I was on their mailing list so today my Ploom arrived. I was pretty psyched to open the box.
They have a little YouTube that shows how to operate it on their site. Plug in the butane, fill, toss in a little foil capsule, push in the filling end to ignite it. After a few moments you hear a familiar-sounding sizzle. It dies down after a few seconds. Though the device is still actually "on."
It gets very hot. They do have a warning pasted over the part that gets hot.
Filling it was different as you really can't see how much it's filling (or even whether it's filling) while you have the butane pressed into the end. That's because the fuel chamber is a smoked tint not favorable for viewing.
The draw is so easy that you actually get too much draw. Yeah, who'da thunk? It feels like there needs to be some resistance of some kind, and there isn't.
You need to be careful and not let your lips go very far down the mouthpiece as it gets pretty hot toward the base of it. (Minds outta the gutter right now.)
Flavor:
Hmmm. I got "Kick ... Mint" and "Rocket." The mint's self explanatory and is very minty but not a pure mint; there is some kind of metal taste going on too. The Rocket is kind of Red Bull meets Ginger Ale. With some other hard to identify flavors. Sweet tasting. They actually tasted more odd than good to me. I suppose that's because they have tobacco in them. It may be that it's just hard to make tobacco taste good when vaping. Certainly they've tried hard. And I'm no cigarette hater and still filch one here and there.
There is a throat hit. So far, however, I have not seen tons of vapor. Maybe I just haven't gotten savvy with it yet. It's so weird trying to get the feel of a proper mouthful of smoke when you have zero resistance. My GreenCig puts it to shame for clouds of vapor.
I thought this might remind me of a good-tasting cigarette, but it does not.
The little pods really don't last long at all. Once the foil is punctured by the mouthpiece, it looks as if the tobacco mix is arranged around the sides only of the cup. In other words, there's a lot of unfilled space in the little cup's center.
It'd be nice if you could put something in there that tasted better, like polyfill with a decent juice from NHaler or something.
Turning the switch to "off" proved pesky a couple times. It sometimes does not want to budge and takes some fiddling to switch off.
I confess to wondering over these past months what happened to all the people who attended all these tastings? Why didn't they post their impressions of the Ploom? Did they take a vow of silence? Weren't any of them already vapers? Maybe not and maybe they didn't have anything to compare it to. Internet searches don't turn up any information other than what's on Ploom's site. And yes, they have very awesome PR, I must say. And a great photographer!
I'm going to try some more of these tomorrow when I have more time. Just thought I'd put up a few pictures for those curious. More at the link. However, my initial impressions are: way too much airflow. Excessive heat at the base of the mouthpiece makes me skittish about really relaxing when I 'drag' on it. I'm concerned I'll set it down without turning it off. (Sure, eventually it'll just run outta butane so probably not a concern but I found myself thinking about it.)
Yes, the pods will be prohibitively expensive at $5 something for 12, with each pod only lasting about the same amount of time as a cigarette.
Whether it succeeds or not, I wish them the very best and applaud everyone at the forefront of refining this technology and thinking outside the box to give us options.
Ploom pictures: (forgive poor light, late at night, kitchen table and I'm tired!)
Link to photos: http://www.pbase.com/michellemahood/the_ploom
They have a little YouTube that shows how to operate it on their site. Plug in the butane, fill, toss in a little foil capsule, push in the filling end to ignite it. After a few moments you hear a familiar-sounding sizzle. It dies down after a few seconds. Though the device is still actually "on."
It gets very hot. They do have a warning pasted over the part that gets hot.
Filling it was different as you really can't see how much it's filling (or even whether it's filling) while you have the butane pressed into the end. That's because the fuel chamber is a smoked tint not favorable for viewing.
The draw is so easy that you actually get too much draw. Yeah, who'da thunk? It feels like there needs to be some resistance of some kind, and there isn't.
You need to be careful and not let your lips go very far down the mouthpiece as it gets pretty hot toward the base of it. (Minds outta the gutter right now.)
Flavor:
Hmmm. I got "Kick ... Mint" and "Rocket." The mint's self explanatory and is very minty but not a pure mint; there is some kind of metal taste going on too. The Rocket is kind of Red Bull meets Ginger Ale. With some other hard to identify flavors. Sweet tasting. They actually tasted more odd than good to me. I suppose that's because they have tobacco in them. It may be that it's just hard to make tobacco taste good when vaping. Certainly they've tried hard. And I'm no cigarette hater and still filch one here and there.
There is a throat hit. So far, however, I have not seen tons of vapor. Maybe I just haven't gotten savvy with it yet. It's so weird trying to get the feel of a proper mouthful of smoke when you have zero resistance. My GreenCig puts it to shame for clouds of vapor.
I thought this might remind me of a good-tasting cigarette, but it does not.
The little pods really don't last long at all. Once the foil is punctured by the mouthpiece, it looks as if the tobacco mix is arranged around the sides only of the cup. In other words, there's a lot of unfilled space in the little cup's center.
It'd be nice if you could put something in there that tasted better, like polyfill with a decent juice from NHaler or something.
Turning the switch to "off" proved pesky a couple times. It sometimes does not want to budge and takes some fiddling to switch off.
I confess to wondering over these past months what happened to all the people who attended all these tastings? Why didn't they post their impressions of the Ploom? Did they take a vow of silence? Weren't any of them already vapers? Maybe not and maybe they didn't have anything to compare it to. Internet searches don't turn up any information other than what's on Ploom's site. And yes, they have very awesome PR, I must say. And a great photographer!
I'm going to try some more of these tomorrow when I have more time. Just thought I'd put up a few pictures for those curious. More at the link. However, my initial impressions are: way too much airflow. Excessive heat at the base of the mouthpiece makes me skittish about really relaxing when I 'drag' on it. I'm concerned I'll set it down without turning it off. (Sure, eventually it'll just run outta butane so probably not a concern but I found myself thinking about it.)
Yes, the pods will be prohibitively expensive at $5 something for 12, with each pod only lasting about the same amount of time as a cigarette.
Whether it succeeds or not, I wish them the very best and applaud everyone at the forefront of refining this technology and thinking outside the box to give us options.
Ploom pictures: (forgive poor light, late at night, kitchen table and I'm tired!)
Link to photos: http://www.pbase.com/michellemahood/the_ploom
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