All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Vaping is something that has grown exponentially since its introduction in 2004 by inventor Hon Lik. Instead of inhaling tobacco from a cigarette, you press a button, whereby an e-liquid from a chamber is electronically charged and heated into vapour form, and is then inhaled by the user.
This has grown into a multi-billion pound business with vaping stores popping up on the streets, splashy London launches and adverts on the side of buses and the rest.
Vapes have been linked to smoking cessation, helping those who have been smoking tobacco for many years, to ease off it and, hopefully, to eventually quit the habit. One study, conducted by Cancer Research UK, found that smokers who switched to vapes had experienced “large reductions in [exposure to] carcinogens and other toxic compounds”. And MPs have described vaping as a “key weapon” against the dangers of smoking.
In December 2018, Cancer Research published a blog post outlining that e-cigarettes and vapes do contain dangerous chemicals, though at lower levels than are found in tobacco. These e-cigarettes and vapes will typically cost around £190 every three months, versus the £400 that the average British smoker spends every three months. So, for anyone keen to reduce the health impacts of smoking, switching to a vape may be one solution.
Vaping has always been a controversial issue, though. If you remember one thing, it's that vaping is not entirely harmless, despite being considerably less harmful than smoking cigarettes. Inhaling nicotine is still addictive to many. Vaping may also damage immune system cells or increase the risk of DNA mutations which could lead to mouth cancers, due to a build up of acrolein, formadehyde and methylglyoxal in the mouth. Expect to see more studies on the impacts of vaping in future.
Here we put vapes from Juul, myBlu, Vype, Logic and more brands to the test.
If you're trying to give up smoking, the NHS offers a range of stop smoking services including one-to-one and group sessions as well as treatments. Your GP can refer you to an adviser and the free to call Smokefree National Helpline is 0300 123 1044.
Logic Vapes Compact
It may look like a felt-tip pen at first glance, but this is in fact a new style which only appeared at the tail-end of last year. You can buy Logic's Compact Pods, and by the power of magnets, they lock into the pen, and you’re ready to go.
With some vape varieties, they can take a while for the flavour to set in, but here it was incredibly quick, and at first it may seem like you’re sucking from a USB stick, but you soon get used to this new form factor.
At the moment these pods come in three colours; steel blue, slate grey and rose gold, while the flavours come in tobacco, berry mint, cherry and menthol. Because these are a unique design to Logic, you can only use these ‘pods’ with the pen, limiting your flavour variety. But, for now, you get a great experience with minimal fuss in using one, and for £17.50 from their site, its a minimal spend to try one out for a week.
Score: 9/10
Price: £17.50 | Nicotine strength: 12 or 18mg/ml | Battery: Easily a day usage
Vaporesso Swag Kit
With these vapes, you can select the colour and even the sticker of your choosing. It features a great OLED screen that you can customise to show the battery health, brightness and the wattage, so you can set it between five and 80 watts with ease.
The tank has a great way of swivelling the top cap, so it slides to the side, revealing the hole to fill up an e-liquid. It securely swivels shut so you don’t have the hassle of attaching it, and twisting it as hard as you can to make sure its secure.
Instead of the battery being built in, you can swap it whenever you need to, by just unscrewing a cap beside the tank. Buying it from some places will require you to purchase the battery separately, so make sure you’re buying it from an authorised seller. This can help for those times where a charging cable just can’t be used, and you can just pop in a fresh battery.
From loading it all up and firing the coil, it was incredibly easy to use, and even though the plus and minus buttons are slightly on the small side to adjust, it's great for an upgrade purchase if you’re looking around.
Score: 8/10
Price: £29 | Nicotine Strength: 0.3 to 1.6 per cent| Battery: Day and a half
Aspire Zelos
The Aspire Zelos is a good starting point for more experienced vapers keen to experiment with coils and tanks, the small glass vials that you fill with e-liquid. It's heftier so you can’t slip it in your pocket as easily as a Juul or V2, but it’s subsequently stronger. It has a smooth, strong feel to vape and is nicely designed, too, coming in black, red and grey aluminium and with an OLED screen showing wattage and battery life.
Battery life was around one and a half to two days, and, again, you can also vape whilst charging. Its use by serious vapers is reflected in the price – the Zelos is a more expensive option than the rest. If you’re a casual vaper, this probably isn’t worth it. But if you’re interested in experimenting with modifications, it’s worth it.
Score: 9/10
Price: £53 | Nicotine strength: dependent on e-liquid | Battery: 2,500mAh
Juul Starter Kit
The Juul Starter Kit comes with four flavours: Mango Nectar, Royal Creme, Golden Tobacco and Glacier Mint but be careful; non-tobacco flavours can be saccharine (or, in the case of the Glacier Mint, feel a little like you’re smoking a nasal decongestant spray). The pen is small and remarkably unfiddly, with no need to press a single pesky button to get your precious nicotine hit.
