Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit Review – Has It Got the Swagger Factor?

The original Vaporesso Swag mod came out at the beginning of 2018, so it’s been quite a while since we’ve had an update – so here at last is the much anticipated Vaporesso Swag 2 kit.

It was in our Christmas post I was saying I was hoping to see some more single battery mods, so someone must have been listening!

What Can We Expect From The Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit?

Vaporesso have been on a bit of a roll lately.

The Swag 2 looks just like the baby brother of the Gen, you can read what Neil Cozens thought about with his Vaporesso Gen review here.

Whilst it has the same single battery set up of the original Swag that Dean reviewed way back in February 2018 here.

As a small single battery mod, it’s never going to be the sort of things for people that want to chuck enormous clouds all through the day.

But it could be a very interesting kit for someone looking at getting into Direct to Lung (DTL) vaping, or someone that wants a smaller kit for when they’re out and about.

Vaporesso was founded in 2015, as an offshoot of the parent company Smoore (itself founded in 2006). They have 13 factories and almost a thousand patents! So they are definitely a company to watch.

So let’s see how their Swag 2 Kit performs in review.

As always, this was sent over free of charge for the purposes of this review, but I shall report back honestly on what I find.

Inside The Box

• Swag 2 Mod
• NRG PE Tank (NRG SE Mini tank in TPD countries)
• GT4 Meshed Coil (Preinstalled)
• GT CCell Coil
• Spare O-rings
• USB Cable
• User Manual
• Warranty Card

Changes From the Original Swag Kit

Aside from the lovely new finish, the other two big changes from the original Swag are:

A brand new board – whilst the Swag used the Omni Board, the Swag 2 is using their new Axon chipset.

The Swag 2 now accepts tanks up to 25mm, which is a big and welcome change from the original Swag, that one only allowed 22mm tanks.

Specs

• Dimensions – 108mm x 25mm x 50mm
• Weight – 133g
• Power Output – 5-80W
• Battery – Single 18650
• Capacity – 3.5ml NRG PE (2ml NRG SE Mini in TPD countries)
• Drip Tip – 510

Design and Build Quality

Mod

Anyone that has had a play with the Vaporesso Gen mod will be familiar with the finish on that one, it’s a lovely soft touch plastic that’s covered in tiny dimples, it’s really grippy, and really comfortable.

It comes in the same colours the Gen launched with, Silver, Black, Red and Blue.

Hopefully if they do well, Vaporesso will bring out the gorgeous Purple and Green like they did for the Gen.

It’s set up for people that vape with their left hand, as the bulges on the side give your left thumb somewhere comfortable to sit.

Having said this, I almost always vape with my right hand, and after switching the screen orientation in the menu, I found it almost as comfortable.

Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit Battery Compartment

Like other mods that use this type of design, where your tank sits slightly below the height of an 18650 battery stood on end.

To do this, it has a battery compartment where the top cap screws on top of the mod.

I did find that some of my batteries with cheaper (thicker) wraps were a little bit snug, so that’s something to be aware of.

As always I would recommend charging your batteries with a quality external charger, however the Swag 2 does have a micro USB port for charging your battery in the mod.

I’m disappointed that it’s not USB C, though it will charge quickly at 2A.

One thing I did like was that it shows you on the screen how long it will be until fully charged.

The NRG PE Tank

The NRG tanks have been around for a little while now, and there’s a huge choice of coils out there for them.

Vaporesso make 9 different types, and there are plenty of other compatible coils out there if you don’t find something you like.

One nice little change from the original Swag Kit, is that now the tank is colour matched to your mod – very sharp!

Starting at the top we have a very wide bore, 510 drip trip.

This is made of delrin and I found it to be pretty comfortable.

However for a tank that is clearly aimed at DTL, I wish it were an 810.

Below this you have the top cap that has a slide to refill.

Interestingly if you need to change out the o-rings (or just give your tank a thorough cleaning) the top cap is reverse threaded and unscrews to allow you to take it off.

Airflow is around the bottom of the tank and is a nice big cyclops style airflow hole, mirrored on the other side.

