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Innokin Axiom Hybrid Sub-Ohm Tank – Review
The Innokin Axiom is probably the most over-hyped product I’ve seen in a while! Almost all the reviews I’ve read claim this to be the best tank out and everything is perfect! I was really excited to get this tank based on the popularity and recognition from columns, blogs and YouTube reviews so once I dug deeper into it the truth was revealed. This was the one tank I thought wasn’t going to let me down! Oh boy, here we go…
Innokin is stating that the Axiom is their first hybrid Sub-Ohm Tank and RTA combined into one. It’s a Sub-Ohm Tank when you purchase the Innokin Axiom and becomes a hybrid into an RTA when you shell out the extra money for the RBA deck! This shouldn’t be advertised as a hybrid when you have to purchase separate pieces to complete the puzzle. The glass is the smallest I’ve ever seen at 8mm! Visually, I absolutely adore this atomizer! The all metal look with minimal glass was a genius idea and I’m surprised it hasn’t been copied yet. I got the Stainless Steel (or Silver is what they call it) and it’s also available in Black.
Innokin Axiom At a Glance
The Innokin Axiom is a very compact 22mm Sub-Ohm Tank crafted from Stainless Steel which pretty much covers the whole device. The chuff-style drip tip is not removable since it’s attached to the very thin top cap. Because there’s nothing to grip when trying to unscrew the top cap, you’d think it’d be hard. It’s actually not too difficult removing it and the threads are machined with quality making the top cap slide on and off with ease. It has a top-fill system with a 3.5mm capacity. CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
The base section has three 10mm x 1.5mm adjustable airflow slots that when attached to a device is very difficult, borderline impossible to adjust. Especially when your mod has an inset 510 connection! There’s no knurling at all and is very slick so trying to get a grip around the ring is very difficult and time consuming. Most of the time, I just have to remove the tank from my mod just to adjust the airflow. I guess Innokin decided to go with form over function here because it does look really elegant and smooth. Some simple cutouts or indentions would be the difference maker. The airflow ring does pop off pretty easily and is held by an O-ring firmly in place for easy disassembly and cleaning.
When I took the Innokin Axiom tank apart for the first time to clean it, the base unscrewed no problem but the top of the coil was so tightly clamped down on the top section, I had to use my pliers to break it free! That should’ve been red flag number one from the beginning but for the purpose of this review, I continued on down the road to failure.
Even though there are three large fill slots in the Innokin Axiom, as your pouring your juice in it’s hard to see where the level is. I’ve overfilled it several times thinking it needed more but was in fact full. I don’t know if it’s some optical illusion with the shiny Stainless Steel but I under-fill it just to avoid a mess. Sounds strange but you’ll see what I mean once you try to fill it a few times.
The White Delrin drip tip that’s permanently attached to the top cap is way too short! Luckily, Innokin made it 510-compatible! You can just shove a 510 drip tip right in the top without the need of an adapter. Even though it extends the height of the tank, finding a matching drip tip really gives the entire tank a unique look and not in a bad way! I’m using my Freemax Starre RDTA Mini drip tip that’s the same Stainless Steel shade and insulated with White Delrin so it matches perfectly!
The horizontal coil design Innokin attempted with the 0.5Ω coil I thought would perform decent; at least above average. In a nutshell, the wicking can’t keep up at all. At 30W, chain vaping immediately brought on dry burned cotton hits and just ruined my whole flavor experience! The only somewhat positive I got from this coil is preserving battery life. Because of such a low wattage and mid-range resistance, I felt my battery lasted longer than normal.
Real World Usage
I’m going to give it to you straight here and be very blunt; the 0.5Ω coil is garbage! How on Earth could people actually think this thing performs well? Supposedly it can handle 40W but even at 30W I got a foul burnt taste and only got a pull maybe two before I get a strong dose of cotton! Frustrated, I ripped the coil apart with my pliers. The two wicking holes only had a single thin sheet of the outer portion of a Japanese Organic Cotton pad – you know, the outsides you normally peel off and throw away to get to the actual good fluffy cotton – surrounding the inside wall of the coil housing! And two very small rolled up pieces inside of each 2.3mm ID coils just kind of lying next to the wicking holes behind the microscopic layer of throw away cotton! It all made sense after seeing the coil completely dissected! I was actually going to order a couple more just to see if I got a bad apple at first but thankfully my frustration got me to break it into pieces!
TheInnokin Axiom RBA deck has potential with a two-post design and 2.2mm post holes. Two 3.5mm air holes come from the bottom airflow and up under your coils. Innokin does include a silicone airflow stopper for a single coil build. I thought it was a cool feature on such a small deck! I attempted to put a simple build in but the space is so cramped there’s not much room for your cotton. The grub screws have a stopping point when tightening down and on a dual 24g coil build, one of the screws refused to tighten up properly. Once I thought it was all the way down, one of my leads was still moving in and out of the post hole making static contact with no more threads left to tighten down anymore. So I just went with a single Twisted coil, wicked it and after taking a couple pulls, I realized how much time of my life I’ve wasted on the Innokin Axiom RBA deck that I just cleaned it and put it away. The performance was just as bad as the 0.5Ω coil! CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
Some reviews I’ve read say that the RBA’s quality is top-notch and performance is second to none. I’ll remain professional and not include the few names I consistently see praising crappy products. Did they get a platinum special edition version because the deck feels extremely cheap and it looked just thrown together with not much thought or emphasis on build quality. One of the posts spins loose almost immediately with even the slightest amount of torque on the hex screws. But using common sense, there’s a pin on the bottom that just needs to be retightened and it cinches back down. But overall, not impressed at all with this RBA section and ultimately disappointed. I wouldn’t classify this as a hybrid 2-in-1 tank; it’s a Sub-Ohm Tank on its best day!
Personally, I love the way Innokin incorporated such a small glass section and made the entire top of the Innokin Axiom tank using just a plain looking Stainless Steel exterior. Visually, there’s not a complaint or negative I could come up with. But as we all know, looks aren’t everything in the vaping world! I’d rather have a horrifyingly ugly piece of steel with a drip tip on top that functions correctly rather than a Lamborghini with no engine! It’s such a shame the performance didn’t equal the visual prowess. This could’ve been a standard setter in the vaping market but instead is a shelf sitter.
Available At Element Vape
Overall Grade – D
“Innokin has a great looking tank here but the performance department definitely dropped the ball! Aesthetically I give them a high-five! Performance gets the double thumbs down! Overall, a below average tank. Hopefully they release some better performing coils, a more refined RBA section and the longevity and usability could change overnight!”
Team Spinfuel
