SMOK Mag P3 Kit Review – One For Butter Fingered Vapers?

The Smok Mag P3 kit is from a company that needs no introduction. It’s fair to say that they probably have the best brand recognition among non-vapers.
Although they’ve been dinged in the past for their quality control and their relentless schedule of new releases, it’s seemed recently like they are once again starting to produce some solid hardware.

What Can We Expect From The Mag P3 Kit by SMOK?

The Mag P3 is now the fourth Mag Kit from Smok, after the Smok Mag, the Mag Baby, and the Mag Grip.

Also, despite the name Mag giving you images of a gun magazine (to go with the trigger fire button) only the original Mag, and the Mag Grip used this rather satisfying battery holder. The Mag Baby was a built in LiPo, and the Mag P3 that I have has a hinged battery door.

Smok have billed the P3 kit as being a more ruggedised version of their previous Mags. It is Dustproof, Shockproof, and Waterproof, with an IP67 rating promising to withstand submersion in 1m of water for up to 30 minutes.

You can bet I will be testing this out later!

I was sent this over free of charge for the purpose of this review, as normal I will report back honestly on what I find.

In The Box

• Mag P3 Mod
• TFV16 Tank Standard Edition
• 0.2Ω Conical Mesh nexMesh Coil (pre-installed)
• 0.12Ω Dual Mesh Coil
• Silicone Sleeve for Bulb Glass
• Replacement straight glass
• USB Cable
• User Manual
• Spare parts

Note: This is the contents for the US/Standard edition, the EU Edition will come with the 2ml TFV Mini V2 to comply with TPD regulations and comes with the 0.15Ω Single Mesh Coil and the 0.15Ω Quadruple Mesh Coil.

Specs

• Dimensions – 150mm x 72mm x 36mm
• Weight – 345.5g
• Power Output – 1-230W
• Battery – 2x 18650
• Capacity – 9ml TFV16 (2ml TFV-Mini Tank for TPD)

Design and Build Quality

Now I know that Smok are going for a “gun grip” style with their Mag kits, but I can never shake the impression that it’s closer to a Black & Decker power tool!

The benefit is that it is a really ergonomic design, with the top plate extending back over the crook between your thumb and first finger and the fire button falling under your finger tip like the trigger of a gun (or a drill!).

The SMOK Mag P3 Kit comes in four colour ways, Red and Black that I received, Black and Red, Green and Black, Blue and Black, and Grey and Black.

Body

The 510 connector is place centrally on the mod, and even with the 28mm wide TFV16, still has space to spare. You can fit up to a 35mm tank on this mod without overhang!

The mod is mostly covered in a nice soft touch plastic, on mine this is red, with contrasting panels of what look like carbon fibre, but actually have the same soft feeling as the rest of the mod, on the thin edges.

Unfortunately this type of soft plastic picks up lint and dust like nothing else, I have tried my best to clean up the photos!

On the rear of the mod you have a harder panel of actual carbon fibre, with “MAG P3” in silver, and a USB port at the base. This is covered by a silicone plug, and helps to maintain the waterproofing of the mod.

Unfortunately it’s just micro USB, no USB C here.

Battery Compartment

You access the battery compartment with a press switch at the base of the mod.

Although you no longer have the satisfying “chu-chink” of the a battery magazine, it’s still a very positive feeling compartment.

On the inside you have your polarities clearly marked, as well as the indicators for which is Battery A and B, so you can keep an eye on their discharge from the screen.

I am a little sad that Smok decided to stick with dual 18650’s in this mod, as it looks like there would have been ample room to allow it to go up to 21700’s. But like the use of micro USB rather than USB C, this feels like it’s stuck in the past a little bit.

Fire Button

There’s a trigger shaped fire button of hard black plastic on one side of the mod. This has a bit of a “hair trigger”, and I found it was super quick to respond. Nice and clicky!

