We're now running a new series of contest here.
To be specific, you're invited to do a full review (written) of our certain product.
We'll then choose some of the great reviews and let you guys vote for the final winner. As a reward, he/she will get a free device.
So, as for the first time, we're focusing on the Joyetech espion models.
Please note that, your review shall be posted under this thread ONLY.
You can insert photos of the device as you like, only with photos taken by yourself.
Duration for this contest, from now on till Oct. 19.
I don't know who Jonathan Fairbanks of California is, but I'm grateful to him. According to a promotional flyer on the Joyetech website, he is the person who designed the ESpion mod - and in times when the vaping industry's mainstream output is comprised of overly colorful, blinking, talking, and mostly militant looking mods, the straight-forward design language of the ESpion lineup is a welcome relief. In fact, it was the decisive factor for my decision to buy the ESpion/Procore kit. Here's what I learned about it in 3 months of daily use.
Brief summary
The ESpion is made of zinc-alloy, measures 83mm*43mm*28mm, features a 1.45" TFT color display, a centered 510 socket that takes up to 28mm atomizers without overhang, and it uses 2 x 18650 batteries for a maximum output of 200W/50A.
The Procore measures 25mm*47mm. It's a top-fill, bottom-airflow, sub-ohm tank, and accommodates Joytech's ProC (Baby-Beast-compatible) coils.
The entire kit is 130mm tall, not 113mm, as the Joyetech website says.
Its overall design makes the mod a pleasure to look at when it's sitting on the table in front of me. The symmetrical shape, comparatively small size of the mod, and the centered atomizer, allow it to be picked up with my left or my right hand, with the fire button pointing backward or forwards, and it always feels natural to press the large fire button with whatever part of my thumb or index finger is hovering above it at any given moment.
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Due to the strictly rectangular shape and plain surface of the mod, putting your pinkie below the mod while holding it, is recommended practice, or the mod will eventually glide out of your hands.
Another thing to watch are the vertical indentations, acting as magnets for dust and grease. Be sure to clean them periodically.
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The 2-colour version I opted for, has a unique deficiency. Because the blue color is simply painted onto a layer of white primer on the metal (not anodized), it comes off when being exposed to even mild mechanical stress. You can see this at the USB port and on the surface of the otherwise well-constructed battery door. Owners of the black and gunmetal versions of the ESpion most likely don't have that problem.
The Espion features balanced charging and speed charging up to 2A, and indeed charging batteries within the device works reasonably well. However, when the mod was plugged into my (old) desktop PC's USB port, the batteries in the mod wouldn't charge over 4V. Only when the mod was plugged into a USB wall charger, the batteries were fully charged up to 4.2V. An interesting restriction.
The mod's UI is well designed. It's intuitive, and it's sitting on a large screen, which makes it suitable for people who have less than stellar eyesight; although there's still some room for improvement left. The left of the 3 front-facing buttons has a very pleasant function to offer: Being pressed when the main screen is on, it turns the screen on and off. When the screen is switched off, the mod still fires, but it doesn't accept any inputs from the left/right buttons, so you don't accidentally change your settings when you're not looking at the device.
The firmware, sitting at version 5.04 right now, still has some faults which Joyetech should have fixed by now, given the fact that the ESpion was officially introduced over 9 months ago.
The 1st bug shows in TC mode, which didn't work for me, at all, when I put an RTA with an SS316 0.25ohm micro coil on it. Pressing the fire button made it go into protection mode immediately, falsely insinuating that the desired temperature has been reached. The TCR mode, however, worked with the same coil, although the TCR values for the desired temperature (calculated with Steam Engine) only gave me a cold vape. Consequently, the TCR value had to be manually dialed down a few notches to receive a proper result. In addition to that issue, the main screen doesn't show you whether or not your coil resistance value is locked in, or not, and I'm not even confident that the lock/unlock option in the menu is really working, or not. This is a real bummer.
The 2nd firmware bug concerns the screen timeout. For reasons unknown, this feature acts differently depending on whether you have just turned on the screen with the function or the fire button. In the first scenario, the 5s and 10s settings work, but the 15s and "off" settings don't. It just switches off the screen after a random amount of seconds. In the second scenario, those settings seem to have no effect at all. Again, the mod just waits for some random amount of seconds, and then turns off the screen. This glitch has no influence on your use of the mod. It's just silly.
The 3rd bug is also a minor one. If you turn on the screen again after a longer period of time, it can (but doesn't have to) happen that there is a slight delay before the UI re-appears on the screen. During that 1/10th of a second, you'll see digital garbage on the screen, comparable to static noise on old analog TVs when no proper signal was received. I found other ESpion owners on the web reporting on the same phenomenon, but in no instance was this occurrence tied to functionality issues, so I guess we can let it slide for now.
The Procore atomizer
The kit comes with a 25mm Ø atomizer called "Procore X", which is really the same as the "Procore Aries" and the "Procore Motor" - the only difference between the 3 being the ornamentation at the top and bottom bases.
