Steve K's Vaping World

While not quite at the current level of escalation as multiple coil fillered cartomizers, manufacturers are starting to reinvent the clearomizer. New entrants into the bottom-coil clearomizer space are beginning to hit the market. With a great deal of fanfare and excitement, GotVapes released the newest contestant in the clearo race, the Sapphire Hybrid System onto the market.

Design
The awkwardly named Sapphire is billed as a hybrid tank system.  Rather than an exposed horizontal coil at the bottom of the cartomizer like the G4/Vortex, the bottom of the cartomizer features a small metal cylinder with a wick protruding from the top.  A clear tube with an air channel slides over the mini atomizer and holds the eliquid which is delivered to the coils via the protruding wick.  A silicon gasket seals the atomizer assembly from the juice rather than relying on the wicks to keep the liquid outside the coil chamber much the same way as a tank atomizer system.

Disassembled Sapphire

Priced at 6.96 for two units, the tanks are a little on the uptown side of the clearomizer price scale.  I imagine the prices will dip somewhat after these are on the market for a while.  Dual coil cartomizers similarly were much more expensive when they first hit the market.

When purchased as part of an eGo starter kit, the Sapphire also comes with a metal sleeve with a screw on cap.  The cartomizer is also available as part of an entry-level 510 starter kit.  GotVapes says that they will make the protective sleeves and caps available a separate accessory once stock levels even out.

The Sapphire ships with a black sticker covering the outer tube.  The sticker features die cuts on two sides to allow for easy viewing.  At least that is the case for one side.  The other window is positioned directly over the air channel, which gives a great view of the condensation built up in the tube, but obscures the juice.  The sticker is easily removed with no residue revealing a frosted clear cartomizer.

The outer plastic tube appears to be constructed using a different type of plastic.  The plastic feels more like the type used in syringes than what is used in CE2 and G4 type cartomizers.  The tube is topped off with a hard plastic whistle tip.  While the tip is comfortable and works well, it is a proprietary fitting.  This is part of an unfortunate trend in a lot of new cartomizers.  I wish these would terminate in a standard size, allowing me to choose what sort of tip I like best.

Fill port, teeeny plug

Removing the plastic tip reveals a filling port covered with a very small silicone plug.  The plug has a spike at the end for easy removal (if you are fingernail impaired, tweezers may be in order here).  The plug is very small and important.  Be careful when setting it down while filling or you’ll find yourself crawling around your kitchen floor looking for the wayward plug like me.

Speaking of easily lost little parts, filling the Sapphire is accomplished by squirting liquid into the port covered by the plug.  A small silicon adapter designed to slide on the tip of any e-liquid bottle is included in the box.  This tip works well and makes for an easy fill, until you lose that too.  Fortunately, filling is also easily accomplished using any small diamater accessory like a syringe or a pipette.

No drips!

Once filled, unlike the G4 cartomizers, the juice actually stays where you put it.  After leaving the cartomizer standing overnight filled with liquid, I awoke the next morning to find no evidence of leakage.  This is all the more impressive as I conducted the test after pulling the cartomizer apart and reassembling it.  Despite claims by GotVapes, the tube easily removes from the cartomizer.  The company states they are going to work with the factory to try and make that connection more sturdy.  The tall inner cylinder should prevent most accidental dislodging.

Vaping Experience
From a performance standpoint the Sapphire is a decent contender.  Loaded up with my trusty test eliquid, and bolted onto the Lea, the device produced a reasonably pleasant vape.  Vapor production was pretty good for running on a small battery device.  Throat hit was definitely good as well.  The warmth of the vapor as might be expected from a bottom coil device was a little on the cool side.  I actually expected it to be cooler considering how much distance the vapor has to cover between the coil and the mouthpiece.

Sapphire minus decorative sticker

Some people claim that believe cooler vapor enhances their ability to taste flavor in the vapor.  That’s likely a pretty subjective thing as I didn’t really notice much difference in the flavor.  Flavor production wasn’t bad or anything, really just average with nothing unusual about it at all.

Strapping the Sapphire to the variable volt box didn’t really do much to change the flavor profile either.  I did notice a pretty decent bump in vapor production when going from the Lea to about 4v.  The temperature of the vapor naturally increased as well, but not quite as much as I expected.

I found that the sweet spot for the tank was around the 4-4.2 volt range.  Cranking the voltage to 5v or so started to stress things out and I picked up hints of burning juice.  There wasn’t a huge gain in any of the vapor factors at 5volts.  I briefly tried going up to 5.5 volts and there was definitely some burning going on at that point.  Some testers have reported they are successfully able to vape at 5 or even 6v after their units have broken in.  I didn’t find that to be the case, and will likely just wait for this model to come in resistances other than 2.4 ohm before trying them at high voltage.

CE2, G4, Sapphire, CE2 XL, Vision XL

Too Long; Didn’t Read
The GV Sapphire Tank system is an oddly named device with an equally odd description of a hybrid tank system.  In essence, this is a bottom coil clear (mostly) cartomizer that does a much better job of pulling the bottom coil feat off than its predecessors on the market.  Filling the tank is an easy process, even if you lose the included filling adapter.  Performance is certainly competent and coupled with the ease of use of the filling system make this a pretty decent no fuss type of cartomizer.

Performance:
Vapor Production: Decent at 3.2v to very good at 4v and above
Vapor Temperature: Cool to moderately warm
Throat Hit: Good at all voltages
Flavor: Average
Draw: Moderate

Pros:

• Easy fill system
• Good performance
• Easy viewing of liquid levels
• Solid construction
• No leaking
• No juice in mouth issues

Details:
Product Name: GV Sapphire Hybrid System
Vendor: GotVapes
Manufacturer: Buddy Technology
Price: $6.96 (two pack)
Threading: 510
Resistance: 2.4 ohm
eLiquid Capacity: 1.5ml

Disclosure:  This cartomizer was sent to me for review by GotVapes.