SMOK Devilkin 225W & TFV12 Prince Starter Kit Review

Immediately after seeing the SMOK Devilkin I was reminded of last year’s SMOK ProColor (see image below). Of course, there are improvements in exterior design, and the Devilkin Kit includes the full size TFV12 Prince, while the ProColor Kit included the TFV8 Big Baby Tank, but for the most part, this is the same uninspired SMOK Playbook we’ve seen far too long.

With nearly the same specs and damn close chassis design, the SMOK Devilkin should have been the ProColor 2, but what do I know, right? If SMOK wants to continue to push out product after product all we can do is sit back and watch. Will all these products produced by SMOK in the last 12 months expand the userbase, or cannibalize their own product line? Again, I don’t know, but this seems, well, wrong. As much as I like the SMOK Devilkin Starter Kit, I can help think “Been there, done that…again.”

Basic SMOK ProColor Specs:

• Dual High-Amp 18650 Batteries – Not Included
• Wattage Output Range: 6-225W
• Voltage Output Range: 0.5-9V
• Min Atomizer Resistance: 0.06ohm
• Temperature Range: 200-600F
• Supports Ni200 Nickel, Titanium, and Stainless-Steel Heating Elements
• Memory Mode Setting
• 12-Colorful LED Backlight Trim – Fully Customizable
• Intuitive 1.3 Inch Full-Color OLED Display

Basic SMOK Devilkin Specs:

• Dual High-Amp 18650 Battery – Not Included
• Wattage Output Range: 6-225W
• Voltage Output Range: 0.5-9V
• Min Atomizer Resistance: 0.05ohm
• Temperature Range: 200-600F
• Supports Ni200 Nickel, Titanium, and Stainless-Steel Heating Elements
• Precision Memory Mode
• High-Quality 1.3 Inch OLED Display

If you’re interested, check out the SMOK ProColor Review here, or Buy It here.

We’ve written so much about the SMOK TFV12 Prince Sub-Ohm Tank that I would direct you to this Review and this Review to get the full understanding of how Spinfuel VAPE views the Prince. The TFV12 Prince did earn the 2017 Product of the Year Award from Spinfuel VAPE, so, you know, we like the tank.

As for the SMOK Devilkin, other than the battery “Series” connection, where, in a series circuit all of the components carry the same current. For vape mods like the Devilkin, this means that each battery will have the same amount of amp draw placed on it as it would with a single battery. Unregulated Parallel box mods are devices that split the current between two or more batteries at the same time, though the SMOK Devilkin is most certainly a safe, regulated mod, with such safety measures as Short Circuit Protection, Over-Heat Protection, and Over Discharge Protection. Other than that, I can’t seem to detect any differences worth mentioning between the early 2017 ProColor and the mid-2018 Devilkin.

The SMOK Devilkin Vape Mod uses two 18650 cells to push out a maximum of 225W of power. The 18650 should deliver at least 25A, and as always, we power our devices with the Nitecore 3100mAh 35A cells and they do a great job in Devilkin. (and ProColor for that matter)

Once again, the highlights of this, and many other, SMOK Vape Mods, are the maximum wattage, temperature control suite range of 200-600 degrees, voltage range, minimum resistance of 0.05-ohms, and the high-def 1.3” OLED color display. (Color here means the user can assign a color to certain fonts and icons in the display)

Like an old fool, every time I hear about a new SMOK product I get excited…. And then the air is let out of the balloons because we see is what we’ve seen for too long a time. How many times can modify the exterior chassis, yet use the same specs? Can SMOK innovate anymore?

Don’t get me wrong, the SMOK Devilkin Vape Modand the terrific TFV12 Prince are excellent devices. They vape extremely well, and there is plenty of power to push not only the low-wattage Prince Coils that sit inside the Prince but can also push any and every Sub-Ohm tank on our Best High-Wattage Sub-Ohm Tank list for 2018.

There is nothing at all wrong with the SMOK Devilkin except it is lackluster. It does not excite. And if you’ve been a Vaper long enough to see the release of the SMOK ProColor, you too might expect the Devilkin to have been named the ProColor 2 as well.

The body of the SMOK Devilkin is a bit more “sculpted” than the ProColor, and the “shield-like” bezel is larger, with a bit more swoop to it, and the back side of the Devilkin, inside the bezel, is the current “cobra pattern” seen on many other SMOK devices this year. It is a handsome and sophisticated mod that comes with, arguably, the best sub-ohm tank on the market, for about $20 more than last year’s ProColor Kit.

The size of the SMOK Devilkin could have easily called for the TFV12 Baby Prince, or the Big Baby Prince, but thankfully SMOK made the decision to make the Kit easy to buy because it ships with the full-size Prince. Since the Coils for the full size TFV12 Prince are so much better in the flavor and vapor performance arena, it makes a big difference when deciding to purchase it or not.

The only real compliant I have for the Devilkin is that it is more of the same SMOK product. That “product” is solid though, and the vape experience for every SMOK Mod pushing 225W is truly nice. The Mod is somewhat pedestrian, to me anyway, though others will disagree.

As an experienced Vaper who has owned and used a lot more product than the average Vaper, I wouldn’t spend the money to buy the Devilkin, but I certainly can’t speak to the otherwise “normal” vaping public. After adding some 500 Vape Mods in my collection I look for distinctiveness, or uniqueness, of which the Devilkin has neither. But for Vapers looking for a dependable, handsome vape mod that can deliver an excellent vape experience, I certainly wouldn’t fault anyone for picking one up. Especially the Starter Kit, where the cost of adding the TFV12 Prince is much less than buying the tank on its own.

I spent a few hours trying to find an analogy that would describe the way I feel about this new SMOK Vape Mod and the best I could come up with is this:

If I were a teacher in an Advanced Placement Biology class I would expect most of the students to turn in A-grade papers, so over the course of half a dozen years I don’t wouldn’t get excited when yet another student gets an “A” on another paper. I suppose I would grade it and think nothing of it… the only chance then, to get my attention, is for one of the kids in the class to do something innovative, something unexpected, and to do it at the same level of excellence. That would warrant some excitement. So, in this job, I see a lot of SMOK devices that deserve an A grade, but finding one that inspires, one that looks to innovate, would be surprising. The Devilkin is not surprising… it is more of the same. But, it’s still an A. Now…. that SMOK H-PRIV 2 Starter Kit? Now THAT was exciting.