The Best Vape Pen for Every Appetite

Why settle for a vape pen that can only handle oils, waxes, loose-leaf marijuana or e-liquids when one pen can do it all? Multimode pens are getting easy to find, and they're quickly dropping down to double-digit prices. Problem is, a lot of these cannabis and tobacco-vaporizing devices perform like you bought them at a 99-cent store.

It's Friday afternoon, you've made it through the long week, and it's time for Happy Hour, Gizmodo's weekly booze, etc. column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, alcohol, and other goodies.

Too many are manufactured by fly-by-night firms and utilize components chosen for discount pricing rather than performance. So how do you find a portable vape that's durable and powerful enough for everyday use, adaptable enough to meet your ever-changing toking requirements and affordable enough to not break your budget? You keep reading, that's how.

When it comes down to it, vaporizers are basically just portable miniature ovens: a battery pack provides power to the heating element which gently cooks the botanical material in its heating chamber until the active ingredients vaporize and travel up an airway into your mouth. Easy?

I've found each of these four components play a vital role in my vaping experience:

• The battery has to be strong enough to last at least a half-day of moderate use (for me that's about 100 puffs between 7am and noon, your requirements will vary) or else you'll spend an inordinate amount of time looking for places to plug in recharge.


• The heating element has to get hot, quickly, and stay nice and hot to efficiently vaporize those botanicals. That determines the taste, quality, and quantity of the resulting vapor. It has an impact on battery life too.


• The heating chamber itself needs to be durable enough to spend a day in my pocket without breaking (you'd be surprised how few do) but also easily loaded. That is, you shouldn't need a magnifying glass and tweezers to pack a single hit's worth of loose-leaf into the can.


• The airway should be entirely made of glass or steel to keep the taste pure. All-glass pathways are generally considered superior as less expensive alternatives like aluminum or PVC can impart a metallic or plastic aftertaste.

You'd be surprised how few miniature ovens are actually up to spec.

The Best Overall: Pinnacle Pro DLX

While the $200 Pinnacle Pro DLX is significantly pricier than the rest of the competition, lacks the ability to vaporize e-liquids, and offers a relatively short battery life too—just under an hour of near-continuous smoking—it makes up for these shortcomings in spades.

For one, you can just as easily use the device while it's plugged in and charging. What's more, it heats from stone cold to 475 degrees Farenheit in just over a minute. That's quite speedy. It's made from high density plastic that can withstand being dropped onto concrete from waist-high, utilizes a convection heating element that toasts your botanicals cleanly and evenly without singeing, and delivers the vapor through an aluminum air path that doesn't impart any added taste to the vapor.

The coolest feature, though, is the optional water pipe attachment that sits over the mouthpiece. Like a portable version of the bulky Cloud EVO, it produces super-clean, water-cooled vapor.

The Best for e-Liquids: V2 Pro Series 3

As we've discussed previously, the $60 V2 Pro is one sleek little vaporizer and even after testing plenty of others designed to do essentially the same thing, this unit stands out from the pack for its e-liquid abilities in terms of cartridge capacity, unit durability, vapor quality, and general ease of use. Its 650 mAh battery is decent enough as an e-liquid vape (maybe half a day with moderate use) but does drain more quickly when heating loose-leaf.

It may not be the best 3-in-1 solution, though: the loose-leaf canister has just been released for $24, significantly more than an $8 e-liquid canister replacement, and there's still no firm release date for the the wax can.

The Most Informative: Ago G5

There's a lot to love about the Ago G5. If it weren't for the e-liquid canister's penchant for disassembling itself in my pocket, I'd recommend it even more highly. The G5 incorporates an incredibly helpful LCD display that not only monitors the battery charge but also counts how many puffs you take between charges. This thing is great—I know exactly how much charge I have left, which means I rarely get stranded with a dead battery. The 650 mAh battery is on par with the one in the V2 Pro, lasting about half a day between charges and moderate use.

Unfortunately, it also uses low-quality coiled-wire heating elements for both the wax and loose-leaf cans. Those often led to uneven heating, scorched buds, and required I continually clean the cans. Luckily you can pick up a G5 starter kit for the ludicrously low price of $40.

Dube2

The $60 Dube2 was far and away the smallest and most easily concealed unit I tested, measuring a mere half-inch in diameter. It's the Benson and Hedges of portable vapes. But it holds less than 2 ml of e-liquid or hash, and literally a single hit's worth of loose-leaf. You'll likely wind up spending more time trying to load the damn thing than you'll ever spend vaping from it.

Zeus Thunder

I was so enamored with the Thunder when I first reviewed it. Not so much now that I've broken all three wax canisters—some after the first use—and cracked an e-liquid tank after dropping it 10 inches onto carpet. At $7 a pop, that gets pricey fast. The durability isn't what I'd hoped.

Atmos Dart

The Atmos Dart is sturdily built, rugged, and only rarely leaked nico-juice while in my pocket. But the battery life is unforgivable. The longest session it could muster was 24 minutes of absent minded puffing (3-4 draws/minute). It also took two full hours to recharge. Dealbreaker.

DaVinci Ascent

The DaVinci Ascent is a very functional dual-material vaporizer that accommodates both loose-leaf and waxes. It's got long battery life (and long charge times) and an all-glass pathway. But even Mr. Magoo can tell this isn't a vape pen.

Pinnacle Pro

The predecessor of the DLX, the Pro sports many of the same specs including size, weight, and battery life. It does not, however, have a six-stage heating element, only a two. You can likely pick one up at a discount, but if you can afford it, go for the newer DLX model.

Zema Pro

The Zema Pro is a serviceable 3-in-1 from Got Vape. It's relatively inexpensive, utilizes a slick Pyrex mouthpiece atop an aluminum air path, and is easy to use but just doesn't get me excited enough to warrant dropping $90 on it.

Kind Pen (aka KandyPen SkyCloud, Vibe Stix, Sutra, E-Paradise, Konyo Triad, iPuff Vape, Ovale Elips-C, and e-Hitter)

Remember how Sub Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat were basically the same character, just with different finishing moves and swapped color palettes? Those two had less in common than these short-lived, leaky clones.

The White Rhino Trifecta (aka Budy Pen Combo, Daborizer, Randy's 3-in-1, EZ Vape X 3-in-1, EZO 3-in-1)

Just like the Ago G5, except without the useful LCD screen. It does use standard 510 threading, mind you, so you can easily swap in larger batteries and more robust, aftermarket canisters if you so choose.

This post originally ran on November 21, 2014

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