2017 was a prolific year for SMOK. 2018 looks to be heading the same way. However, the last few releases by SMOK seem to differ only in the aesthetics, not the power or features. If you’ve purchased any SMOK Mod since the ProColor, you wouldn’t miss much (or anything?) by passing on the Veneno Starter Kit. Unfortunately, there are no new innovations, nothing new except for the chassis.

While we received our shipment several weeks ago, this is actually the first time I’ve been able to sit down and put thought to pen to let you know what I’ve learned about this new Mod. The tank, the SMOK TFV8 Baby Light Edition has been reviewed before, so I won’t get too much into that. Instead, I’ll direct you to the full review.

It’s well known in the office that the SMOK S-PRIV, the one with the Skull in a Top Hat, is a SMOK Mod I have a strong dislike for. Inside, the S-PRIV is every bit as good as the Veneno, it’s the outside uncouth exterior that pushed me away from it. Compared to the S-PRIV, the Veneno is a work of splendid art, and even without the comparison, the SMOK Veneno is one of the attractive renditions of this series of “sameness” from the SMOK chipset and color display.

Where the Veneno is different, really different, is in the number of LED light that light up all over the Mod. There are 5 downward pointing arrow lights on the rear of the Mod, 2 on the front of the Mod, and one inside the vape tank. You can set them to stay lit up for as long as the display is lit up, or to flash only was you press the fire panel. Thankfully there is also the option to turn them off.

For review purposes I took the basic “SMOK” combo colors of black and red. Though there are other, stronger colors available, including; black and yellow, blue and red, purple and red, red and gold, and finally, a rainbow model. After the review period ended I picked up the rainbow model just because it’s one of the better “rainbow” paint jobs on SMOK Mods.

The paint job is actually nice on all the colors of the Veneno. The form factor is similar to the others in SMOK’s big rush to market, but at least the Veneno is thinner than the T-PRIV.  The fire panel is long and responsive, and no matter where you hold the Mod, your fingers will be able to operate the panel easily.

Starting at the top, the 510-connector is surrounded by a stainless-steel ring. The 510 pin is gold plated and the entire assembly is made so that any tank attached will get a firm, secure connection to the Mod. While it’s to be expected, you’ll be happy to know that the 24.5mm, 5mL juice capacity, TFV8 Baby Light Edition sits perfectly flush on the Veneno, as does a handful of other vape tanks I used during the past month, including the TFV12 Baby Prince.

The fire panel is strong, made of metal with a thick coat of paint over it, and it’s a slimmer design than the other SMOK mods with a fire panel. The Fire Panel actually gives off an audible clicky sound when pressed, and it is quite responsive in the area of the panel that actually works.

The Fire Panel is only usable in the upper half of the length of the Mod. It took me more than a week to discover this. I had always assumed that the entire fire panel was “live” and that anyone can press anywhere on that panel to engage the Mod.  The opposite side of the fire panel has a matching metal panel so that both sides look identical.

The Five LED lights are on the backside of the Veneno. These downward facing arrows shapes can be configured several ways.  First, there are twelve different colors you can choose from in the menu system.  (I’ll get the easy menu system below) The 12 colors are blue, yellow, magenta, cyan, white, rainbow, green, red, orange, pink, and purple.

Inside the menu system you’ll have the option to set the color, set it flash, fade, or just “normal”, and you can set them to go off when the Fire Panel is pressed, while the display is lit up, or turn them off.

The battery door on the Veneno is on the bottom of the mod. It has a solid latch system with grooves, you release the door by using your finger to pull back on the grooved latch. Pulling the latch open the door pop open and the batteries (dual 18650’s) are easy to remove.

The interior of the battery door is where there are two gold-plated, battery contacts. Thankfully, the battery indicators are clearly marked. It takes a short time for the battery placements to become second nature, like most SMOK Mods the left battery seems to always be the positive side. Typical of a SMOK Mod, removing the batteries shuts down the device to the point where you’re have to go through the 5-clicks to start it back up. A Mod I am reviewing now, for instance, allows the batteries to be removed and replaced and when replaced the device turns on instantly, though it is locked to prevent accidental firing.

Lastly, the battery compartment leaves no room for battery rattle, and the battery door on the Veneno is built in such a way that it always requires a little effort to close the door and latch it.

The front side of the Veneno is where the 1-inch color screen is, plus two more downward arrow shaped LED lights, the Mod’s up and down adjustment bar, and the USB charge/firmware update port.

While the display is a color, OLED display, it’s referred to as “colorful”, not full color. What that means is that you can choose certain colors for the fonts and icons, but it’s not full color the way a video display is full color.

The display has a dual battery meter, a puff counter in seconds directly next to the wattage/temperature number, coil resistance, a preheat mode next to the temp or watt mode, voltage in real time, and a puff counter displaying the total number of puffs.