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The atty's slide-to-open mechanism works reasonably well, although the way the top cap is fixated on the back of the top base appears to be a bit rickety. The filling slots are large enough to accommodate bulkier tips of larger liquid bottles, and the airflow ring at the bottom moves smoothly, being held by a stopper when being fully open and fully closed. The stock 2ml tank can be turned into a 4ml tank within a minute by simply installing the extension chimney and the larger glass, both of which are included in the kit's packaging.
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What deserves a special mention, is the metal thread on the top cap, which the (seemingly) proprietary drip tips are then pressed onto. Giving Joyetech the benefit of a doubt, I assume they opted for this in order to keep the overall built-height of the atomizer as small as they could. Luckily, that exact same metal thread is also used on other atomizers, making their drip tips compatible with the Procores. If you want a stainless steel drip tip, get one from the Joyetech Ultimo/Unimax atomizers, and if you want a colorful resin one, go look for Aspire Cleito drip tips.
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The atomizer packaging comes with 2 coils, one ProC1 (DL) coil, and one ProC1-S (Pseudo-MTL) coil. They're both pretty much okay.
In addition to Joyetech's ProC coils, the Procore also utilizes "Baby Beast" family coils, which is always a huge plus, and a wise design decision on Joyetech's side. Just this week, the overall number of compatible coils listed in this special category has grown to over 100. That includes a few MTL coils, and even a bunch of mesh coils, coming from all sorts manufacturers, like Eleaf, OBS, Vaporesso, Coil Father, and so on. You couldn't ask for a broader choice. In fact, these days I wouldn't buy another sub-ohm tank if it wasn't "BB compatible".
Re-Route / My great misfortune with the Procore
I had a really hard time dealing with the Procore that came as part of the kit.
It started with me having to deliberately break the glass and thereby ripping apart the upper rubber o-ring, all while trying to convert the tank into a 4ml one. It was unavoidable because the glass just wouldn't come off, regardless of the amount of force I applied with my fingers. When that obstacle was overcome and I had re-assembled the tank, I was sure that the atomizer would now work properly. Mhm, no. It quickly started leaking on me - and I don't mean the usual type of leakage that occurs when condensed vapor slowly travels down the chimney and out of the airflow holes at the bottom - I'm talking about a "...... contest" amount of leakage. So I took the tank apart again, and after observing the rubber ring at the bottom base being slightly bent out of shape, I replaced that one as well. Now all my spare parts were used up. After 2 days of use. Astounding.
For a few days, the vape was good, and I quickly bought a used Procore Motor atomizer from eBay, simply because I wanted to know if the problems I had with my atomizer were limited to the specimen in my kit, or if there was a general problem with the series' built quality. I'm glad to report that the one I got from eBay worked exactly as it should. Now I was happily switching between the 2 Procores for a few days until one of my freshly mixed liquids (Cherry Cola) made the white rubber inserts in the top cap swell up and deform so badly that an air pathway opened up right next to the chimney on both atomizers. Plus, due to the swelling, the top caps didn't close properly anymore. You know what inevitably happened next...
At that point, I pretty much decided to retire the Procores. Temporarily, maybe. I got myself a different, well-reputed atomizer, shipped to me via Express mail from the manufacturer's store on Aliexpress, accompanied by half a dozen sets of replacement o-rings and top cap gaskets. On the side, I managed to order replacement seals for the Procores, from [1 of 3] stores on the entire internet which are selling these replacement kits. And fortunately, after having been thoroughly washed and dried, the white gaskets in the Procores' top caps went back to their original shape, making them usable again. So now, and for the foreseeable future, the Procores are sitting on their stands, playing their role as silent backup devices, should my favorite atomizers fail me. And if you wonder: Yes, that's paint flaking off the Procore X base in one of the images I uploaded. Pathetic, really.
Lesson to be learned:
Until Joyetech decides to make replacement parts for their devices widely available, they only have themselves to blame for their devices being sent into early retirement, and of course for unfavorable mentions in reviews like this one.
My overall verdict
Is the ESpion mod a worthy purchase?
In my eyes, yes. I have no plans yet to replace the ESpion as my favorite "at home" device.
Reading about all the mod's little quirks, a reader could get the impression that it's a mediocre device, but that's really only the nature of this review. After a few months of intense usage, I can, and should, tell you all about the little shortcomings this device occasionally suffers from. You can't expect to hear and see the same things from reviewers who are simply showing off brand new devices that come right out of a freshly unwrapped box.
Is the Procore atomizer a worthy purchase?
Erh... I don't know. I have the feeling that I was particularly unlucky with my specimen, so IF I decide to give the Procore series the benefit of a doubt, then yes. It looks good, it takes BB coils, and if you're lucky, you can still order replacement seals on the internet by the time you read this review.
So, if you stumble upon a really good offer for the ESpion mod, or the ESpion/Procore kit, you can happily press the "BUY NOW" button ;-)
I hope you enjoyed my 1st (and last) vape review. This is waaay too much work, so kudos to all the reviewers out there.
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