of the Drop Solo makes it underperform in the flavor department. It's not that it is bad, I got okay flavor out of it, I just feel like some elements could have been designed better to allow greater flavor. Even with a Vertical build, which seems almost like the best option for the airflow, I did not get as great flavor as I would have expected. I saw Jai Haze do a dual vertical build inside of his and he claimed it produced amazing flavor. I guess that's possible as the extra coil mass would help to reduce the chamber space and help to condense the vapor more, but I did not attempt a build like that.
Final Thoughts
Pros
- Contoured drip tip
- Additional PMMA top cap and carrel
- Step airflow allows for fine-tuning
- Barrel seats into deck to allow proper airflow placement
- Building is super simple
- Multiple post screw types
- Protruding sqonk pin
- Flavor is decent
- Drip tips don't quite fit standard 810 caps
- Don't care for the "straight" drip tip
- Top row of airflow seems pointless (can be shut off, though)
- Airflow seems better suited for Vertical build, but most will be doing Horizontal builds
- Too much open space inside the deck
Purchasing
- Vaporl - $22.50
- 3fvape - $25.99
- Eightvape - $28.95
- VapeSourcing - $29.95
- Ecig-city - $29.99
- Fasttech - $30.05 (with MAP code)
- Elementvape - $32.95
- VaporDNA - $32.99
- Eciggity - $32.99
Thank you...
...for your attention ECF. I hope you all have a great weekend!
I want to give another shoutout to Digiflavor for giving me the opportunity to provide this community with this review and giveaway. If you want to check them out, you can follow them on their Facebook or Instagram pages.
Also, if you want to keep up with me, you can follow me on Instagram.