The display is laid out logically and the fonts are bright and sharp. Strangely, when you swap out the batteries the puff counter resets, meaning there is zero residue power left in the device when the batteries are removed.

The up and down buttons are really a “bar” that is a triangular shape that forms a sort of V shape. Although the up/down buttons are one piece, each side is responsive. Below the bottom LED light is USB port, which is used for charging and/or firmware updates. We always recommend externally charging your batteries with a married set of hi-amp cells in a good Nitecore charger. Despite the 2A charge capability, we still recommend externally charging, but in a pinch, the cells will recharge fairly fast.

The tank is really just the SMOK Big Baby Beast tank with a LED light. The Big Baby Beast has an excellent wide bore Delrin drip tip that has always been really comfortable and taller than the Cobra Resin chuff-style drip tips of the Prince and Baby Prince, but this drip tip is proprietary to this tank.

The well-known swing out top cap refill method made SMOK has made famous back in the TFV4 days. To open the cap, you just push down slightly on the top cap and swing it outward to reveal the fill port. After filling the tank, make sure that you hear a snap upon closing the cap.

The Big Baby Beast has a short chimney that is used to screw coil head onto. You may find that the factory overtightened the coil head to the chimney, and to get it off you might need to remove the glass tube to get enough leverage on the coil to twist it off. Be careful removing the glass tank because it uses a delicate (but fairly thick) O-ring, and if it is damaged even slightly you’ll not get a good seal and it will cause leaking.

The tank includes several different O-rings that allow the user to change the color that the tank lights up in. The colors include red, blue, orange, yellow, purple, and white. The O-rings are same colors that the Veneno is capable of making.

When using the Baby Light Edition tank on the Veneno, you can swap out the coils for any of the TFV8 Baby coils except the M-series, which are made for Direct Voltage SMOK Sticks.

The Baby Beast Light Edition has dual adjustable bottom airflow slots. Airflow on this tank is smooth but tighter than an actual Big Baby tank. In the two tanks I own, one this review unit and one for the rainbow unit I purchased later, the airflow slots had some sort of divider inside the slots which caused the pull from the drip tip to be somewhat tighter. You can still get healthy sized Direct Lung hits from it, but not as easily as you can with the SMOK Big Baby.

The Baby-T8 coil head is .15-ohm, quad coil rated at 50 to 100-watt range. The optimal range for this coil is from 60 to 80 watts.  The T8 for me is a 65W sweet spotter. 65W is where I find the best combination of flavor fidelity and vapor production. Though, once again, the cloud production with a Big Baby is bigger than this Baby Light Edition.

The Q2 coil is the preinstalled coil, and for a good reason.  The Q2 is .4-ohm dual coil rated at 40 to 80 watts. SMOK’s optimal range is supposed to be between 55 and 65 Watts. My sweet spot is 58 watts. I don’t want to beat a dead horse here, but even with the Q2, a real Big Baby produces better flavor and more vapor.  Both coils are good SMOK coils, and provide a satisfying vape experience, especially in other “Baby” tanks.

Buying the Veneno Starter Kit allows you to add another SMOK Sub-Ohm Vape Tank at a lower cost than buying it on its own, and for that reason I always recommend the Kits. However, if you already know you don’t want a tank that lights up, or that you know the characteristics of this tank, buy the Mod on its own and stick a TFV12 Baby Princeon top.

V8 Baby T8 Coil Head

• 0.15 ohm
• Quadruple Coil
• 50 to 100W
• 60 to 80W Recommended Range

V8 Baby Q2 Coil Head

• 0.4 ohm
• Dual Coil
• 40 to 80W
• 55 to 65W Recommended Range

The chipset, or board, that SMOK uses is proprietary, naturally, and it is used in this mod, and others, though each mod that SMOK releases gets tiny little tweaks so that SMOK can say that the board is the “latest” from SMOK. For this review I went and fetched my ProColor Mod and, side by side, I can see no differences. But, there are a few;

The SMOK Veneno is another rounded edge rectangular Mod from SMOK. It’s a dual-18650 hi-amp setup capable of a wattage output of 1-225 watts. Resistance for the Veneno Mod is as low as 0.1-ohm, certainly good enough for all SMOK Vape tanks and Coils. It’s comfortable to hold, and its claim to fame is the abundance of downward pointing arrow LED Lights. The Fire Panel, while only active in the upper 50% of the length, is responsive and fires consistently. The colors are deep, saturated, and will most likely last a good long while. The 1” screen is colorful, sharp, and easy to read. But… aren’t they all?

For Vapers that love LED’s on their Mod and tank will love the Veneno. For Vapers that don’t, I recommend the older ProColor by SMOK. (I was never a big fan of the T-PRIV, or the T-PRIV 3)

While the user can turn off the LED lights on the Mod, the SMOK Baby Light Edition is a tank that won’t allow its light to be turned off. But honestly, no one will buy the Veneno if LED lights is a problem, not when there are other SMOK alternatives.

