Good morning all -
I'm not usually one to do reviews and such, but I decided to make an exception in this case. There is a lot of buzz going around about the new 'Turbo' cartomizers being sold by VaporNine, and deservedly so. I thought it might be helpful to put a review out here in this section of the forum so it would be easy to find for folks looking for info on them.
If you don't wanna read all the words, you can skip to the end, where I'll lay out some key benefits and summarize everything.
First off, I'll address VaporNine itself, as well as Ben, who runs things over there. I have placed a few orders with him now and customer service is TOP NOTCH. I had a few questions on my first order and received a phone call within minutes. Ben was not only very helpful and courteous, but he was also very candid and easy to talk to. Someone recently commented on a thread in his subforum pointing out how nice it was that he was such a 'regular guy' on the forum. He has proven time and again that he listens to his customer base and responds QUICKLY to improve his products, website, and anything he has control over. Also, every order I've placed with him has resulted in a shipping confirmation and tracking order within minutes (11 minutes on my last order to be exact). You can't ask for better service than that.
Now on to the product itself. I ordered my first batch of blanks minutes after they were posted for sale on his site, and when they arrived I tried out several different refilling techniques (I only ordered blanks, so I won't be commenting on the prefilled variety - I haven't tried them). They refilled well using every method I know, but the best solution to me was the 'condom cap' method. Part of this is because they have glued on hard mouthpiece caps that require a short (30-45 sec) boil to remove. Please note however that the ones he has now have soft easy to remove caps (an example of his response to customer requests) and is no longer an issue. I fill from the battery end using this method as I find it just works best with these.
These have consistently been taking ~1.4 ml on a fresh fill, which is just crazy, and have proven to be receptive to multiple refill cycles. I have one that has been topped off 25 times and is still going strong.
Vapor production is much better than standard KR808 cartos and on par with other premium cartos.
Flavor is fantastic (as is usually the case with cartomizers) and while some users have noted slightly muted flavors from particular juices, I have not encountered this; in fact, all my flavors 'pop' more when using these. (I'm using TV, V4L, NHaler, and V9 flavors)
Throat hit is very good, and while that is largely dependent on the liquid used, when comparing the same juice across multiple devices and variants, I'm finding that these provide about the same level of TH, but they deliver it differently. It seems a bit more mellow, less harsh. I think this is because the internal design allows for better efficiency rather than higher temps, and you get the REAL TH from nic content rather than FAKE TH from overheating.
Technical stuff: I'm not going to go too deep here, but I'll give a short explanation of the difference in these and standard KR8 cartos. First off, these operate at a HIGHER resistance that standard cartos or other premium cartos. This might seem counterintuitive given the recent 'low resistance' revolution, but there is always more than one way to skin a cat. These cartos are designed to be more efficient at vaporizing the liquid, so flavor/vapor/th can be delivered using less heat. It's a different way of going about things, and it works nicely. It looks like airflow has been tweaked to provide good vaporization without the need for extra power.
Some key benefits of doing it this way:
- Better battery life - at any given voltage, higher resistance yields less power, and battery life is extended
- No mouth-burn - Less power = less heat, so the shell doesn't heat up
- Uses less juice - again, less power, lower juice consumption
Summary:
No product is perfect, but these cartos show a major step forward in PV technology. They provide more vapor, flavor, and TH while consuming less power from your device. In my opinion, these are the best cartomizers out there right now. They pretty accurately recreate the experience of higher voltage vaping on lower voltage devices. Try them out, you won't be disappointed. But hurry, they sell out quickly!
DISCLAIMERS:
All cartomizers are designed to be disposable after one use. While it's my experience that these are very refill friendly and can be effectively cleaned and reused many times, your experience may differ. Anything beyond a single use is gravy, please keep that in mind!
A word about high voltage - I have tried these out at high voltage, and honestly.... didn't like it. It was a bit much. For me, it negatively impacted the flavors (dependent on juice used). I see these as the 'experience' of high voltage with the convenience of low voltage. Some people however, love them at HV. If you do use them at 5V+, remember to top off more often and don't activate the device for more than a few seconds at a time. This will lessen your likelihood of damaging the carto. Again, keep in mind these were designed for 3.7V, anything higher is out of spec, so do so at your own risk!