It also does double duty by controlling a few aspects of the mod. Pressing it repeatedly allows you to

• 5 Clicks – Power On (power off with confirmation press on screen)
• 3 Clicks – Lock Fire Button
• 2 Clicks – Stealth mode, screen off

Screen

I was slightly worried when I heard this was a touch screen, as I haven’t had the best of luck with touch screens on vape mods! However, in use I found my fears were pretty unfounded, this is a really responsive touch screen, and I never had any of the problems trying to touch something and it not respond.

All of your controls are accessed by the screen, there’s a slide-to-unlock function, that kicks in the moment you press the fire button, stopping you from accidentally changing something you don’t want.

Whilst vaping your screen displays:

• Menu Button in top left
• Lock Symbol
• Dual Battery indicators in top right
• Last puff duration, wattage and fire mode in the middle
• Resistance of coil, Volts being drawn, current in Amps and Puff counter at the bottom
• Slide-To-Unlock Indicator which is replaced by Adjustment Up/Down buttons when unlocked

The screen is a good 1.9” panel, and displays all the things you would want to see in an easy-to-read fashion. Pressing the menu button at the top left takes you to the main menu with the options of:

• Mode
• My Mode (4 custom settings)
• Puff Counter/Limit
• Settings

In Mode you have the choice of Wattage Mode, with preheat options of Normal, Hard and Soft or Temp Mode, with the options of Titanium, Nickel, or Stainless steel. There’s no dedicated TCR mode, but you can adjust each of the three Temp Control wires TCR values. You can also set the wattage that the Temp Mode will fire up to.

If you want to, you can also set a passcode under the Settings menu. This will then be required every time you turn on the mod, and they ask you two questions (your 4 lucky number and the last 4 digits of your phone number) to allow you to reset it if you forget it.

The TFV16 Tank

I’m not going to go into too much detail on the TFV16 tank, as Simone has previously covered this in great detail. You can see her SMOK TFV16 review here.

I will be testing out the new Conical Mesh 0.2Ω coil later though.

Starting at the top we have the very wide bore resin drip tip. Unfortunately this is neither 810, or 510, but instead it’s a proprietary sleeve style with o-rings holding the sleeve in place at the bottom.

The top cap has a hinged fill port with a button on one side, pressing this button in you then swing the top cap around to gain access to your large kidney shaped fill hole.

I’ve got no complaints about this opening on it’s own, in fact it took me a while to get the knack of opening it.

The bubble glass that it comes with is HUGE, holding 9ml of eliquid.

This is a good thing as the TFV16 absolutely ploughs through vape juice. Obviously breaking this would result in a major mess, so Smok have included their own take on the ubiquitous vape band to protect it.

This is a black silicone sleeve that covers the whole of the glass with diamond shaped cutouts to keep an eye on your levels. If you have a tendency to break tanks, then I highly recommend this.

Finally at the bottom you have your cyclops style airflow ring, which like everything about this tank is absolutely huge!

How Does the SMOK Mag P3 Kit Perform?

First up this is a chunky kit! It feels remarkably solid in the hand, and is really ergonomic because of the design.

Although it’s heavy, I found it very comfortable to hold for even long stretches of time. For these tests I used Berry Ice, by Large Juice Company, and Maui by Forbidden Island.

Left and Right…

One thing that is worth mentioning, is that because of how the mod is designed, you’re only going to be viewing the screen when you’re holding it in your right hand. It’s just as comfortable and easy to use left-handed, but the screen will be facing into your palm.

Batteries and Firing

I’m really glad that this has individual battery displays, as I am never great at remembering to keep my batteries married properly (I use a lot of single battery mods!).

Best practice is to use a new pair of batteries and always charge them together. Never mix batteries of different types in the same mod.

It does do balanced charging inside the mod at 1.8A if you decide to plug it in, which is good news if you do need to top it up now and again. However I would always recommend charging your batteries on an external charger and not relying on the charging chip inside a mod.