How To Fill The Vaporesso NRG PE Tank

Filling the tank is super easy, just locate the little arrow on the top cap, and slide the top open.

Fill with your preferred e-liquid.

Close the top again, and leave to sit for 5 minutes if your coil is dry.

Read more about best tank practices including priming your coils.

Although it doesn’t have any lock to hold it closed, I never had it accidentally opening on me.

How To Change The Vaporesso NRG PE Coil

Unscrew the base of the tank, then unscrew the coil from the base.

Screw your new coil in and replace the base onto the tank.

Sadly there’s no way of replacing your coil whilst you have e-liquid in the tank, and if you try it will empty itself out the drip tip.

This is a bit of a shame, as I’ve gotten quite used to new tanks having this option.

Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit Screen and Controls

You have 4 buttons on this mod, and the layout and operation is… confusing!

5 clicks on the fire button will turn your mod on/off, you have a menu button underneath the screen, and on the side of your mod are your +/- buttons on a rocker.

Long press the menu button will take you to the top level menu.

• Pulse Mode
• Power Eco
• Smart TC
• DIY Mode
• System Set

I’m going to cover some of these in the performance section later, but the one I want you to focus on now is DIY mode.

The DIY mode opens up a sub-menu that contains these options

• VW (Variable Wattage: Soft, Normal, Hard
• VT (TC Mode: SS, Ni, Ti, Mi – for setting your own TCR)
• VV (Variable Voltage)
• CCW (Wattage Curves)
• BP (Bypass)
• SP (Super Player… I kid you not)

Seriously…when did you ever need to go into a sub menu to access variable wattage?!

In fact all of these should really be top level in my opinion, OK, maybe not Super Player.

I saw that a couple of people thought that you had to press the menu button three times to get into the main menu, however, if you press it quickly you get a message saying “3 Pressing + M -“.

This will get you into the menu, but a long press is easier.

You also have the option to lock the adjustment buttons by pressing the fire button 3 times.

How Does the Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit Perform?

In the kit you get two coils, the GT4 Mesh is a dual mesh coil made of Fe-Cr-Al, at 0.15Ω.

Whilst the CCell coil is a SS 316 at 0.5Ω.

I believe that the GT4 uses a combination of traditional cotton and tea fibre (I believe!) whereas the CCell is using a ceramic core wick.

I tested out this out with Only E-liquids Lychee Lemonade at 70/30 VG/PG.

Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit 0.15Ω Coil – Airflow and Cloud Production

Plenty of airflow on this coil, the vapour it produces has that a really creamy thickness to it!

It’s rated at 30-70W with it’s best at 45-60W, 50W seemed pretty great, but as you’ll read, I didn’t get a chance to really push it.

0.15Ω Coil – Flavour

Bags of flavour, absolutely no complaints here.

Rich fruits coming through, and plenty of separation between the flavour notes.

I would normally test a coil that did this well with one e-liquid, with a couple of others to make sure it could handle a range of flavours.

Unfortunately…

I didn’t get to test this coil out nearly as long as normally would, hence why I haven’t spoken about testing different wattage.

I ran it at 50W and it died after about 4 tanks of e-liquid.

I certainly wasn’t pushing this coil, but it burnt out like crazy after only a little bit of use.

I can only hope that this was a one off, but after a really positive start, it was very disappointing!

So, it’s straight on to the CCell coil.

Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit 0.5Ω Coil – Airflow and Cloud Production

This coil is definitely a tighter draw, even fully open this coil gives a fairly restrictive DTL pull.

On the 1-10 scale, with 10 totally open and unrestricted, this probably rates somewhere about a 6.5.

Cloud production was “OK”, but at the lower wattage this runs at, I felt it was a pretty anemic vape.

Quite thin and light vapour, none of the thickness that I enjoy from a good mesh sub-ohm!

0.5Ω Coil – Flavour

Flavour is pretty similar to the cloud production.

It’s fine, but it’s nothing that you’re going to write home about.

All the flavour notes seem to be represented, but like a weaker version of them.

I’m not sure what it is about ceramic coils, but I never seem to get as much flavour from them, and especially on a DTL tank it’s not the type of coil I would generally choose.