I'm not usually one to do reviews and such, but I decided to make an exception in this case. There is a lot of buzz going around about the new 'Turbo' cartomizers being sold by VaporNine, and deservedly so. I thought it might be helpful to put a review out here in this section of the forum so it would be easy to find for folks looking for info on them.
If you don't wanna read all the words, you can skip to the end, where I'll lay out some key benefits and summarize everything.
First off, I'll address VaporNine itself, as well as Ben, who runs things over there. I have placed a few orders with him now and customer service is TOP NOTCH. I had a few questions on my first order and received a phone call within minutes. Ben was not only very helpful and courteous, but he was also very candid and easy to talk to. Someone recently commented on a thread in his subforum pointing out how nice it was that he was such a 'regular guy' on the forum. He has proven time and again that he listens to his customer base and responds QUICKLY to improve his products, website, and anything he has control over. Also, every order I've placed with him has resulted in a shipping confirmation and tracking order within minutes (11 minutes on my last order to be exact). You can't ask for better service than that.
Now on to the product itself. I ordered my first batch of blanks minutes after they were posted for sale on his site, and when they arrived I tried out several different refilling techniques (I only ordered blanks, so I won't be commenting on the prefilled variety - I haven't tried them). They refilled well using every method I know, but the best solution to me was the 'condom cap' method. Part of this is because they have glued on hard mouthpiece caps that require a short (30-45 sec) boil to remove. Please note however that the ones he has now have soft easy to remove caps (an example of his response to customer requests) and is no longer an issue. I fill from the battery end using this method as I find it just works best with these.
These have consistently been taking ~1.4 ml on a fresh fill, which is just crazy, and have proven to be receptive to multiple refill cycles. I have one that has been topped off 25 times and is still going strong.
Vapor production is much better than standard KR808 cartos and on par with other premium cartos.
Flavor is fantastic (as is usually the case with cartomizers) and while some users have noted slightly muted flavors from particular juices, I have not encountered this; in fact, all my flavors 'pop' more when using these. (I'm using TV, V4L, NHaler, and V9 flavors)
Throat hit is very good, and while that is largely dependent on the liquid used, when comparing the same juice across multiple devices and variants, I'm finding that these provide about the same level of TH, but they deliver it differently. It seems a bit more mellow, less harsh. I think this is because the internal design allows for better efficiency rather than higher temps, and you get the REAL TH from nic content rather than FAKE TH from overheating.
Technical stuff: I'm not going to go too deep here, but I'll give a short explanation of the difference in these and standard KR8 cartos. First off, these operate at a HIGHER resistance that standard cartos or other premium cartos. This might seem counterintuitive given the recent 'low resistance' revolution, but there is always more than one way to skin a cat. These cartos are designed to be more efficient at vaporizing the liquid, so flavor/vapor/th can be delivered using less heat. It's a different way of going about things, and it works nicely. It looks like airflow has been tweaked to provide good vaporization without the need for extra power.
Some key benefits of doing it this way:
- Better battery life - at any given voltage, higher resistance yields less power, and battery life is extended
- No mouth-burn - Less power = less heat, so the shell doesn't heat up
- Uses less juice - again, less power, lower juice consumption
Summary:
No product is perfect, but these cartos show a major step forward in PV technology. They provide more vapor, flavor, and TH while consuming less power from your device. In my opinion, these are the best cartomizers out there right now. They pretty accurately recreate the experience of higher voltage vaping on lower voltage devices. Try them out, you won't be disappointed. But hurry, they sell out quickly!
DISCLAIMERS:
All cartomizers are designed to be disposable after one use. While it's my experience that these are very refill friendly and can be effectively cleaned and reused many times, your experience may differ. Anything beyond a single use is gravy, please keep that in mind!
A word about high voltage - I have tried these out at high voltage, and honestly.... didn't like it. It was a bit much. For me, it negatively impacted the flavors (dependent on juice used). I see these as the 'experience' of high voltage with the convenience of low voltage. Some people however, love them at HV. If you do use them at 5V+, remember to top off more often and don't activate the device for more than a few seconds at a time. This will lessen your likelihood of damaging the carto. Again, keep in mind these were designed for 3.7V, anything higher is out of spec, so do so at your own risk!
