Hi all. Just wanted to relay my experience with smoking/vaping. I'm 34 and have been smoking about 8-15 cigs a day since I was in high school. Over the summer I decided to give e-cigs a try after hearing about them more and more on the net. I did some searches for things like top10 e-cigs, etc. and ended up with a lot of sites that I should not have trusted. From those, I decided to start with South Beach Smoke.
SBS - I bought a pack of disposables and actually started to like it quite a bit. I had already cut down on smoking to about 5 cigs a day, so the pack of 5 disposables actually lasted me about a month. Once those ran out, unexpectedly, I purchased a Deluxe starter kit and used Blu_cig disposables from CVS (tasted awful but kept me going for a bit) until the kit arrived. I tried the tobacco gold and a flavor sample pack of cartomizers and I really liked the tobacco flavors not the fruity ones). Ultimately, however, both batteries died within 3 weeks and had to be replaced. Shipping took a long time. After a while, I had enough of them due to poor customer service, bad batteries, leaking cartomizers, heavily crackling cartomizers, and too many dead cartomizers (tasted burnt as soon as I first used them). I then bought a Green Smoke Deluxe kit which was well over $100 thinking price would equal quality. I gave the SBS gear to a coworker and he likes it.
GS - Their Tobacco Gold, Menthol, and a few other flavors were actually quite good. In fact, all of their flavors are good, and the batteries have been very reliable (no failures in 2 months). I actually still use the 2 long batteries with a bunch of Tobacco Gold cartomizers that I got on sale. Charging is quick and easy with the USB chargers, cartomizers always seem to be good without leaking (I have had maybe 2 or 3 bad ones out of 40 or so and if they do leak on inhaling, it is very minor) and the carrying case it came with was very nice. Later on, however, I finally found this forum that actually has honest reviews and information, and determined it was time to go to USA-made e-liquids etc. Since I live in the northern suburbs on NYC, I decided to go with New Jersey-based NHaler.
NHaler - Telephone customer service is awesome. I wasn't sure what was right for me, so I called and spoke to a lady there (they don't work on commission, FYI) and we discussed what I was looking for. I settled on the N300 iGo Crystal Clear Starter Kit and I have been very happy with them. My only issues with the iGo are that the connector sometimes needs to be pulled up with pliers (only happened twice and not recently) and one of the units has a sticky button. Otherwise, they look cool, work really well, and don't have to be charged often (a big plus for me). I then bought about 10 different sample flavor bottles (6mL) of USA-made Octane e-liquid. The bottles have a built-in dropper, so I don't need a dripper cap to fill these wide mouth cartomizers. However, I was not aware how quickly cartomizers go bad. They are still working for me after 2 weeks, but I just ordered 2 N300 iGo Crystal Vision Replaceable Coil Cartomizers and a dozen wick coils, so I should be good for months on gear and liquid (with all those samples). Keeping the samples in a cool cupboard as per the newbie FAQ.
I also got my boss to order a cheap starter kit from NHaler and gave him my GS short battery and a few cartomizers to play around with.
The only downside to vaping for me is that I think I am vaping a lot more than I was smoking because it is so easy. I vape all day at my desk...lol. I get dehydrated from them relatively easy and have even woken up with hangovers from them. Hasn't happened in a while, though as I stay hydrated and my body has gotten more used to it. I also feel way better since I haven't touched an analog in months.
SBS - I bought a pack of disposables and actually started to like it quite a bit. I had already cut down on smoking to about 5 cigs a day, so the pack of 5 disposables actually lasted me about a month. Once those ran out, unexpectedly, I purchased a Deluxe starter kit and used Blu_cig disposables from CVS (tasted awful but kept me going for a bit) until the kit arrived. I tried the tobacco gold and a flavor sample pack of cartomizers and I really liked the tobacco flavors not the fruity ones). Ultimately, however, both batteries died within 3 weeks and had to be replaced. Shipping took a long time. After a while, I had enough of them due to poor customer service, bad batteries, leaking cartomizers, heavily crackling cartomizers, and too many dead cartomizers (tasted burnt as soon as I first used them). I then bought a Green Smoke Deluxe kit which was well over $100 thinking price would equal quality. I gave the SBS gear to a coworker and he likes it.
GS - Their Tobacco Gold, Menthol, and a few other flavors were actually quite good. In fact, all of their flavors are good, and the batteries have been very reliable (no failures in 2 months). I actually still use the 2 long batteries with a bunch of Tobacco Gold cartomizers that I got on sale. Charging is quick and easy with the USB chargers, cartomizers always seem to be good without leaking (I have had maybe 2 or 3 bad ones out of 40 or so and if they do leak on inhaling, it is very minor) and the carrying case it came with was very nice. Later on, however, I finally found this forum that actually has honest reviews and information, and determined it was time to go to USA-made e-liquids etc. Since I live in the northern suburbs on NYC, I decided to go with New Jersey-based NHaler.
NHaler - Telephone customer service is awesome. I wasn't sure what was right for me, so I called and spoke to a lady there (they don't work on commission, FYI) and we discussed what I was looking for. I settled on the N300 iGo Crystal Clear Starter Kit and I have been very happy with them. My only issues with the iGo are that the connector sometimes needs to be pulled up with pliers (only happened twice and not recently) and one of the units has a sticky button. Otherwise, they look cool, work really well, and don't have to be charged often (a big plus for me). I then bought about 10 different sample flavor bottles (6mL) of USA-made Octane e-liquid. The bottles have a built-in dropper, so I don't need a dripper cap to fill these wide mouth cartomizers. However, I was not aware how quickly cartomizers go bad. They are still working for me after 2 weeks, but I just ordered 2 N300 iGo Crystal Vision Replaceable Coil Cartomizers and a dozen wick coils, so I should be good for months on gear and liquid (with all those samples). Keeping the samples in a cool cupboard as per the newbie FAQ.
I also got my boss to order a cheap starter kit from NHaler and gave him my GS short battery and a few cartomizers to play around with.
The only downside to vaping for me is that I think I am vaping a lot more than I was smoking because it is so easy. I vape all day at my desk...lol. I get dehydrated from them relatively easy and have even woken up with hangovers from them. Hasn't happened in a while, though as I stay hydrated and my body has gotten more used to it. I also feel way better since I haven't touched an analog in months.
