The 777 eCigs Review – A Different Kind of eCigarette Vendor

Disclaimer

As eCigarettes become ever more popular new brands pop up almost everyday. That’s too be expected I guess, but so many of them are cookie-cutter types where the only effort that goes into the product is designing the packaging and the logo, and of course visiting other eCig sites in order to “lift” many of the “best practices” verbiage that are used over and over.

So, when word came down that we (Spinfuel) was committing to review a new brand called “777 eCigs” I sighed, returned to my desk hoping I would be looked over when it came to actually participating in the review process. “Please please please… not me, not me, not me.” Naturally, John and Julia looked right at me and said “Lisa, we want you as lead writer on this one. Get your team together”. Great. Just Great.

Now that I’ve put forth my own disclaimer for this review, we can proceed. Please read on, you might be surprised.

Getting Up Close

The first thing you need to do when you set out to review an eCig brand is to read everything they have written about themselves and their product. Are they telling the truth? Are they making statements that can be interpreted any number of ways? Most importantly, are they trying to hustle their customers? Are their claims ‘too good to be true’?

Any decent reviewer will always head over to the company website where they learn much about the company behind the product. I spent a great deal of time reading every word on the 777 eCig site, long before any of my team touched the actual product.

Anytime you see “The #1 best-selling eCig in the country”, or “Always voted #1”, and things of this nature, you know it’s going to be a tough road. No brand is #1, none of them. NOT ONE.  If you see that on an vendor website run away, you’re about to be ripped off.

So how did 777 eCigs do when presenting themselves and their product on their website? Very well!

The 777 eCigs Website

The first time I brought up the 777ecigs.com site in my browser I was taken aback by the lack of boisterous claims. Not only was I very impressed by this attitude, it made me feel a whole lot better about becoming the lead writer on this review.

On the site you are presented with snippets about why eCigarettes are the right choice for smokers. Reasons why smokers should switch to eCigarettes, and a menu bar to the various products they offer, along with product highlights and such. Even more impressive, 777 eCigs shows their customers an ingredient list for all 16 flavors of eLiquid they offer, which is the equivalent of opening your hands to display that you aren’t hiding anything. 777 eCigs isn’t hiding anything, in fact they are showing you everything they can and it’s more than the vast majority of other brands will do.

Lastly, the 777 eCigs website is chalk full of information about the proper use of eCigarettes, filling cartomizers, and caring for batteries. Instead of wasting space boasting about some non-existent superiority, as so many brands do, 777 eCigs has opted instead to give you, the customer, as much information as they can to make sure you understand eCigarettes and how to use them. This is to be applauded.

Starter Kits – Prices and Selection

The next thing you look at as a reviewer of electronic cigarettes while conducting a review is to see how the company has priced their product line. As you know, the price point for Starter Kits are all over the place, from the very inexpensive to the very ridiculously over priced. There is no one set price that can tell you if what you are buying is a good quality product, but it can tell you whether or not the brand is interested in becoming a real player in the industry or whether or not they’re out to scam their customers. Think Regal Cigs, American Smoke, and others.

777 eCigs is clearly pricing their products reasonably. You won’t overpay if you decide to make them your brand. Their Deluxe Starter Kit is only $69.99 and it contains a wide array of products that any cig-a-like vaper will need to begin vaping in style.

Here’s what you get for your $69.99 (Deluxe Starter Kit)

  •  2- 777 eCigs Batteries
  •  15 Signature Flavor Cartridges
  •  1 Home Smart Charger
  •  1 Car charger for on the go
  •  Metal Carry Case
  •  USB Power Cig
  •  1 Owner’s manual

You can select up to 3 cartridge flavors and nicotine strengths in your 777 eCigs Deluxe Kit.

Range of Starter Kits

777 eCigs utilizes the KR808D-1 (That’s the ‘threading’ at the end of the battery)  in their starter kits. The KR808D-1 battery is a modern, state-of-the-art battery being adopted by several of the ‘better’ brands out there. They are a bit more powerful than the standard 510 battery, usually outputting at 4.2v instead of 3.7v, they last a little longer, and are sealed to prevent eJuice from seeping into them through the threads. This choice alone earns 777 eCigs a bonus point from me.

777 eCigs offers several Starter Kits, from the Mini Kit ($15.96), the Essentials ($37.46), Standard ($59.95), Deluxe ($69.95), the Ultimate ($119.95), as well as a Couples Kit for $109.95, and a series of Ladies Signature Starter Kits that range from $49.95 to $109.95. The “Couples” kit is a kit that contains double the amount of the products that are in the Deluxe kit, and you save about $10 when you buying a ‘couples’ kit over buying 2 Deluxe kits. This is quite the deal for a couple if both are interested in switching to the much safer electronic cigarettes.

The Ladies starter kit offer the same number of products of the Deluxe kit, but it offers a slimmer, lighter battery and cartomizer in fewer, but more feminine colors; pink, blue, and salmon. However, for some reason I cannot phantom, the Ladies Deluxe Starter Kit is $10 more ($79.99).

