My experiences as a new vaper

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sinewave

Full Member
Oct 17, 2011
14
1
Massachusetts
Hi all, I just wanted to share my experience in my first month of vaping. Hopefully somebody will find it useful.

I've purchased three different brands of starter kits and various brands of disposables, and I'll share my experience with each.

1) Upon deciding I wanted to switch from analogs to e-cigarettes, I went to the biggest, oldest, most well known tobacco shop in my city. The only brand of e-cig they sold was Crown Lion. I bought the Crown Lion starter kit for $39.99. (Came with one battery, one atomizer, USB charger, and 5 cartridges.)

After charging the battery for 8 hours as recommended by the instructions, the Crown Lion e-cig produced minimal vapor and the LED blinked (indicating low battery) right from a full charge. Went back to the tobacco shop, was given a new battery for free. Charged it for 8 hours, and then - same problem. Went back to the tobacco shop yet again. They nicely swapped my whole kit for a brand new one- but even this one had the same problem! (I used the USB charger on 3 different computers to make sure it wasn't just my computer). The tobacco shop won't give a refund so I've basically wasted $40 on a useless piece of junk.

2) Still wanting to vape, but not wanting to spend too much more money, I start buying different brands of disposables from various gas stations and convenience stores around town. I tried probably 5 different brands ranging in price from $7.99 to $12.99. Most were junk that didn't even last a full day. Oddly enough, the cheapest one turned out to be by far the best. That would be Blu brand disposables, sold at my local pharmacy for $7.99. They produce a good amount of vapor and last me about 2 days.

3) Getting sick of spending money on disposables, I happen to spot a cheap starter kit at a local gas station. The brand is 21st Century and it comes with one batt, two cartomizers, and wall charger. I figure for $21 it's worth a try - it'll at least save me from buying a few disposables, right? This "cheap" product turns out to be GREAT! Huge vapor production, good battery life, charges fast, cartomizers last days. I'm not expecting it to last forever, but it's already saved me money over buying disposables.

4) I started doing my research and found this forum. I ended up ordering a 510 starter kit from a vendor I found on the forum. For only $30 including shipping, I got a kit with 2 atomizers, 2 batteries, USB charger, wall adapter, and 5 empty cartridges. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of this kit, but since it's being shipped from China, I expect it will be a few weeks.


Bottom line: You DEFINITELY don't always get what you pay for with e-cigarettes! This is why research is crucial, and that's why I'm making this post! Had I found this forum before I got started, I could have easily saved myself $100+ and a lot of headaches. Props to everyone posting useful info, you've all helped me a bunch. Hopefully this post helps out another noob somewhere.


Peace, love, and vapor.
 

HeadLikeOrange

Super Member
ECF Veteran
Oct 5, 2011
304
113
Massachusetts, USA
Let us know how long it takes to get your 510. I've dealt with a few different vendors and they all ship very quickly. Usually I receive my stuff within 3 days. These guys keep their own inventory and do not ship from China.

Agree with you on trying to buy from brick-and-mortars and striking out. I spent about $100 on NJOY (sold at local 7-11's near me) hardware and cartos before giving up and ordering an eGo. Fortunately, the NJOY does work (just has sub-par production) so I keep it as a backup.
 

Lisa66

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Jan 23, 2011
4,729
25,555
Florida
Welcome, sinewave. Most of us did something similar to what you've experienced in the beginning......your bottom line says it all. I found the site just a few days in after beginning with an inferior and expensive product myself. Bumping this because I can't stress how much all the new people will benefit from reading, reading, reading info on this site.
 

UberGeek

Full Member
Oct 16, 2011
12
0
Buffalo, NY USA
I'm interested in seeing the 21st Century Smoke is a decent product. There's a few gas stations locally that sell that line, and other gas stations sell the Cig20 line.

I started with a 21st Century Smoke disposable, and I liked it, except the battery didn't last very long. I would have bought the kit, but I found it's a proprietary connection; so I'd be locked in.

I ended up buying a Cig20 started kit. Researched it a bit, and found it's a standard KR808D-1. Battery, 2 cartos, and a USB charger for $16. Killed the first charger, so I bought another kit, as a new charger was $9, and I figured a second battery would be nice to have. I liked the juice in the cartos, so I kept buying them.

Now, after buying 3 cartos every couple of days at 6.50 a pack; I got smoke juice from a local vendor, and refilled the the cartos (I also bought some new cartos so I could try some more flavors). I got lucky, with having a knowledgeable local vendor.
 

sinewave

Full Member
Oct 17, 2011
14
1
Massachusetts
I started with a 21st Century Smoke disposable, and I liked it, except the battery didn't last very long. I would have bought the kit, but I found it's a proprietary connection; so I'd be locked in.

I also tried 21st Century disposables. You're right, the battery life isn't great. But the rechargeable one seems to be a completely different battery with a much longer life (I figure it has to be different, one is rechargeable, one isn't). You're also right that it's proprietary so you have to use 21st Century brand cartomizers - BUT! You can actually refill the cartos very easily (see video below). I've refilled a carto using this method and it works great. However I've only refilled it once so I don't know how many refills it can handle - I assume not too many.

$16 for an 808 kit at a brick-and-mortar store is an amazing price. I'm also surprised you found juice at a local vendor, they all seem to just want to sell you more cartos around here, I had to order my juice online. I guess you're just lucky!

 

Stubert

Full Member
Oct 20, 2011
7
10
Knoxville
I was fortunate to avoid the cheap/disposable options since my stepson had a 510 type (not sure from whom). I just didn't like all the filling he did. I knew I didn't want something that looked like a cig (already had some stealth vaping mind). Did some digging and came across the eGo-T -- jumped in with both feet and got a starter kit with two full e-cigs using LR attys.

After a week, I was really loving it. Went out and ordered a pass through battery and another atty. After two, I dropped analogs completely. However, the performance dropped off - did some searching and found this forum. I tried cleaning my attys and got some performance back, but the taste was greatly diminished. After a month plus, I was 'bored' with the e-cig thing. The flavor just wasn't there and I couldn't think why I really liked it in the first place. I ordered some new LR attys, and after a week they were all going bad. I wasn't pleased with the tanks (occasionally would just dump the contents and flood the atty, leak everywhere). So I started searching again. And on this forum, I found a list of good tank mods. Just last week, I got my....

Liquinator! Wow. The flavor is awesome, better throat hit than the eGo-T, better vapor production (even using 100% PG). Still loving it and really like the reusable, but cheap-enough-to-be-semidisposable-cartomizers. However, I did lament my loss of a stealthy vaping device.

So I did some more looking and found the eGo-W. It looks to be a decent mod. and definitely has stealth vaping in mind. It has a relatively good size tank (2 ml), and looks like a fat pen (complete with pen cap) when assembled. I should get it next week and hope it works well. The cartos for it are a bit more expensive than the standard ones (look to be connected to the tank), but cheaper than the eGo-T attys. Also, I'm not sure about the cleanability, but think it will be fairly easy. I'll report back when I find out...
 
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