So we have another pod system in for review today, the Vapmor VPen looks like (you guessed it) a pen!
So now with a vaping watch (Uwell Amulet Pod Watch) and, a vaping zippo lighter and a vaping pen, soon you’ll be able to have a whole collection of pod devices that look like other things!
Who Is The Company Behind The VPen?
I hadn’t heard of Vapmor before, so I went to have a look at their website.
Unfortunately their website didn’t seem to work properly on my iPad! Happily I managed to get around this, and I can tell you that Vapmor was launched in October 2018, by “one of the largest and most experience [sic] manufacturers in the e-cig industry”.
So I’m not sure at the moment if they’re a sub brand of an established manufacturer, or if they’re referring to the fact that their founders have worked within the industry for a long time. If you know more, then please put it down in the comments.
At the moment they appear to have 2 pods, a sub-ohm tank and a dual 18650 mod. They are apparently “focusing on quality with a touch of elegance”, so that sounds good!
I am always a little bit worried about pod systems from companies I’ve never heard of though, as I have no idea how easy it will be to get the pods, or how long they will be available.
Happily there seem to be a few stockists of the VPen at the moment, both online and in bricks and mortar.
The product was sent in free of charge for the purposes of this review, as always, my thoughts are my own, and I am not influenced by freebies.
In the box
- VPen Battery
- Refillable Pod
- USB Cable
- Manual and warranty card
Specs
- 133mm x 16mm diameter
- 40g
- 600mAh Battery
- 2ml Eliquid Capacity
- 1.0Ω coil
- Fires up to 13W
- Haptic Feedback
- Draw Activated
Design and Build Quality
When you open the box you can tell they were going for the “high end” pen look. It comes in a nicely textured cardboard box, and when you lift the lid off the VPen is nestling inside a little felt holder, just like you would find on a nice fountain or rollerball pen.
Lifting out the section that holds the pen, you have you manual, warranty card and a really nice USB cable.
It’s the little things like this that help lift your first impressions of a product, and the USB cable is a nice fabric braided cable with an L-shaped end.
Taking the VPen out, and it definitely looks like a pen, especially in the black that I have. You can also get this in a sand colour, blue, green, purple, brown, red and silver. So plenty of options in colour ways. Unfortunately (depending on your taste) the clip on all of them is gold coloured, so it’s definitely got a bit of ‘bling’.
My first ‘ding’ to this review came when I took the cap off. The gold end of the clip seemed to have welded itself to the body of the pen, so when I was able to pull it off it took a bit of the black finish with it. It’s only a tiny mark, but it wasn’t a great first impression!
The cap will only fit onto the device in one way, that’s because if you look inside it has a little shield for the drip tip that seals it off.
It goes on with a nice satisfying click, but weirdly it’s a slightly different colour to the rest of the device.
This doesn’t show up well in the pictures, but from the pictures I’ve seen online, this is more noticeable in the other colours.
Underneath the cap you have an oddly shaped mouthpiece, it’s perfectly comfortable but it does look a bit weird!
How to Fill The Vapmor Vpen Pod
This is definitely one of the most over engineered fill methods I’ve come across on a pod system! Though it is pretty easy to do.
- Pull out the pod that is held in place with magnets
- Look for the fill port catch
- Get your nail at the base and pull it towards the tip
- The catch will open with a spring
- Put the tip of your bottle in fill hole and fill up
- Push the cap back down until it clips into place
- Leave to stand for 5 minutes
They say in the manual that you should leave your pod horizontal with the catch open to let it stand… but I don’t like the thought of leaving it like that as it won’t sit horizontally on it’s own and will just roll over and spill your e-liquid.
One nice thing about the pod, is that when you put it back into the battery, the magnets grab it and snap it into place, so you can’t put it in wrong.
Once it seats down you get a lovely haptic feedback ‘buzz’, and the LED flashes white to confirm it’s correct.
Battery
Looking down the battery you have a tiny slit of a window to check you eliquid level, this is ok (just!) when you’re somewhere with decent lighting, but the moment the light starts to drop it becomes really difficult to check your levels.
LED
About three centimetres under this, you have a tiny pinhole LED that lights up to communicate various things.
- Low Voltage, Red LED flashes 8 times
- Overdraw protection (8 second cutoff), White LED flashes 5 times
- Short circuit protection, Red LED flashes 3 times (fast)
- Inserting a pod, White LED flashes white once
- Taking a vape, LED glows (30-100% White, 1-30% Red)
- Charging, Red LED
There’s almost no branding on the device, just a simple white VAPMOR at the base in white. Your USB charge port is on the base of the battery. Although this seems perfect for charging and vaping at the same time, they say they do not recommend this in the manual.
One thing that I really didn’t like about this device is that although the cap clips on really nicely over the drip tip, there’s no real way to “post” the cap on the end.
As pen lovers will know, not every pen has a cap you can post, and that’s fine when you’re writing and sat down at a desk. But if you’re out and about with a vape you don’t want to lose the cap!
You can just about get it to post, but it’s not secure, and the slightest knock will send it flying. So my advice is to just put it in your pocket.
How does the Vapmor VPen perform?
There’s no controls on this device, it’s draw activated with a fixed airflow, so what you have is what you get.
As I only had the one pod to test out I didn’t want to stress the coil by putting in anything with lots of VG or sweetener, so I loaded it up with my standard 50/50 Berry Ice by Vape Simple.
Airflow and Clouds
This is a really restrictive mouth to lung device only. With a fairly wide drip tip, I was expecting to get more airflow than I did, but don’t be fooled by appearances, this is very restrictive, almost too restrictive for me (and that’s saying something!).
With so little airflow coming through the device, there’s also very little vapour production.
No clouds here!
Flavour
The flavour is pretty good, though strangely it seems to amplify the sweeter notes in the eliquid I’m vaping.
I’m not sure quite how this happening. It’s definitely not full on flavour, and seems just a touch muted.
I would probably recommend using something with a really distinctive flavour in this, a strong menthol would probably work quite nicely.
Battery Life
This was way too restrictive for me to vape on it as my main device even though my everyday vape is MTL, so I ran it with some high strength nic salts for a bit as a “backup” device.
Using it this way, and only getting it out to have very short vapes on, I got about 4 days of use. But if you were using this as a main device, I’d expect you to get a single day at a push.
Pros
- Ultimate stealth vape
- Easy Fill
Cons
- Cap doesn’t post
- REALLY tight draw
- Gold clip looks a bit tacky
Final Review Verdict
This is a hard one to come to a decision on, on the one hand I really like the “stealth” aspect of this. You could quite happily be wearing a really smart business suit, carry this with your pens, and no one would look twice at it.
On the other hand it’s definitely trying to to be a classy system, but there just isn’t enough refinement there. Not being able to put the cap on the end is a pain, and the colour not *quite* matching between the body and the cap will irritate you once you’ve spotted it.
To put it into pen terms, this feel like a really cheaply made fountain pen.
Also I would have loved it if they had just a slightly looser draw, I think this is so tight, that it’s only going to appeal to quite a small group of people.
Would I recommend it?
I think that so long as you know what you’re getting into with this, it’s an absolutely fine device for what it is. If you’ve needed a vape that looks like a pen for when you’re at business meetings, then fill your boots!
Have you have used the Vapmor Vpen? We would love to hear what you though in the comments below!
I’ve owned this pen for awhile and the draw gets worse as you use it. I’ve gone threw two and can not tell you why my new one’s battery went out in it. Won’t be buying a third one.
Will his coil be found vpen