Aleader Sailor Mesh Sub-Ohm Tank Review

Another Mesh Sub-Ohm Tank comes to market. And, while being a very good performer, sits a tad too close to an older, better, sub-ohm tank…  the larger SMOK RESA Prince.  After reading this review, the Aleader Sailor MC Mesh Sub-Ohm Tank may find it difficult to find a home among your tank collection.

From a vaping viewpoint, performance, which includes the characteristics like its ability to faithfully deliver good flavor fidelity, ample clouds of vapor, long-lasting coil heads, staying cool on the outside while vaping in the upper ranges of the coil’s wattage range, and finally, a decent mouthfeel of its drip tip, the Aleader Sailor Mesh delivers some, but not all the characteristics as well as it should.

This year we’ve reviewed some of the very best sub-ohm tanks that have ever been created. Looking back as we approach November, my personal experience with the sub-ohm tanks below has given me a lot of perspective when it comes to what I expect from sub-ohm tanks following these remarkable tanks.

Beginning with the wonderful Freemax Fireluke Mesh Tank back in January (reviewed here), the Vaporesso Cascade in February (reviewed here), the first Horizon Falcon in March (reviewed here), the SMOK RESA Prince in April (reviewed here), the Voopoo UForce T1 in June (reviewed here),  the SMOK Prince Cobra (reviewed here),  and the Freemax Mesh Pro (reviewed here),  the Falcon Resin (reviewed here),  in July, AVCT Avictor in August (reviewed here), the SMOK TFV8 Baby V2 (reviewed here), the Augvape Skynet (reviewed here),  in September, as well as the VSTICKING VMESH (reviewed here),  and ADKVEN Manta Mesh(reviewed here) in October. Oh, almost forgot, another October review for the Horizon Falcon Resin ARTISAN Sub-Ohm (reviewed here)

Aleader scored well with its Squonk Mod, the Bhive, (a B+), and even better with its Aleader Funky 160 (an A), so it was to be expected that a Mesh Sub-Ohm from Aleader would, or should, become at least a competitive leader in the sub-ohm tank segment. Sadly, it’s not quite there with this one.

The Sailor Mesh is certainly a “good” sub-ohm tank, with a lot of good features. The selling price at Element Vape is competitive, and most importantly the value is there. So, if what I said is true, and it is, there has to be a reason I feel a bit disappointed with it.

Allow me to go over the characteristics of the Aleader Sailor Sub-Ohm one by one, and comment on where the issues are, and why they affected the score I gave to it. Before I do, I have to admit that building a brand-new sub-ohm tank in October that looks too similar to a tank we reviewed back in April (the RESA Prince of course) left me somewhat irritable. If you’re looking to build a brand, copying the competition is, well, lazy. Anyway…

Flavor Fidelity – The Mesh Coil delivers good flavor. Not the best flavor fidelity this year, but good nonetheless. The eJuice ‘ports’ are large, the organic cotton wick is plentiful, and the Kanthal Mesh itself is large enough to act as a mesh coil should; giving eJuice more than enough surface area to provide vaporization for fast vapor production and good, clean flavor. It’s 0.15-ohm resistance has a wattage range of 40-80W. I found 50W sufficient for an optimal vape.

Cloud Production – The Aleader Sailor Mesh provided enough vapor production to satisfy the majority of sub-ohm vapers. However, the Mesh Coils were designed to the “flavor” oriented, and because of improper heat dissipation with its drip tip and top cap, the tank lacks the ability to maximize cloud production without getting scalded.

Coil Life – Like many Mesh Coils I found the coil life to be more than decent. Using the Sailor MC Tank for 12 days it has only now begun to reveal its end-of-life cycle; muted flavor, warmer vapor at low wattage, etc.

Cool under Pressure – The Sailor sub-ohm has a standard 810 resin coated drip tip. Having said that, at 60W it and the top cap get too hot too quickly. More than a 4 second pull on the tank creates way too much heat, basically scalding my lip with the first 60W draw.

The Mouthfeel of the Drip Tip – The 810 Wide Bore drip tip feels about the same as any other resin coated drip tip, except for the issue of heat dissipation.

As you see from above, the Aleader Sailor Mesh Sub-Ohm Tank doesn’t improve on any front of the sub-ohm tank evolution. That’s not a bad thing for Aleader, and I don’t have the right to day that Aleader should push that evolution. I guess what it comes down to is this; if you’re going to build a new sub-ohm that looks too much like the SMOK RESA Prince, it should perform just as well… and it’s close, but it’s not there.

The Aleader Sailor Mesh Sub-Ohm Tank is entirely covered with a resin pattern. It has a juice capacity of 4.5mL. It has dual-adjustable airflow slots (12mm by 3mm each) at the base of the tank, and the “trending” threaded top-fill system.

The Sailor Mesh Tank makes good use of the always-unique resin-dyed pattern, especially with the rainbow pattern which has the same deep colors as the rainbow RESA Prince. (All rainbow finishes on mods and tanks should use these same deep resin pattern)

The Sailor MC uses a thinner than expected ‘bubble glass’ and provides a spare bubble glass in the box.  Also included are some spare O-rings and an additional coil head.

The Aleader Sailor Mesh Replacement Coils

The Replacement Coils are optimized for flavor but produces enough clouds for most sub-ohm enthusiasts. The Coil is rated at 40 to 80W with a resistance of 0.15ohm. Replacement Coils come in packs of 5 coils.

Aleader Sailor Mesh Replacement Coils Features:

• Sailor Mesh Coil System
• 0.15ohm AM1 Mesh Coil – Rated for 40-80W
• Organic Cotton
• Stainless Steel Construction

I’m probably being overly critical in the wording of this review. My score is a hard B+, which by today’s standards isn’t bad at all. Its price tag adds value to picking one up, although I would be remiss to not mention that while the Sailor Mesh is currently $5 more than the RESA Prince, and that the RESA also has a capacity of 7.5mL versus 4.5mL, uses a thicker glass section as well, and includes three (3) SMOK Prince Non-Mesh Coil Heads. (though SMOK offers both a Mesh Coil and Mesh Strip Coil that are sublime). However, while I believe the RESA Prince is a better tank (with the Mesh or Strip Coils), it’s not my personal favorite tank. My favorite Mesh Tank isn’t the prettiest in the bunch either, but when it comes to flavor and cloud production, for my taste you can’t do better than the Freemax Mesh Pro. 

I’ll leave you with this bit of advice; before investing in another sub-ohm tank I urge you to look through our in-depth reviews of the sub-ohm tanks we’ve written about in 2018, as well as our list of Best Cloud Chasers, and then pop over to Element Vape’s Mesh Coil Tank category before making a decision. The Aleader Sailor Mesh may be a very good Mesh tank, but there are better.