I have been a very happy user of this device for the past seven days now, and I feel the need to give credit where credit is due. I am absolutely amazed at this thing, and my hat goes off to Bill at D&B Gold for steering me in the right direction.
I should really start this review by giving some context. I have been vaping for about two years now but have always used just the simple Joye 510 with an atomizer and a pyramid tea bag the entire time. It got me off of my 1.5 pack a day Camel Wide addiction from the very first day, and with the exception of some supply difficulties that cropped up along the way; I haven't really looked back. And by "supply difficulties" I mean the remoteness of my living arrangements have oftentimes hampered efficient delivery of equipment and juice. I am an American expatriate living here in Costa Rica, just outside the boundaries of a rather large tract of rain forest. I see more ox carts than cars most days, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
So my vaping experience, while pleasant and personally revolutionary, has been hampered by the very short lifespan of the 510 battery and atomizer. But with the help of the various McGuyver-esque techniques of atomizer preservation I learned in this very friendly forum, none of the shortcomings have swayed me back to smoking those disgusting analogues. However, in the last six months, I have decided to upgrade my equipment and juice to see just how far I can take vaping and address the inconveniences of my primary chosen model. Seeing as how I am very happily married with five kids, image didn't mean that much to me; but I still didn't want to look like I was huffing on a power tool or unfired light saber. And I apologize in advance to anyone I may offend by saying this but; box mods look goofy as hell.
In essence I wanted something that would give me more than an hour and a half continuous use, didn't sacrifice taste, and didn't make me look like a special needs asthma patient when me and the Mrs. hit the pueblo. After doing a bit of research, my first inclination was to go for the Boge Leo and replace those gaudy jewels with compass caps. But unfortunately I couldn't find a vendor in the US that would accept payment from my Costa Rican bank, and those wholesale Chinese sites like Alibaba were useless because I didn't see the need for 20 starter kits.
So I went back to researching other models, and I stumbled across the Echo. I first saw it as a promotional sale at Health Cabin.com, but it was for the manual battery. And then after watching a couple of reviews on YouTube, I was very interested in getting my hands on that 1300 mah auto battery and those neat-o cartomizers. Even with the tea bag mod, I found myself dripping about every 10th or 11th pull from my Joye 510, and that along with having to switch out the battery every 90 minutes was becoming a headache. I also like the idea of using an auto battery as opposed to a manual one also.
After scanning this forum for all the info I could get on this model, I found the thread for D&B Gold. Bill sells Echo, Echo-E, and iGo equipment from his home in Oklahoma. He also got a new model that hasn't hit the mainstream market yet he named "The Stealth". This is basically the 808 Echo without the LED light at the end, and I believe it's a bit heavier too due to the inclusion of a steel plate at the bottom of the device. I went ahead and got the 1300 mah starter kit along with a spare set of five dual coil cartos to add to the four already included. He was nice enough to throw in some drip tips as well, and Bill is the kind of site owner I prefer to work with due to his personable approach to his customers.
I had him send the kit to my mother's house in Upstate New York as she does a monthly care package for me that is never stopped by customs. I had a really bad experience once, I'll leave it at that. I also ordered a bit of American made juice from the classifieds in this forum as I have only used Dekang PG everything up to this point. I will be giving both of those people high praise as well in another review. I finally got it about 10 days later, and I have been happy ever since!
This thing hits like a mack truck. I started off by charging both batteries (about 7 hours per battery) and filling my first cart with some 24mg Wowboy. After letting it sit for a while, I fired it up and dang near choked. The last time a smoking device did something like that to me, I was in my sophomore year at UF and it was an hour before a Phish concert. I learned pretty quick that the pull of this thing was like a hair trigger for a fog machine and adjusted my draw strength accordingly.
Another thing that blew me away was the taste! I know this was the first time using decent juice, but that can't be the only reason the taste is so marked and intense. I also got my hands on some Mister E-Liquid's ...., Orange Ice, and Chai Tea (which I vape while doing Tai Chi). And the best part is: ALL of these cartos still taste and perform exactly as well as the first day I unwrapped them. I have heard stories about these things lasting quite long, and I need to get the most out of them before backup supplies can arrive.
So I'll go ahead and break this lengthy review down to red meat...
Pros:
I should really start this review by giving some context. I have been vaping for about two years now but have always used just the simple Joye 510 with an atomizer and a pyramid tea bag the entire time. It got me off of my 1.5 pack a day Camel Wide addiction from the very first day, and with the exception of some supply difficulties that cropped up along the way; I haven't really looked back. And by "supply difficulties" I mean the remoteness of my living arrangements have oftentimes hampered efficient delivery of equipment and juice. I am an American expatriate living here in Costa Rica, just outside the boundaries of a rather large tract of rain forest. I see more ox carts than cars most days, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
So my vaping experience, while pleasant and personally revolutionary, has been hampered by the very short lifespan of the 510 battery and atomizer. But with the help of the various McGuyver-esque techniques of atomizer preservation I learned in this very friendly forum, none of the shortcomings have swayed me back to smoking those disgusting analogues. However, in the last six months, I have decided to upgrade my equipment and juice to see just how far I can take vaping and address the inconveniences of my primary chosen model. Seeing as how I am very happily married with five kids, image didn't mean that much to me; but I still didn't want to look like I was huffing on a power tool or unfired light saber. And I apologize in advance to anyone I may offend by saying this but; box mods look goofy as hell.
