VapeOnly Zen Pipe Review – Looks The Part But No Way Does It Vape the Part

The Zen Pipe from VapeOnly is certainly an eye catcher and given I won pipe smoker of the year in 1969 whilst still at primary school I was the obvious choice to review it.

Update: There aren’t a lot of vape pipes available at this time. The one place we have seen that still stock and sell the is Epuffer, and they look great. You can see there range here. You can also save by using discount code ECIGCLICK.

I’ve been dying to get my hands on a vape pipe – and this one definitely looks the part.

VapeOnly has been around for a while now and have come up with more than a few gimmicky style vape mods such as the Malle Starter Kit – the VPen Express Kit and the Arcus pen that I reviewed last year.

They have a couple of pipes in their catalogue including the Pipe III which will be up for review soon.

So has VapeOnly become Zen masters of the pipe vaping world?

Let’s take a closer look.

As always my thoughts and opinions are my own.

Inside the Box

This is a big well-made box and trust me you do get your money’s worth with the amount of ‘goodies’ in there:

• A Zen Pipe
• 0.5 Ohm coil installed and a spare 1.0ohm coil [VAir-P type BDC Bottom Vertical Coils]
• A battery charger and USB cable
• Two Samsung INR 18650 – 25R batteries
• Wooden stand
• User manual

VapeOnly Zen Pipe Specs

• Dimensions: 120 × 45 × 158 mm
• Weight: 170 g
• Material: rosewood, Pyrex and brass
• Battery : x1 18650
• Puff activated
• 2 ml tank

Zen Pipe Quick Start

• Unscrew the battery cover [the bowl]
• Pop in your 18650 battery positive UP
• Close Cover
• Light flashes x3 to show battery is correctly installed
• If vaping for longer than 10 seconds pipe cuts out
• Vape is puff activated

Filling the Zen Pipe

Now this had me flummoxed for a while there.

• You need to remove the stem
• Unscrew the tank including the coil
• Fill to chimney top
• Re-insert coil
• Screw back into pipe
• Put stem back on

Key Features

OK this is a single 18650 pipe mod made out of high quality rosewood – brass – glass and plastic.

There are no settings or screen and you have nothing to press to vape – you simply draw on it and the chip pumps out the power required to match your chosen coil.

As I’ve already mentioned you do get a lot of goodies with the kit – x 2 18650 batteries and a single battery charger is a nice touch – as is the nifty stand.

And that really is it – once you work out the filling you really good to go!

Design and Build Quality

OK the rosewood is really quite lovely – the brass though feels a little cheap – however there isn’t much of it.

The design of the filling method could be worked on as it is rather clumsy and not at all clear from the instructions – and I couldn’t find any online help at all!

It is a large pipe but not that heavy and it does fit nicely in the hand – please excuse the in hand photos it was quite tricky getting a shot of it ‘lit up’ on my own!

Speaking of the lights the bowl does glow red whilst puffing which I is guess an authentic touch.

It looks like a pipe – feels like a pipe but does it vape like a pipe?

How Does the VapeOnly Zen Pipe Perform?

In a word – weak.

When I dabbled with pipe smoking ‘back in the day’ [it’s what wannabe authors did right lol] I loved the feeling of puffing away creating sweet smelling clouds.

Sadly with the Zen Pipe you puff and puff and huff and puff and barely any vapour at all and certainly very little flavour.

I was using a decent tobacco e-liquid brand that I know gives a lovely smoky almost cherry flavour – but to say it was muted was an understatement.

So, rather than puffing away happily I was literally out of puff within a few minutes – and quite dizzy too.

Maybe if this had a fire button it would help with the draw?

However, my lungs have certainly improved over the last 5 years and whilst not the most powerful – they can hold their own when sub ohm vaping!

Swapping out the batteries and changing the coil to the 1.0ohm just made things worse – though the flavour did jump a little – not enough to get excited but a little.

So it certainly looks the part – but sadly for me it just doesn’t vape the part.

At this point I’d usually mention the battery longevity – however after a couple of days playing with the Vapeonly Zen pipe I’ve pretty much given it up as a bad job – the battery after 4 hours of use is according to my charger half full.

What I Like

I never really went for the hooked style pipes I was more your straight and simple.

But I have to say in this age of the hipster the design is pretty cool – I love the rosewood – it actually looks good as an ornament on its stand – where sadly it will stay.

Hats off to the VapeOnly team though for all the goodies they add to the kit!

What I Don’t Like

Oh dear from the clumsy filling – the sheer lack of vapour and the distinct lack of taste there’s not a lot to like about the Zen Pipe – apart from it looks like a posh pipe.

Far far too weak for my style of vaping I’m afraid – little if any throat hit and you’d have more chance of seeing clouds for days in a desert.

Final Review Verdict

Despite being sent this by Heaven Gifts – it’s no longer on their website – certainly not at the time of writing this review.

Indeed I’ve had a quick scout around the web and apart from the VapeOnly site – I can’t see it anywhere.

Not sure if that says anything or not.

Given I’ve been looking forward to trying a vape pipe I can only hope the others out there are better than this one.

Sorry guys – looks great but doesn’t vape that well at all.

Have you used the Vapeonly Zen Pipe? Let us know what you though in the comments below!

Pros

• Lots of goodies
• Looks like a pipe

Cons

• Weak vapour
• Weak taste
• Fiddly filling
• Stem is loose as it’s press fit