Table of Contents
Vaping With Julia (and Keira)
Kanger AeroTank Mega Review
Well, now we got a dogfight! My buddy Jon at MyVaporStore sent me a new Kanger AeroTank Mega the other day. A $39.95 redesigned ‘take’ on their Oh-So-Yesterday AeroTank “The Normal”. The AeroTank Mega holds 1.3ML more eLiquid than its predecessor, includes a new and improved airflow controller, and is, naturally larger in size. It is the Kanger answer to the Aspire Nautilus.
Currently, you can pick up the AeroTank MEGA for $36.85 (MyVaporStore) and at Vapor Authority for $35.99 for the Mega and $25.99 for the Aerotank Mini So, for the extra 1.3ml capacity, the improved airflow control, and the newly designed coil heads (limited backward capabilities), you’re going to pay an extra $16.10 for the privilege of buying the AeroTank Mega.
Is it worth it?
That’s not an easy question to answer. It depends on how far down the rabbit hole goes with respect to your Vape Hobby. Still, we’ll attempt to answer this question according to our (that would be Keira and I) experience with both the old and the new over the past few days.
The Old: A few weeks ago the entire (local) staff pooled our resources and purchased several AeroTanks for just under $20 a piece. We also purchased 100 coil replacements. The last time we did that was when we pooled our money to buy 100 X.Jet Spiders and a couple of hundred coil heads, so we unequivocally like the AeroTank just the way it was. We also knew that Kanger had to upgrade the AeroTank with the advent of the Aspire Nautilus’s success on the market. But this was a good deal, a great tank, and we got them at a good price.
What we liked about the AeroTank of yore was the clean, true, flavor rendition, the incredible amount of vapor you can get from it, and the airflow control was very effective (we like a stiff draw). On a scale of 1 to 10 we would easily give it an 8. The only thing missing, we thought at the time anyway, was a larger capacity tank (even the $7 Texas Tuff Tank held 3.1ML of eJuice). The stainless steel drip tip was easily replaced with fancy wooden or plastic tips, and the coil heads lasted a decent amount of time, about a week. The new AeroTank Mega has addressed those issues, so as long as the other positives remained positive, we figured the Mega would be a better tank. And we were right, it is a better tank, but one at nearly twice the price.
The AeroTank Mega as an RBA
To put it bluntly, the Kanger AeroTank Mega looks and feels a lot like an expensive rebuildable atomizer. First, the tank is heavy. The stainless steel is thick and possesses a nice matte SS finish, and the airflow controller matches that rest of the tank with same matte finish dial. The AeroTank Mega comes with a Pyrex glass tank and a stainless steel tank. I didn’t notice any performance difference using the different tanks, so I am assuming the stainless steel tank is a cosmetic choice. Keira preferred the steel tank while I liked the glass tank.
Just one last thing before we move to performance. Keira and I were both impressed with the physical presence of the AeroTank Mega. For a long time we’ve wanted to vape with an expensive looking RBA at the end of our batteries, but we just can’t build coils like Tom and Steve, so we never really got into them. When Tom had the time he would build a few coils for us and we would use them with our AGA-TD Dual Coil RBA, now we get the same ‘look and feel‘ of an RBA with the AeroTank Mega (the AGA-TD with glass tank is also $12 less the AeroTank Mega!) If you’ve had the desire to vape with an RBA because they look “cool”, you can now do it with a tank that is so much easier to replace the coils.
Improved Airflow Controller
In our opinion after comparing them side by side, the improved airflow controller provides a more precise dial up. Whereas with the AeroTank of yesterday we could feel 6 different ‘draws’ by turning the dial, the AeroTank Mega has nearly twice that number. One truly nice cosmetic feature of the new airflow controller is that instead of the ‘notched’ dial of the AeroTanks of yesterday the AeroTank Mega’s airflow controller has the same matte stainless steel finish, so twisting the dial to change the draw is deliciously expensive looking and blends in with the rest of the tank.
Keira: If Little Red Riding Hood was able to choose “too cold”, “too hot” and “just right”, with a “ AeroTank Mega” version of the porridge on the table she would have been able to choose “too cold”, “less cold”, “lukewarm”, “warm”, “very warm”, “hot”, and “very hot”, allowing Ms. Hood more options to choose which one was “just right”.
