I don't own a Provari but I'm an electrical engineer designing inverter drive based systems so I've looked into them from a technical point of view and compared it to the eVic that I own and use on a daily basis.
First of all having held a Provari I will say that build quality is the best I have seen on any "production" mod. I have held some "one-off" specials which you could argue are better but you pay for that kind of exclusivity.
This quality no doubt is why so many users swear to their reliability and robustness. As I've said I own and use an eVic and I've posted on here before that although I love it when it arrived with the standard battery tube it did feel quite cheap.
Ease of use isn't a strong point on the Provari, the menu is a little ambiguous due to the limitations of the 7 seg display used, but like everything you would get used to it in time. The lack of VW I think is a potential issue for less experienced vapers if they are swapping between devices - at least VW gets you in the right voltage ball park so you don't fry your coil. Once you get in your mind the relationship between coil resistance and voltage it no longer becomes and issue.
Now for me the biggest plus for the Provari, from a technical standpoint, is the chipset they use. ALL these regulated mods use some form of pulse width modulation together with DC-DC converter to be able to regulate the voltage output. Most lower to mid end mods all use a very similar chipset that has become known as the "33.3" referring to the frequency they switch at to output the selected voltage.
Not to get too technical the higher the switching frequency the better the current regulation and the more accurate the voltage output when expressed as a RMS value which is in effect the voltage the coil "sees". The eVic switches at around 100Hz but the Provari switches at around 800Hz. Again not to get too technical one important by product of a high switching frequency is heat. Assuming the voltage remains the same a coil will heat up more quickly if the switching frequency is higher. If you used the formula to calculate the energy output of a coil you would see that in effect the energy output is more with the higher RMS.
I've seen scope traces of the output from a Provari and the output is super smooth, if you didn't know better you would swear it was a pure DC voltage. The filtering circuit they use is superb - props to them. All this means that the RMS is closer to the actual set output you select, set 3V get 3V RMS is the ideal.
So what difference does it make? Well I guess ultimately we are trying to heat the coil to vaporise the
ejuice and the more efficiently we do this the better. I've never vaped on a Provari so I can't tell but I've spoken to people and seen folks post on here that would swear on their mothers life they can taste the difference between say
vaping on a Provari and a 33.3Hz device. From a mathematical standpoint there is undeniably a difference but being able to taste the difference is subjective.
The other thing about the Provari that I have seen is that unlike a mech mod whatever voltage you set it will output accurately until just before the point where the battery dies so your vape is constant all the way through.
So I can see why people go mad for these. Technically they have done a really good job of making a device to heat a coil in the most efficient way possible. For me the only drawbacks are the fact they are not really "modular" (battery tube and control is one piece) but that could be seen as an advantage being mechanically more robust and THE PRICE! I can appreciate the technology in the thing but I baulk at paying £200+ for a mod.
So that's my 2p worth from a more "neutral" viewpoint.
