Table of Contents
Vapor Zeus Review
Tom McBride and John Manzione
October 14, 2013 – Just this past Friday we received the Vapor Zeus from Vapor4Life. We received both the large, cigar-size 1300mAh Vapor Zeus and the smaller 650mAh Starter Kits. John and I have been vaping with them this entire weekend, beginning Friday night, and into today. For the first time in a long time we did not feel the need to switch out to another device the entire time. That, in itself, is quite an accomplishment.
The Vapor Zeus had been out in the vape community since April, so by now we’re fairly certain you’ve heard of it, perhaps watched a couple of videos, including our good friend and partner SmokenJoey’s video review of last week.
We’ve heard of it too, but this is the first we’ve actually seen one, or used one. In a word, we’re impressed. Very impressed. Had it not been for Smokenjoey we might never have had the chance to do the review, so a public ‘thank you’ goes out the great Smokenjoey…
The review kits sent by Vapor4Life included the following items:
Vapor Zeus – Automatic – 1300mAh – Cigar color/pattern Vapor Zeus – Dual Mode – 650mAh – Blue Slim USB Adapter 2x Large 6ML capacity Smileomizers – Cigar color/pattern 2x Small 3.5ML capacity Smileomizers – Blue 2x Ming Vase Smileomizer Tips 1 Large 1 Small 1x 30ML WOW Smilin Special Cigar eLiquid 18mg Medium Nobacco Juice 1x 30ML WOW Smilin Special Cigar eLiquid 18mg Full Nobacco JuiceHow This Review Will Work
Because the two of us shared both Vapor Zeus products in equal measure, we will begin each section with the official specs for the products and then we will each give our “real world” experience using them for 3 days. If we’re talking actual man-hours you could say we’ve put in 6 days of vaping in order to evaluate them.
Large Vapor Zeus And Large Smileomizer
Battery:
1300mAh Voltage: 5V Amperage: 3.6 Battery Life: 16 hours (avg) Heavy vaping Charge Time: 5:30 hrs on average Regulated: 5V single-coil cartos, 4.4v dual coil cartosAlthough compatible with other KR808 cartomizers we stuck with the Smileomizers for the entire review period.
Large Smileomizer:
Huge 6ML capacity Threading: KR808 Coil: Single VerticalResistance: 2.5ohm (metered at 2.5 each time)
Although compatible with all V4L 808 batteries, except eGo threaded, we used the Smileomizers on the Vapor Zeus exclusively.
Tom: At first glance the large Vapor Zeus with the large Smileomizer attached looks huge. Well, it is huge, I mean seriously huge. But it is so nicely balanced that it feels very comfortable in your hand. With the large Smileomizer filled with 6ML of eLiquid it feels even better. You’ll feel as though you are holding an expensive cigar. The soft Smileomizer tip takes that cigar scenario to the next level, you almost feel like chomping down on the tip just as you would with a real cigar.
This Vapor Zeus (large 1300mAh) and Smileomizer (large 6ML) sport a soft rubberized paint job in a natural cigar pattern. I found the look and feel to be extraordinary. Had the battery and Smileomizer been anything other than the soft rubberized finish it wouldn’t have been nearly as nice.
Between the two of us both Vapor Zeus e-cigarettes were in constant use. The battery life of the large 1300mAh battery is about 16-17 hours of actual use. In addition, the quality of the vape did not suffer as the battery charge decreased. It vaped like a champ right up until the moment it stopped.
The Vapor Zeus can work as a pass-through when you have the USB cable plugged into the computer port or the wall adapter. For review purposes I plugged the Zeus into my computer and vaped for a few minutes. There was no difference in the quality of the vape. Since the battery also recharges when it’s attached to the computer you can keep it next to the computer while you’re working, take drags from it whenever you want, and in a few hours it will be fully charged.
The first time I watched Smokenjoey take a drag from the Vapor Zeus I was stunned at how much vapor it could produce. I thought he might be using a high-VG eLiquid, or that maybe the lighting had played tricks with what looked to be a huge cloud of vapor billowing out of his mouth. Of course he wasn’t playing any tricks or using a high-VG eJuice, and when it was my turn to vape with it I too was producing huge amounts of vapor with every drag.
We used all four Smileomizers during the review period, filling two with V4L Nobacco Cigar flavored eJuice and two filled with Hurricane Vapor Vanilla Sky, a 50/50 PG/VG blend. (Check out our review Tuesday, 10/15/2103). The Smileomizer produced amazingly accurate flavors as well as tremendous vapor. Both eLiquids delivered a big throat hit as well.