In any case, I found my sweet spot for this coil was about 30W.

Going up any higher and it didn’t improve the flavour, it just became a slightly warmer vape.

Vaporesso Swag 2 Kit Different Firing Modes

There’s a lot of options on this, and whilst we all know what variable wattage is like, I decided to take a look at some of the more unusual ones on this device and give you my thoughts.

Pulse Mode

Pulse mode is actually something that goes back quite a long way in vaping.

Rather than the battery providing a sustained output to the coils, it pulses on and off, originally this was due to limitations in the technology.

Now that it’s a choice, the idea is that it can provide good flavour over a longer period of time, hitting the output wattage however fast it can pulse, rather than tailing off after hitting it at the beginning of your draw.

Normally I find pulse mode to be a bit of a let down, as you can feel the on/off hitting the coils.

Vaporesso has made some magic though, and thanks to the Axon chip it’s using, it pulses every 0.02s.

Easily fast enough that you don’t notice it doing it, and I was more than happy to use this in replacement of normal variable wattage!

Power Eco Mode

In this mode, battery life is the aim of the game.

There is also an option in the settings menu to be able to have this come on automatically when your battery hits less than 40% charge.

Personally, one of the first things I would do is go into those settings and turn this off!

I’ve tried to find some more information on exactly what Eco mode is doing, but especially at wattage higher than 50W, you get a very unsatisfying vape.

Sure it may preserve battery power, but I’d rather have spare batteries with me than what feels like a much weaker vape!

Smart TC

I’m not entirely sure how much I want to trust a mods ability to detect the type of TC wire I’m using, but that’s exactly what Smart TC claims to do.

I tested this out with Stainless Steel wire (the only TC wire I tend to use) and it correctly identified it every time.

In fact the CCell coil is using Steel as its heating element, so you can have a play with that if you want.

I’m just honestly not sure we really *need* this.

Anyone that uses TC mode tends to know what wire they are using, and it’s not like it’s a massive chore to select it after you select TC.

With both Smart TC and normal TC mode set to Stainless Steel, I found the temp control to be pretty flawless.

Super Player

Just who decided to name this Super Player? I want answers!

Apparently this mode expands the resistance range that this mod will accept.

It seems to switch to standard VW with no option of switching between Soft, Medium and Hard.

However it will now accept atomizers as low as 0.03Ω or as high as 5.0Ω! So there’s that?

Again, this feels like a mode that was put on for the sake of it, as I’m not sure I’d ever want to vape on an atomizer at 0.03Ω (especially on a single battery mod) and going up to 5.0Ω is just weird!

I’m not sure what resistance range it will normally read.

But we already know it’s happy down to 0.15Ω, as that is one of the coil choices. If you use this mode, I’d love to know in the comments!

Pros

Swag 2 Mod

• Really comfortable
• Fast firing
• Great pulse mod

NRG PE Tank

• Easy top fill
• Great flavour (0.15Ω coil)

Cons

Swag 2 Mod

• Weird menu layout
• Micro USB rather than USB C
• Snug battery compartment (minor niggle)

NRG PE Tank

• No mid tank coil changing
• 510 drip tip instead of 810
• Quickly burnt out coil (0.15Ω Coil)
• Weak sauce flavour (0.5Ω Coil)

Final Review Verdict

Aside from my experiences with the 0.15Ω burning out on me, I really like this kit.

This would probably be the kit that I recommended to people looking at trying out DTL for the first time.

Discrete, good looking kit, and capable of great flavour.

Vaporesso made a big splash with the Gen mod, and it’s great to see a company double down on their success and bring the things that people liked with that over onto their other devices.

My only slight problem with the mod is that I think the menu system isn’t great.

But as with most of these things, once you’ve lived with it for a week or so, you soon remember where stuff is.

The Axon board they have in there seems to be doing a great job, really quick to fire, and being able to handle things like detecting wire types for TC is a sign that they’re continually looking for new ways to make vaping easier.

It may not be something I use, but I applaud the intention!

Have you used the Swag 2 kit? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!