Does 777 eCigs need so many Starter Kits? Probably not, but they are new and are still testing out what the customer will respond to. With the current pricing plans however, no matter which kit you choose you’re going to get your money’s worth.

Lastly, in addition to the Starter Kits they offer a line of Disposables as well. Flavors for the disposables are “classic”, “coffee” and “menthol”. I’m not a huge fan of disposables these days but at $7.95 they come in much less expensive than other comparable disposables. Using the same eJuice flavors that they use in their prefilled cartomizers and eJuice bottles you will get the same flavor and vapor production in the disposables. 777 eCigs also offers full-flavored and medium nicotine in the disposable line, a nice touch. (18mg nicotine and 12mg nicotine)

Cartomizers, prefilled, blank, and eLiquid

777 eCigs is different from the “pack” in many ways, not the least of which is their decision to offer prefilled and blank cartomizers, as well as 15ML bottles of their eJuice.

I believe, as does the rest of the team, that the eCigarette model of offering only a starter kit and prefilled cartomizers is going to disappear at some point. The more choices you offer your customer the better, and making it look as though you are stuck using a proprietary cartomizer prefilled with cheap Chinese eJuice is becoming less attractive to newbie vapers who are looking to learn more about electronic cigarettes before buying. (By the way, no matter which brand of eCig you choose you are never stuck having to vape their cartomizers or their eJuice.)

Buying 777 eCigs prefilled cartomizers will cost you less than most other brands. The standard 5-pk in any flavor and nicotine strength is only $8.95, an excellent price. Prefilled carto prices become even less when buying in larger quantities; a 16-flavor “sampler” pack is just $11.97 (!), a 20-pk is $32.95, 40-pk is $54.99 and an 80-pk for $99. That’s an amazing set of prices for prefilled, quality cartomizers.

Blank Cartomizers

Since 777 eCigs has adopted the KR808D-1 battery and cartomizer you are free to buy KR808 blanks anywhere, not just from 777 eCigs. But,  $7.95 for a 5-pk of cartos is a damn good price, besting Boge cartos by more than $2 (on average). Even if you didn’t use 777 eCigs as your brand it’s worth shopping their site for your blank cartos alone. Seriously.

I was very happy to see this kind of pricing for prefilled and blank cartomizers because this is the area that many eCigarette brands will try to make most of their profit. Some popular brands sell their prefilled cartos for as much a $19.99 for a 5-pk, and they average about $14.99. 777 eCigs is nearly half that amount, and sometimes less than half. 777 eCigs gets points from us for this one as well.

777 eCigs eLiquids

Right up front 777 eCigs informs you that their eJuice is not manufactured by 777 eCigs. That’s a terrifically honest admission and one you just don’t find with other cig-a-like brands that are always touting their eLiquids are they own “specially formulated by our own eJuice Artisans”. Instead, the owners of the company admit to spending more than 6 months sampling eJuice from just about every source out there, and finally chose to supply their customers with eJuice made from the top eJuice makers, in China, under direct supervision of real 777 eCigs employees.

I don’t know which companies they use, but the quality and consistency of their eJuice tells me that they really did spend a lot of time choosing the right eJuice manufacturer and flavors. I don’t want to let too much out of the bag right now, but whoever is manufacturing their eJuice for their bottles and prefilled cartos have created some incredible flavors, which we will go through one by one in part two.

The cost of vaping comes down considerably for the vaper when they choose to fill, or refill, their own cartomizers with bottled eJuice. It’s a simple process, and you don’t waste usable cartomizers that have been vaped just once. Cartomizers can be refilled 4 or 5 times, easy, so why not take advantage of that?

eLiquid Flavors

777 eCigs launched with 16 flavors, available both in prefilled cartos and as eJuice in 15ML glass bottles. The flavors are:

Classic (Tobacco Flavor)

777 Blend (Subtle taste of vanilla Caramel)

Gold 7 (Bold & exquisite tobacco taste)

Traditional (Flue cured tobacco taste)

Menthol

Coffee

Caramel

Peppermint

Vanilla

Chocolate

Apple

Watermelon

Strawberry

Very Berry

Italian Crème

Pina Colada

This list of 16 flavors is an astounding assortment to offer from a branded mini-eCig company.  But going even further, 777 eCigs sells their 15ML bottles for just $7.95, just under 50 cents per ML, which is just an excellent price in anybody’s book. In addition, you can choose a range of nicotine strengths (both prefilled and eLiquid) from Zero (0mg), Light (6mg), Medium (12mg) and Full (18mg) strengths.

Accessories

Batteries – And now here is where we have some issues with 777 eCigs, not their selection of batteries, which is quite nice, but rather the pricing. Their KR808D-1 batteries go for $19.95. This is about $5 more than they should be, in our opinion, but less than some others charge. Some charge as much as $25 to $35 for a single battery, while others offer quality batteries for $14.99. We feel the right price point for a KR808 premium battery is $14.95, make of that what you will. Even at $5 more than we like, we urge you to check the prices of competing brands before you decide. It’s not the Starter Kit that you need to worry about, it’s going forward with batteries, cartos, UCB chargers, etc. In the long run you’re going to save considerably with 777 eCigs.