I tried to find out what the PG/VG ratio was in the V4L Special Cigar eLiquid but I couldn’t find it anywhere. What I do know is that the throat hit was big. I loaded up a regular 510-thread cartomizer with it and vaped for a while using a Vision Spinner at 3.8v just to compare. The throat hit was excellent, but the Smileomizer produced a better quality throat hit, just as big, but deeper, more pleasant. The Vanilla Sky, with a 50/50 ratio had a slightly milder throat hit with a cartomizer and clearomizer (used in the Vanilla Sky review), and a bigger, deeper throat hit with the Smileomizer. So, the Smileomizers make a difference.
When I wasn’t vaping the large Vapor Zeus I was vaping the smaller, dual mode, Vapor Zeus, and while I enjoyed that as well, as you will see below, my desire to get back to the large Vapor Zeus was apparent. Luckily for me John preferred the smaller one so there was no arguments when the time came to switch back and forth.
Negatives: I only have a couple of negatives to report for the large Vapor Zeus. The first one is the exposed USB port on the tip of the battery. I realize that the Zeus can be used in a pass-through fashion, but so can the Johnson Creek Vea and it has a nicely engraved screw on cap to hide the unsightly USB port. Perhaps we’ll see a cap on a future version of the Vapor Zeus.
Since it is such a high capacity battery, 1300mAh is nothing to sneeze at, the charge time seems like forever, even though its only 33% of the time you’ll get using it. That said, I don’t like leaving my batteries charging when I’m not there, or if I’m sleeping, so I can either take a 5 or 6 hour batch of time and babysit the charging, or plug and unplug it from the charger as I come and go. Certainly Vapor4Life isn’t to blame here, it’s an advanced battery with the latest electronics, and it’s simply the way it is right now. 1300mAh batteries take a while to charge.
John: Unlike Tom I have very little experience with cigars. God knows I’ve tried, but they always gave me a headache, so I avoided them as much as possible. In any case, I did not like the Vapor4Life cigar flavored eJuice, so I used the other Smileomizers that came with the review kits and vaped Hurricane Vapor’s new Vanilla Sky.
The 1300mAh Vapor Zeus is perfectly proportioned to look like a long, fancy cigar. Even the “band” around the top of the battery, right under the Smileomizer, reflects the look of a fine cigar. The soft finish, in a cigar pattern, was very comfortable and looked like a million bucks. I’m not too sure how much this particular model will appeal to women in general; it screams “Men Only” to me but who knows, maybe it will appeal to women.
Filling the Smileomizer takes a bit of patience at first. It holds a lot, and when you first start dripping juice onto the mesh material is doesn’t sink down like you think it should. It sort of sits there for a bit. Be careful. Let it soak in before adding more.
Once it gets wet and starts to soak into the mesh it then begins to almost suck the juice in and before you know it you think it has as much as it’s going to take. The instructions tell you to place the Smileomizer on a flat surface and wait 5 minutes before adding additional drops. From experience I can tell you that when the instructions tell you to wait 5 minutes before adding more drops of eJuice, wait the 5 minutes.
Naturally, I glanced at the instructions, thought I knew best, and tried to fill the Smileomizer my way; pour and fill…done! It got a little messy the first time but after that I paid attention, followed directions, and everything was honky dory.
The Smileomizer holds a whopping 6ML of eLiquid, that’s a full 1ML more than the Vision Victory Clearomizer. That’s a lot of juice. My advice is to make sure you like the flavor of the eLiquid you’re about to dump into the Smileomizer because for an average Vaper that’s more than a day of vaping. If you do own the 1300mAh Vapor Zeus you can use the smaller 3.5ML Smileomizer on it, but be aware that the smaller Smileomizer is thinner in diameter so it might look a little funky. The best thing to do is to fill the large Smileomizer with a flavor you know you’ll want to vape for a while.
The Smileomizer is a completely different animal than what I was used to. Several weeks ago we reviewed a couple of products from My7’s, including their larger 650mAh battery and very strange cartomizer. (Which they have since discontinued and replaced with a more traditional clearomizer. Spinfuel influence maybe?) And I remember thinking that for something so large, and so different, it produced a pitiful amount of vapor. So when I saw what the Smileomizer looked like when the top is unscrewed and removed my thoughts immediately returned to the My7’s product. I was concerned that I would face the same kind of vapor problem. Thankfully the opposite happened. The Vapor4Life Smileomizer is a vapor beast. Honestly, the Smileomizer is an impressive piece of technology. Both the small and the large Smileomizer generate massive amounts of vapor and the highest quality throat hits.
I won’t bother to repeat what Tom had to say about battery life because we experienced the same results, which was more than impressive.
All in all, I am every bit as impressed with the Vapor Zeus 1300mAh Automatic as my buddy Smokenjoey is. Just the other day Joe made a short 15-second video for me while driving down the highway, demonstrating the power of the Zeus. Joe has never made a video like this for me in the past, so I was beginning to get excited about doing our own review.
