I wish I could sit in on a  vape pen design meeting. Because it would probably be over in 10-15 seconds. No matter how many marketing claims, bells and whistles a company wants to add, there’s not much to say about the simplest of vape product designs. Vape pens are judged solely by performance, and luckily the all-new iJOY Wand Pen-Style Mod Kit performs pretty damn well.

At first glance, there’s no surprise and nothing particularly remarkable about the iJoy Wand. It’s a standard, direct-wattage tube, with a five-sided fire button, integrated 2,600mAh battery, USB charge/upgrade port, a 24.5mm diameter, and little else.

I WILL say that iJOY certainly tried to mix things up, thanks to no fewer than 11 color combinations, all of which match the included Diamond sub-ohm tank. Most of these bright, almost neon hues aren’t really my cup of tea, but the paint jobs are high-quality, and certainly look like they’d handle a lot of wear and tear.

One thing that isn’t so simple (and thankfully so) is the IWEPAL chipset, which is just loaded with protection features like short circuit prevention, so newcomers won’t suffer for using the wrong type of coils and atomizers. While the Wand is a simplicity-oriented pen-style mod kit, it’s also a high-powered one, and these protections are welcome.

I do wish there were more indicators than just a pinhole-sized LED near the Wand’s fire button. While that seems to be par for the course with these “less is more” design schemes, there’s only so many flashes and color changes a person can reasonably remember. Would a small OLED screen been that difficult to fit inside here?

That said, the flashes WERE accurate, and did throw several warnings when my coil resistance fell below the Wand’s lower limit of 0.05 ohms, or too close to the device’s 100-watt output cap. It’s not high-tech, but it is clean and easily legible, once I learned the flashing patterns.

On a device so streamlined and feature-free, it was surprising to see a full-fledged sub-ohm tank – the iJOY Diamond, to be specific – rather than a simpler tank or RDA designed for direct-wattage use. But at the same time, it was a pleasant surprise, since the Diamond has proven to be one of the better, more reliable tanks on the market. Check out our reviews on the iJoy Saber (reviewed here), iJoy Diamond Mini (reviewed here) which use the same sub-ohm.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Diamond, it’s on the larger end of the modern sub-ohm spectrum, with up to 5.5mL juice capacity when using the included bubble glass section. But even the stock 4mL configuration is more than enough to get a casual vaper through the evening.

Well, mayyyyybe that’s true. The proprietary DM series mesh coils are a thirsty bunch – even thirstier than the non-mesh editions we’ve reviewed in the past. But the positive tradeoff for this is fantastic flavor and vapor production. While iJOY is touting something called “uniform heating” all we know is that the Diamond mesh coils deliver stunningly bright, vibrant flavor, even from complex liquids.

You’ll be able to do a side-by-side comparison of your own, since the iJoy Wand vape pen starter kit also includes a standard 0.15-ohm coil. This one’s certainly no slouch, with strong flavor of its own. But these mesh coils are among the few that have warranted the hype, raising the Diamond tank a few notches in the sub-ohm tank sweepstakes.

After all these years, and all these testing scenarios, it’s funny that I still struggle with vape devices that have no adjustments or displays. Ever since I bought my first Vamo stick vape (an 11-watt behemoth that made me look like Kenny G whenever I vaped it) I’ve enjoyed seeing a little bit of what’s going on inside the device. Unfortunately, outside of that LED, there really isn’t much to discuss.

Instead, the iJOY Wand Pen-Style Mod Kit simply asks you to prime the coil, attach the tank and vape. And to be fair, it does the job well. Though I couldn’t really tell how much power the Wand was outputting at any one time, it ramped quickly and forcefully when fully charged. And after an hour or so of steady vaping, the performance continued at a good pace.

Because the integrated battery is “just” 2,600mAh, the Wand Kit isn’t designed for all-day chain vaping, but it works powerfully when charged, which is likely all its target audience wants. But if you’re planning a long day away from a USB power source, you might want to pack a different device as backup, since the Wand isn’t a thoroughbred in this regard.

On my best session, I managed a little over three hours of moderate vaping on the Wand before the power output was too low to create an enjoyable experience. This was also a concern, since my performance waned (using the provided companion tank) LONG before the “low battery” warning flashed on the LED.

Perhaps the battery wasn’t so low as to become dangerous, but there wasn’t even a little bit of vapor coming from the device at these moments. Just limp, flavorless draws that made me trust the Wand Kit just a little less than I expected.

Despite the battery concerns, the iJOY Wand Pen-Style Mod Kit is a great, no-nonsense vape device for people who just want to enjoy potent draws and thick, flavorful clouds without the endless adjustments of more-complex mods. It’s not my preferred way to vape, but if you have better things to do than tinker with wattage curves and preheat settings, the iJOY Wand Kit might be right up your alley.

Score: B+