The Premium Batteries ($19.95) are offered in both manual and automatic, and in a multitude of colors and patterns. What we really like about their batteries is that they put out a powerful 4.2volts. They are not regulated batteries (no mini-eCig batteries are), so they will range from 3.7v to 4.2v depending on the charge of the battery.

Details of their batteries

  • Automatic, internal pressure switch (Automatic Battery)
  • Manual Battery (Button activated)
  • 10 second battery cutoff safety feature
  • Charging time 2 hours -3 hours
  • Sleek, comfortable design with flat or solitaire crystal tip LED
  • Diameter 9.25mm / 0.37”
  • Battery lengths vary depending on crystal tip and option of manual or auto (35mm cartridge not included in measurement)
  • Short Battery 73-78.5mm (180mAh) charging time 2 hours
  • Standard Battery 82mm-87mm (230mAh, 280mAh) charging time 3 hours
  • Long Battery 102mm-104.5mm (380mAh) charging time up to 4 hours
  • Multiple colors to choose from
  • 90-day warranty included

For the non-returning customer 777 eCigs offers a 6-month warranty on batteries and lifetime (or returning customers) receive a lifetime warranty. Not sure how that will play out in the future, what requirements there are for a returning customer (2 visits? 10? 100?). In any case, a 6-month warranty on batteries is decent, not great. We’d like to see a 1-year warranty though.

Crystal And Rhinestone Batteries

777 eCigs does offer a $59 dollar battery, and I can see them appealing to certain types of eCig users, celebrities and others that like to show off their bling. Offering Swarovski Crystal, and Rhinestone encrusted batteries is pretty clever, but not appealing to any of us here. (John’s wife did like them though!) The warranties on these batteries are the same as the warranty on the Premium batteries.

A Word About Batteries

It has been my experience that no matter where you get your batteries, or what model or brand, and no matter what the company tells you, you can shorten the life of your battery substantially if you leave them plugged into any charger overnight, or longer. Some companies will tell you that their USB charger has the ability to shut off the charge going into the battery once it’s obtained a full charge, but my history with any and all batteries begs to differ. It’s a good idea to make sure you don’t have any batteries charging when you go to bed. Just my 2 cents here.

Other

Other accessories include carrying cases in both standard colors ($9.95) and the crystal and rhinestone encrusted types ($59.95 and $39.95). Every one of us at Spinfuel use a carry case or two, and the $9.95 for the standard case is a good price. Lastly, they offer a nice, coiled USB Pass-thru device, as well as a “retractable” Pass-Thru ($19.95) that allows you to plug it into any USB port and vape as long as you want without running out of power. Pass-thru devices are becoming more and more popular and with good reason. We are spending so much time in front of our computers; why not take advantage of the USB port to run your vaping pleasures?

 The Bottom Line

We’ve decided to make this review as a 2-parter because there is a lot of information to cover and we want to make sure we cover it. As you can see we’ve not said a word about the taste of the eJuice, the performance of the batteries, or vapor production. The reason we did this is because 777 eCigs is such a new company that seems to be doing the right things, and we want to go over each flavor in both prefilled carto and by filling their blank cartos with their own eJuice. Offering good prices, good quality, good selection of products, and an amazing 16 flavors, 777 eCigs is certainly off to a good start. Not to mention choosing the KR8008D-1 battery which just pleases me no end.

There are literally hundreds of eCig brands on the market, and so many of them are pure junk, not worth your time or money. When we find a company that IS worth your time and your money, we want to make sure you understand where we stand. We’re not about to say that 777 eCigs is the best eCig on the market, and that’s we’ve all dropped our hardware and eJuice and jumped on the 777 eCigs bandwagon. (Although we aren’t saying we didn’t embrace them as our new brand either) We’re not going to urge you to click a link and go buy some starter kits so we can make a few bucks (we do not have affiliate deals with any eCig or eJuice company). What we can tell you is that it looks to us that 777 eCigs is a company that believes in transparency, honesty, fair prices, and a great vaping experience. Not many brands out there today fit that description.

Next?

What is the performance like? How do their 16 flavors stack up? Is their “Italian Crème” as good as John says it is? (Yes!) Is there good vapor production and lots of flavor in their eJuice? Do their cartomizers stand up to 4 or 5 refills? Do their batteries last? These are questions we will answer next time, in part two. I’ve gathered my team, passed out plenty of product, and sent them off to explore and use all the flavors, all the batteries (even the rhinestone and crystal batteries!) and we’ll meet back here in a week to discuss our findings. Until then we’ve agreed not to say a word to each other about 777 eCigs.

Look for our comprehensive “hands on” review on September 7th (2012). Until then, review this Part One a couple of times, visit their website, and look forward to our full accounting of this new and exciting brand. Will you become a 777 eCigs customer? Yea, I think you just might.

Lisa Johnston