It’s tiny – around 3.5 inches in all – and probably the simplest of the lot. This sleekness can be a downside, though: it’s so light that it can sometimes lack the satisfying heft of a few of its competitors. The battery life is, obviously, dependent on how much you smoke – but for heavy use, it lasts at least 24 hours, and only takes around 45 minutes to an hour to fully charge.
Score: 9/10
Price: £30 | Pods: 1.7 per cent nicotine strength | Battery: 200mAh
myBlu Vape Pen Starter Kit
This is a good starting point for someone who wants to move off inhaling tobacco from a standard cigarette. The myBlu Vape Pen features pods instead of e-liquids, which click into the pen and you can vape away. Being able to change them is incredibly easy and if you have a couple in a bag, you can mix and match dependent on what you’d like to try out that day.
There have been reports of slight leakage when inhaling, and as a result blu has assured that the company is working on improving this, and advises blowing gently in the mouthpiece before using it to release any condensed air. It gets the job done and will give any new-starters to vaping a good idea as to how it all works, but for casual or experienced vapers, you will miss being able to use your e-liquids or changing the wattage to your desired output.
There’s 12 different Liquidpod flavours you can try out, each at £6 and you can choose three nicotine strengths; either 0 per cent, 0.8 per cent or 1.6 per cent. If you’re trying to ease off the cigarettes, we’d recommend going for the 0.8 per cent, then purchasing the 0 per cent. It’s a great way of continuing the habit while inhaling no nicotine.
Score: 7/10
Price: £20 | Nicotine strength: 0 to 1.6 per cent | Battery: Two days max
X-Priv Kit
This can be seen as the high-end of vape kits. The design reminds us of a Sony Walkman MP3, from the UI on the OLED screen to its curved screen and buttons in one of the corners. It's determined to make an impression.
It comes in a variety of nine colours, including rainbow. With 225 watts as the maximum this kit can do, it requires two batteries that you can buy separately. It does mean that you will still get a day’s use out of it, but recharging these will take a while, so we recommend buying another set of batteries for that just-in-case scenario.
On the safety side, it does have a 12-second cut-off point for when you vape, so it makes sure you're not having too much in one go. There was no leakage experienced and it felt fine, if a bit heavy to hold at times, but most of the time the information on that screen just wasn’t needed. We don't need a statement that we're vaping at 100 watts when the X-Priv Kit is standing beside the iPad at the local pub. But otherwise, at £51 in many outlets this will last you a good while with your favourite e-liquids.
Score: 7/10
Price: £51 | Nicotine strength: Dependant on strength of wattage here and coil | Battery: 2 x 18,650 rechargeable battery
Vype ePen 3
The Vype packs a punch. The first few times we used it we had somewhat of a spluttering 'first-ever-cigarette' experience. It feels good and satisfying to hold, being bigger than the Juul, but its plastic mouthpiece is slightly less pleasant. Like most vapes, the flavoured pods taste and smell sickly, permeating any given room with a not entirely pleasant syrupy aroma.
Battery life obviously depends on usage, but Vype says that they last for around 360 puffs or, for light users, around a day. Heavier vapers will have to charge their battery much more frequently, however. Despite a bigger battery, the pen isn’t notably heavier than other vapes – so despite its larger size, it wasn’t more of a chore to carry around.
Score: 8/10
Price: £20 | Nicotine strength: between 0 to 1.8 per cent | Battery: 620mAh
Vapour2 e-cig
Some of the pleasure of smoking is in holding the cigarette itself: the feeling of it in your hand. This is where vapes that actually replicate cigarettes come in, like this e-cig from Vapour2. It’s light, it feels and looks like a cigarette, and it comes in various strengths: 0, 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8 per cent.
It’s perfectly pleasant to smoke and simple to use and refill but a sort of halfway house between real cigarettes and stronger or more high-end vapes, the V2 is almost too much like the real thing to be truly satisfying either way. After all, a vape doesn’t necessarily have to exactly replicate the feel of a cigarette to be worthwhile.
Score: 6/10
Price: £20 | Nicotine strength: between 0 and 1.8 per cent | Battery: 250mAh
Resolve 2 e-cig
Unlike the Vype or Juul, the Resolve doesn’t use pods. Instead, you’ll have to grapple with e-liquids. Whether or not this is a plus or downside may depend on how likely you are to spill sticky juice in your bag or on every available surface of your home. Still slender, the Resolve has a pleasing crackle when you inhale – its 1,300mAh battery means that it’s a stronger option, which may work better for committed smokers or more serious vapers.
It has a metal body, which makes it slightly heavier, but is still small enough to fit into a pocket or bag. The battery lasted around a day, and, unlike other vapes, you can vape whilst on charge. E-liquids can also be cheaper than pods – four Juul pods, each with 1ml of liquid inside, costs more than many 60ml or 100ml bottles of e-liquid.
Score: 7/10
Price: £30 | Nicotine strength: dependent on e-liquid | Battery: 1,300mAh
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
