NJOY King Review: Deciding it was high time Spinfuel eMagazine did the definitive NJOY King review. I took a drive over the weekend to the local Walgreens and purchased the last 3 “Gold” disposables and 1 “Red”. I was going to grab a few “Red” packs and be done with it but after seeing that the Red’s were 4.5% nicotine (45mg) I decided not to. The Gold, on the other, are 3.0% nicotine, or 30mg, still high, but manageable. So three Gold and one Red were going to have to suffice.
I invited Julia, Keira and Jason to participate in this review. Each of us has a different smoking background, and smoking style, ranging from a hard smoker (me) to the dainty smoker (Keira). The results of vaping the NJOY King, however, were very similar.
What It Is
Simply put, the NJOY King, aka NJOY K, is a tiny (for e-cigarette standards) disposable e-cigarette that comes closer to any other brand to the look and feel of an actual tobacco cigarette. Try vaping one of these things in a restaurant or other non-smoking venue and you’ll be pounced on for smoking in no time. With the red light at the tip of battery lighting up when you take a drag it looks like the real thing as just a few feet away. Smokers looking for the cigarette experience don’t have to look further than NJOY.
What Does It Taste Like
Here we had some major differences but one thing was clear to all. The NJOY King does not taste like any other e-cigarette. As a matter of fact we all agreed that it didn’t taste like e-Liquid at all. It tasted like we were smoking a real cigarette. The pleasure, or displeasure, regarding the taste was all about whether we wanted to enjoy the taste of a traditional cigarette after all this time.
I experienced some burning sensation with the NJOY King Gold, but otherwise I found the taste to be something I wouldn’t mind experiencing every few weeks. Julia didn’t like the taste at all, and said it was the first and last NJOY she would vape. Keira rather liked the taste, but admittedly she is the most recent ex-smoker of the lot. Jason, who quit smoking several months ago, thought it tasted too much like a real cigarette to ever risk trying again. His thinking was that it could very well lead him back to cigarettes.
Vapor
As much as we look down our noses sometimes over small battery cig-a-likes you can’t complain about the amount of vapor coming from the NJOY King at the start. Certainly not as thick or voluminous as having a new RSST sitting atop an APV pumping out at 4.6v – 5.2v, but it produces as much or more as any other cig-a-like on the market, in the beginning. Unfortunately that vapor production decreases quickly.
A couple of us vape just like we smoked, which is to say that we take long drags, hold it, take another drag, and then inhale both hits at once, and when doing that with the NJOY King even I was very impressed with the vapor output. Does it count as two puffs in the overall puff count? I’ll get to that below.
Nicotine & Throat Hit
Now here we have another problem. I’m not cool with 4.5%, or 45mg of nicotine in any kind of e-cigarette. You’re asking for one helluva an addiction at that level for an extended time. But the throat hit is powerful, and intense. Bumping down to the Gold label, which is still too high in my book, 3.0% or 30mg, the throat hit is a little less powerful but still very good. Which leads to…
PG/VG
There is no doubt in my mind that the NJOY product is very high in PG. Combine a high PG and a high nicotine level and you wind up with one powerful throat hit and lots of flavor. A low resistance atomizer would certainly help with vapor production. Funnily enough, the vapor was not warm, as a low resistance atomizer would most likely produce, so I have no idea why the vapor production was a good as it was.
None of us have any serious issue with propylene glycol but having said that, some of us, including me, did feel that burning sensation I mentioned above. It’s not so much a burning feeling though, but rather an irritating one. Others might call it “harsh”; in any case it was uncomfortable and not enjoyable. It didn’t happen all the time, but often enough to be annoying.
How Long Does It Last?
And here’s where it all leads. For some people the NJOY King is going to be a very pleasing alternative to traditional cigarettes. The cigarette taste, the vapor production, the throat hit, and even the small size… they all lead to a real cigarette experience. But at what cost?
NJOY claims that each disposable lasts the equivalent of 2 packs of traditional cigarettes. Nonsense. This isn’t close to being true. I’m not making this claim from using a single NJOY King; this is after vaping 4 NJOY Kings.