With fully charged Nitecore 3100mAh 35+ batteries I can get awfully close to the maximum wattage using a SMOK Cloud Beast King. As the power begins to drain that 225W gets harder to reach. But if you’re going to use the Baby Light Edition anything above 110W is a non-starter anyway.

During the review period I stuck it out with the Baby Light Edition and it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t the best. After I allowed myself to make a clear judgement of this combo of the Veneno and Baby Light, I switched up to using the SMOK Prince, the Baby Prince, and the FireLuke Mesh. The most I can say, the best I can say, is that the wattage from the Veneno seems every bit as clean and crisp as any other good-to-excellent Mod I’ve used with these tanks before.

Even with the release of the new SMOK X-PRIV, SMOK still refuses to go “center Pin” with their Mods. It’s no deal-killer for me, but for others that want a center connector, look to something like the Vaporesso Switcher or the Modefined Lyra.

If you like Mods that light up, a lot, you’re the audience SMOK wants to attract. The Veneno Kit has more lights than any other I’ve seen.  That said, the Veneno is a nice, well-built mod and a good size Mod for a dual-cell device.

I’m sure the Veneno Kit comes with the Baby Light Edition only because of the other 7 Lights on the Mod itself. But, I certainly wouldn’t complain if SMOK decided to “Luxe” the Veneno out with a Cobra Resin body and Baby Prince tank.

As it is now, I can’t downgrade a device for lacking innovation. Besides the 7 LED lights, there is nothing here we haven’t seen before from SMOK. But what’s we’ve seen before is pretty damn nice. Not judging the Lights, I say the SMOK Veneno Starter Kit….

SMOK Baby Light Edition: B

Veneno Mod: A

Overall Score: A-

SMOK Veneno TC Features:

• 1 to 225W Power Output
  • 0.5V to 9V Output Voltage
  • 0.1 to 2.5 ohm Atomizer Resistance Range
  • Three Setting Output Mode
    • Hard
    • Normal
    • Soft
  • Firmware Upgradeable
• Temperature Control Output
  • Ni200 Nickel Support
  • Titanium Support
  • Stainless Steel Support
  • Adjustable Initial Resistance
  • Adjustable TCR
  • Preheat Capability
  • 200 to 600 degree Fahrenheit Output Range
  • 0.05 to 2.0 ohm Atomizer Resistance Range
• 1″ Colorful OLED Screen
  • Vibrant Display Resolution
  • Icon Based Display Matrix
    • Highly Visible
    • Comprehensive Menu Settings and Adjustment
    • Full Display
    • Dual Battery Life Indicator
    • Menu Color Customizable
      • Blue
      • Purple
      • Orange
      • Red
      • White
      • Green
• 7 LED Lights Located on the Device
  • 12 Different Colors to Choose From
    • Cyan
    • White
    • Rainbow
    • Red
    • Green
    • Blue
    • Yellow
    • Magenta
    • RGB
    • Orange
    • Pink
    • Purple
  • 3 Light Styles
    • Normal
    • Flash
    • Fade
• Innovative and Ergonomic Firing Mechanism
  • Comfortable and Easy to Use
  • Squeeze to Fire Operation
• Bottom Latch Battery Bay Door
  • High Amperage 18650 Battery Powered
    • Sold Separately
  • Zinc Alloy and Carbon Fiber Paneling
  • Spring Loaded Internal Contacts
• Zinc Alloy Chassis
• Stainless Steel 510 Threading
  • Gold Plated 510 Contact

SMOK Veneno Dimensions:

• 47.3mm by 30.6mm by 85mm

TFV8 Baby Light Edition Beast Features:

• 24.5mm Diameter
• Hinge and Lock Top Fill System
  • Swivels Open and Shut
  • Fill Port
• 5.0ml Max Capacity
• SMOK Baby Turbo Coil Family
  • V8 Baby X4 Coil Head
    • 0.15 ohm
    • Quadruple Coil
    • 30 to 70W
    • 45 to 60W Recommended Range
  • V8 Baby T6 Coil Head
    • 0.2 ohm
    • Sextuple Coils
    • 40 to 130W
    • 70 to 90W Recommended Range
• LED Light Located on the Bottom of the Tank Seal
  • Color is Configurable through Sealing O-Rings
    • White
    • Red
    • Orange
    • Yellow
    • Green
    • Purple
    • Black
• Dual Adjustable 15mm by 2mm Airslots
• 8.5mm Delrin Drip Tip
• Stainless Steel and Glass Construction

TFV8 Baby Light Edition Product Dimensions:

• 24.5mm by 59mm

SMOK Veneno Kit Includes:

• One SMOK Veneno 225W TC Box Mod
• One SMOK TFV8 Baby Light Edition Tank
  • One V8 Baby-Q2 0.4 Coil Head
    • Pre-Installed
  • One V8 Baby-T8 0.15 Coil Head
• USB Charging Cable
• Replacement Parts and Glass
• User Manual