• Golisi S6 Smart Charger Review

Firing is lightning fast with the trigger button, Smok says that it fires at 0.001s, and whilst I have no way of testing this claim, it certainly seems to be pretty instantaneous power.

Whilst I’m sceptical about any dual 18650 battery mod claiming it’s capable of putting out 220W, there’s absolutely no reason to push it up to anything like that with the TFV16 tank.

I was able to get a day of vaping from this kit, but if you’re chain vaping, I’d suggest something nearer to 3-4 hours. Obviously the power that you run it at, and the batteries you use will make a big difference.

Rugged?

I’ve thrown this around a lot since I got it, and I’ve been impressed how well it has held up to being used and abused.

The soft touch plastic never seems to pick up any dings, and even the ridiculously large bubble glass has survived unscathed (helped by the large vape band).

Of course I couldn’t just let Smok’s claim of it being waterproof go untested, so I left it in a pint glass for 30 minutes.

The seal over the USB port meant that there wasn’t a touch of moisture inside, the battery door kept out any liquid, and after I let it dry off, it started up and continued working with no sign it had just been for a swim.

Big thumbs up for this!

New 0.2Ω Conical Mesh Coil

0.2Ω Coil – Airflow and Cloud Production

Like most Smok stock coil tanks, this thing is definitely going to appeal to the “clouds bro” types out there. There is a ridiculous amount of airflow, and even with just a single strip of mesh, you can quickly fog out a room.

For me I found that the draw was pretty much perfect just been closed down a little bit, but you can get a nicely restrictive draw on this if you close it down further. You’re never going to mistake a tank like this for MTL, but for DTL it does what it should pretty flawlessly.

0.2Ω Coil – Flavour

I was quite shocked by the amount of flavour this thing produces, it’s another example of a really good mesh, and whilst I’m not totally convinced that the slight conical shape of it makes a huge difference, it definitely delivers on flavour.

It is quite a cool vape at the stated 50-85W, and I found that you could happily push this further.

Experimenting by pushing it up 10W at a time, I found it didn’t even start to struggle until beyond 150W. Once you’re above 100W it’s a much warmer and more satisfying vape, and I’ve been using it a lot at 110W. The wicking is absolutely top notch, helped by the mahoosive juice holes on the coil.

Coil Longevity (0.2Ω Coil)

Despite Smok having a less than stellar reputation for the life of their coils, I’ve been happily vaping for a week on this one coil and it doesn’t show any signs of giving out yet.

Another thing that I was wary of was any leaking coming from the coil, with 9ml of e-liquid it would make quite a puddle. I’m not sure what it is that they have changed, but I haven’t had a single drop of e-liquid leak out of this tank. Definitely a good showing on that front!

Pros

Mag P3 Mod

• Really comfortable to hold
• Solid construction

TFV16 Tank

• Easy, secure top fill system
• Good range of coil types
• Huge airflow

Cons

Mag P3 Mod

• Micro USB rather than USB C
• No cool battery magazine
• Only 18650 rather than 21700

TFV16 Tank

• Sleeve style drip tip, not 810

Final Review Verdict

So as I lay my power tool down what do I think of the SMOK Mag P3 Kit?

Smok seems to have definitely turned a corner with the quality of the stuff that they produce, and I think the Mag P3 Kit is a great addition to the ruggedised vape market.

This is a big chunky kit, and I think it’s pretty perfect for someone that wants a hefty sub-ohm cloud chucker. I’m a little let down by some of the decisions that make it feel like this is built on top of their pre-existing technology, 18650 batteries, despite having loads of room for 21700’s and micro USB, when USB C is fast becoming the standard.

Despite not being the most forward thinking kit, I’d be happy to recommend it to any butter-fingered vapers who want a decent stock coil kit with loads of airflow.

Did you buy the SMOK MAG P3 kit/ Do you have any questions about the kit? Share your thoughts in the comments below!