New Coil Design
Jon (MyVaporStore) tells us that the AeroTank and ProTank 3 coil heads work with the new AeroTank Mega and Mini, though they haven’t yet tested them enough to judge the performance. We won’t try these coil heads in the Mega because we want to believe that Kanger designed a new coil head for some reason, right?
The two newly designed 2.0ohm coil heads that come with the AeroTank Mega look roughly the same, but they are larger, more robust looking, and the wicks are hidden, though differently than the Nautilus/X.Jet/Aspire hidden coil design.
Performance wise, we both agreed that it did outperform the AeroTank, some, and were about equal to the performance of the Aspire Nautilus. (Watch this Smokenjoey video on the Nautilus, you’ll love it!)
The new coils are supposed to last almost twice as long as the AeroTank coils, and that might just be true since we’ve yet to feel any degradation in the vape over 3 days of heavy vaping.
Complicated
Unlike the AeroTank and AeroTank Mini, the construction of the Mega causes users to have to take a few precautions and to do things a bit differently. For instance:
When unscrewing the bottom of the tank to refill it, the ‘seals’ are temporarily broken and eJuice will leak from the drip tip and could leak into the center post. MyVaporStore, recommends that we wrap a cloth, tissue or paper towel around the mouthpiece when unscrewing the base. I seem to remember that happening with some RBA’s I used in the past, and it does happen with the AeroTank Mega as well. Not a lot, but enough to notice.
Also like some of the RBA’s I’ve used you’re encouraged to top off the tank with juice often enough so that it never gets past the 1/3 full line. Neither of these ‘issues’ happens with the AeroTank and the AeroTank mini, or for that matter with the Aspire Nautilus. (We have a review of the AeroTank mini in the works)
Cloud Chaser?
What Keira and I liked most about the AeroTank Mega was its ability to produce more vapor than I have ever seen up close and personal. Dave once showed me a video clip of Steve, our Social Media guru, while he was sub-ohm vaping. The clouds of vapor were so huge it was hard to believe. Although the AeroTank Mega can’t produce sub-ohm clouds it comes closer than anything we’ve used before, Nautilus included.
If you’re like us, in that you own and enjoy an advanced personal vaporizer with either variable voltage or variable wattage, and you’re just not that interested in getting into the whole rebuildable thing, the AeroTank Mega is something you definitely need to get. No doubt you’ll be very impressed with the clouds you’ll make and the flavor that will come through. And besides, every decent sized ADV looks great with a nice tank on the end of it.
Conclusion
The battle for dominance continues in the sub-market of glassomizers/tanks with the introduction of the AeroTank Mega. In some ways it surpasses the Aspire Nautilus, and in other ways the Nautilus comes out on top, 5ML vs. 3.5ML capacity being one of them. Like the AeroTanks that came before, the Nautilus today, the Mega is a dual coil bottom coil glassomizer tank that brings The Art of Vaping to a new level. It is a huge performance enhancer, and a tank every serious vaper should add to their arsenal.
In the end though, it’s about money, isn’t it? Paying $40 for a glassomizer is a lot. The staff of Spinfuel had to pool our own money in order to make a decent sized buy of the 2.5ML AeroTank, but it has made a big difference in the eLiquid reviews we do, as well as our own personal vaping. While it would be truly fantastic to be able to afford to buy a dozen of these AeroTank Mega’s, until the price comes down substantially the AeroTank Mega will be relegated to Sunday’s, Keira and I’s day off, with whatever eLiquid has caught our fancy on that day. For now, the Mega is for special occasions only. But oh how great it would be if we could all experience this kind of performance every day. You have to hope that some day, maybe, the prices of these high performance tanks will come way down, yeah?
Julia and Keira Hartley-Barnes
AeroTank Mega – Package Contents:
- 1 x Kanger AeroTank Mega with Airflow Control (Pyrex tank, top cap, bottom cap and 510 base)
- 1 x 510 Drip tip – Stainless Steel
- 1 x Stainless Replacement Tube
- 1 x Ego Cone Cover
- 2 x Dual Coil Atomizer Heads – 2.0ohm