Naturally, all e-cigarette companies putting out disposables or prefilled cartomizers make some kind of claim about how long they will last compared to traditional cigarettes but NJOY is the first that I know of to say that its not a matter of how “you” smoke it, but rather how you “use” it. I would be very interested in finding out what they mean by using it rather than the way you vape it, and I could be splitting hairs here, but I’d still like to know. So far I’ve received no contact from anyone at NJOY.
The “puff counts” on each of the four NJOY Kings.
Can you remember how many “puffs” you got from your cigarette? I sure don’t. Could be 10, could be 20, I have no idea; it’s been that long. So, I turned to the various studies out there and learned that the average smoker gets anywhere from 8 to 16 puffs from a cigarette. Sounds right, doesn’t it? This is a really interesting read by the way: (http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/monographs/7/m7_11.pdf)
So, let us consider the “facts in light most favorable to the defendant” (NJOY). Let’s say that the average smoker got 8 puffs from a cigarette. That’s the most conservative number we can use. A pack contains 20 cigarettes, which would be equal to 160 puffs. At two packs we’re looking at 320 puffs, minimum, in order to legitimize NJOY’s claim of one NJOY King being equivalent to 2 packs of traditional cigarettes.
Did anyone at Spinfuel HQ get 320 puffs from any of the four NJOY’s? In a word, no, not even close. (Okay, that’s four words)
The official counts of each of the 4 people I invited to partake in this review are as follows.
#1 – Julia – 91 puffs – official time of vaping – 2 hours 5 minutes
#2 – Tom – (me) – 88 puffs – official time of vaping – 1 hour 20 minutes
#3 – Keira -112 puffs – official time of vaping – 2 hours 33 minutes
#4 – Jason – (RED) – 144 puffs – official time of vaping 1 hour 55 minutes
At 8 puffs per cigarette this equates to:
Julia – 11 cigarettes
Tom (me) – 11 cigarettes
Keira – 14 cigarettes
Jason – 18 cigarettes
Whenever we picked up the NJOY we counted the minutes that we were vaping. It is important to note that as a pack a day smoker it would have taken me most of the day to go through 11 cigarettes. It took 6 hours to go through an NJOY King, including non-vaping times and vaping other e-cigarettes in between.
It is also important to realize that as vapers we “vape” probably 200% more than we ever smoked. That’s not something we are proud of, or ashamed of, it is what it is. In order to get the best results possible, in light most favorable to NJOY, we also vaped our usual vaping hardware and e-Liquid when we were not vaping the NJOY King. Had we not done that we would have gone through the NJOY Kings in a matter of 45 minutes, tops.
Had this review relied on a single NJOY disposable there was no way we could call this review “definitive”. However, since I purchased the 4 NJOY Kings from Walgreens the chances that all four were defective is not just very feasible. Could it happen? Could all four NJOY Kings been defective? Maybe. Then again, my neighbor just might hit the lottery tonight.
It is Spinfuel’s opinion, based on these results, that NJOY has a serious problem with their math skills or they have a bad product in the NJOY King. I am of the opinion, and it’s just an opinion, that their legal department met with their PR department and figured out a way to make the outrageous claim that an NJOY King will last for the equivalent of 2 packs of traditional cigarettes. Others may disagree.
Cost
The NJOY King was $7.99 at Walgreens, plus tax. On the NJOY website they run $8.99. The timing for this review couldn’t be better though, you can pop over to njoy.com and get a free NJOY King of your choice. You do have to pay the $2.99 shipping, but still, it is a chance to experience the NJOY King for yourself.
Conclusion
NJOY is a large corporation with a large stake in the e-cigarette industry. How they can advertise the NJOY King being the equivalent of 2 packs of traditional cigarettes is beyond comprehension. Taste wise, vapor wise, throat hit wise, and the small size, the NJOY King is competitive, especially with smokers just coming off cigarettes and who want to remain on cigarettes. The NJOY King is a damn fine imitation of a traditional cigarette. So they need to lower the price to under a dollar or fix the technology. Period.
Tom McBride