Negatives: I agree with Tom, the open face end of the battery is a bit unsightly and I hope down the road they add a cap to it. In addition to being unsightly I imagine that it could collect dust or even lint from your pocket or briefcase or even pocketbook, so it makes sense to cap the end. As for charging time, eh, I can deal. 1300mAh is a lot of battery to charge. As long as I’m not left without a PV I’ll be fine while it recharges.
Small Vapor Zeus
Battery:
650mAh Voltage: 5V Threading: KR808 Colors: Black, Cigar (!), Blue, Magenta, and Green Finish: soft rubberized paintjob like the larger VZ Dual Mode: Auto and Manual (5-click)Tom: In addition to being physically smaller than the large Vapor Zeus, it is also a much smaller 650mAh. Battery life is 6-7 Hours, based on our usage, and it took about 2.5 hours to recharge the first time, 2.75 hours the second time, 2.5 hours the 3rd time.
The Dual-Mode feature works extremely well. To make the switch between modes all you need to do is click the button 5 times. It too works in pass-through mode and charges even as you use it, when it’s plugged into your computer or wall adapter.
The Dual Mode Vapor Zeus performs at about the same level as the large 1300mAh Zeus. I don’t think anyone would notice the difference in performance, other than battery life. Same vapor output, same throat hit. I love the fact that I can switch between Auto and Manual on-the-fly.
John: Pretty much what Tom said. Really, why waste words being redundant? The only reason I prefer this smaller version of the Vapor Zeus is because it’s smaller, that’s it. I do like the dual mode as well, and there are definitely times when manual is my preferred method, but performance is the same in both.
Starter Kits and Pricing
Both the 650mAh Dual Mode and the 1300mAh Automatic come with the same accessories; USB cable, Wall Adapter, two Smileomizers and a 30ML bottle of eJuice.
Small 650mAh Starter Kit Includes: $91.95
- Vapor Zeus Dual Mode-Black-Extra
- Vapor King Slim Wall USB Adapter – Black
- 2x Smileomizer-Black-Small
- Vapor Zeus USB Charging Cable
- Cuban Cigar Nobacco Juice (30ml) 18mg (you can choose other flavors)
Large 1300mAh Starter Kit Includes: $99.95
- Vapor Zeus Dual Mode-Black-Extra
- Vapor King Slim Wall USB Adapter – Black
- 2x Smileomizer-Black-Large
- Vapor Zeus USB Charging Cable
- Cuban Cigar Nobacco Juice (30ml) 18mg (you can choose other flavors)
Vapor4Life also sells a 900mAh Vapor Zeus kit for $94.95
Smileomizers:
The Smileomizers cost less than we thought they would. We purchased a couple of 5 packs last night at $32.99 for the smaller 3.5ML and $39.99 for a pack of 5 6ML Smileomizers. Each one is refillable up to 15 times, and because we’ve already refilled ours 8 times since Friday I can believe it. There has been absolutely no degradation in performance.
Conclusion & Buying Advice
Tom: I’ve never used anything like the Vapor Zeus before. I really didn’t think I could be surprised anymore either. This Vapor Zeus is the real deal, original, high quality, high performance e-cigarette. Whether your taste is for the larger Vapor Zeus or the smaller one, it has the potential to become your favorite PV.
If you are currently vaping with a ProVari or iTaste 134 or VTS are you going to toss those aside in favor of a Vapor Zeus? I don’t think so, no. I know I won’t. But, the Vapor Zeus has become one of my top 5 devices and I will continue to use it regularly. I love the device, and I love the Smileomizers.
If you’re currently using a cig-a-like type e-cigarette and you’ve wanted to go to something “more”, than look no further. There are plenty of choices to choose from, but the Vapor Zeus is such a great performer that I don’t think you’ll do any better. I highly recommend the Vapor Zeus in any of the available sizes.
John: The prices for Smileomizers are excellent values. However, the investment in the initial Starter Kit is somewhat more. From $92-$99 for a single battery device, you’ll need ‘something’ to tide you over when you’re recharging the battery. For that reason I wish Vapor4Life included 2 batteries in a Starter Kit configuration. After you make that first purchase though, keeping yourself supplied with fresh Smileomizers won’t break the bank.
I enjoyed using both the 1300mAh and 650mAh Vapor Zeus, but Tom and I agreed that he would keep the larger one and I would keep the smaller one. It works out better for both of us.
The Vapor Zeus is a great device, one I am more than happy to spend money on down the road for more Smileomizers, but it isn’t going to replace my current devices, it will complement them. And that, my friends, is what its all about.
Final Score: 1 – 5 Stars Tom: 5 Stars John: 4.75 StarsWant to buy a Vapor Zeus? Visit Vapor4Life today and in a couple of days you’ll have your very own. Already own one? Tell us about it. Share your thoughts below in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you!