In essence I wanted something that would give me more than an hour and a half continuous use, didn't sacrifice taste, and didn't make me look like a special needs asthma patient when me and the Mrs. hit the pueblo. After doing a bit of research, my first inclination was to go for the Boge Leo and replace those gaudy jewels with compass caps. But unfortunately I couldn't find a vendor in the US that would accept payment from my Costa Rican bank, and those wholesale Chinese sites like Alibaba were useless because I didn't see the need for 20 starter kits.
So I went back to researching other models, and I stumbled across the Echo. I first saw it as a promotional sale at Health Cabin.com, but it was for the manual battery. And then after watching a couple of reviews on YouTube, I was very interested in getting my hands on that 1300 mah auto battery and those neat-o cartomizers. Even with the tea bag mod, I found myself dripping about every 10th or 11th pull from my Joye 510, and that along with having to switch out the battery every 90 minutes was becoming a headache. I also like the idea of using an auto battery as opposed to a manual one also.
After scanning this forum for all the info I could get on this model, I found the thread for D&B Gold. Bill sells Echo, Echo-E, and iGo equipment from his home in Oklahoma. He also got a new model that hasn't hit the mainstream market yet he named "The Stealth". This is basically the 808 Echo without the LED light at the end, and I believe it's a bit heavier too due to the inclusion of a steel plate at the bottom of the device. I went ahead and got the 1300 mah starter kit along with a spare set of five dual coil cartos to add to the four already included. He was nice enough to throw in some drip tips as well, and Bill is the kind of site owner I prefer to work with due to his personable approach to his customers.
I had him send the kit to my mother's house in Upstate New York as she does a monthly care package for me that is never stopped by customs. I had a really bad experience once, I'll leave it at that. I also ordered a bit of American made juice from the classifieds in this forum as I have only used Dekang PG everything up to this point. I will be giving both of those people high praise as well in another review. I finally got it about 10 days later, and I have been happy ever since!
This thing hits like a mack truck. I started off by charging both batteries (about 7 hours per battery) and filling my first cart with some 24mg Wowboy. After letting it sit for a while, I fired it up and dang near choked. The last time a smoking device did something like that to me, I was in my sophomore year at UF and it was an hour before a Phish concert. I learned pretty quick that the pull of this thing was like a hair trigger for a fog machine and adjusted my draw strength accordingly.
Another thing that blew me away was the taste! I know this was the first time using decent juice, but that can't be the only reason the taste is so marked and intense. I also got my hands on some Mister E-Liquid's ...., Orange Ice, and Chai Tea (which I vape while doing Tai Chi). And the best part is: ALL of these cartos still taste and perform exactly as well as the first day I unwrapped them. I have heard stories about these things lasting quite long, and I need to get the most out of them before backup supplies can arrive.
So I'll go ahead and break this lengthy review down to red meat...
Pros:
- About 14 hours per battery charge and I consider myself a moderate to semi-heavy vaper depending on what I am doing.
- Equal amount of time, give or take 10-15 drop "top offs" about twice a day, per cartomizer.
- Is a literal fog machine.
- Exceptionally durable; I've dropped it on my tile floor more than once with no issues. Could concieveably be used as a small night stick or kubotan in a pinch.
- Sleek design; it looks like the future electro-cigar all the space badasses will eventually use.
- Every nuance of every taste is brought out beautifully with these dual coil cartos.
- Exceptional customer service from Bill, the site owner of D&B Gold, and fellow madman.
- I kinda miss the LED light. I found out the hard way that it was an excellent defense from stepping on legos or action figures with bare feet in the middle of the night. The pinhole light of the Stealth gives me little to no visibility when doing my customary late night pacing and plotting.
- There is a cut off time in the auto battery that is about 5-7 seconds. This hasn't really been an issue with 24mg nic, but when I use lower nic; it can get slightly annoying. It can be circumvented seperating your drag into small pulls that flirt with said cut off time.
- The higer nic content juices combined with this amount of vapor production has made me seriously worry about nicotine overdose for the first time in my vaping experience. This could just be my late night paranoia though. Either way, I find myself willfully putting it down rather than chain vaping it like I would do with my 510.
- The whistle tips that come stock with the cartos are pretty lame, but a drip tip takes care of that easily.
