The new year is upon us, and perhaps you’ve resolved to quit smoking and switch to the electronic cigarette. If you have, good for you. Just in time for the new year, I have in my hands the Optimal kit from 180 Smoke. This is a pretty straight forward ecig setup. So I’m going to run through a quick review of the 180 Smoke Optimal e-cigarette kit to see if it’s… optimal.
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Product name | 180 Smoke Optimal Kit |
| Available from | 180 Smoke | |
| Price | $49.95 | |
| Kit contents | 2 batteries, 10 cartomizers, charger, ac adapter | |
| Competing products | V2 Cigs, Smokeless Image, Vapor4Life | |
| Who’s it for? | New users | |
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The 180 Smoke e-Cigarette Review
As I mentioned in the title, I’m going to try to make this review quick, so we’ll eschew the traditional categories and jump right into things. 180’s e-cigarettes are fairly standard fare; they have withe batteries and tan cartomizers designed to mimic a traditional cigarette. There’s even those subtle lines in the battery to make it look more cigarette-like. Thankfully, they’ve opted for green LEDs instead of red, so bonus points for that one.
The threading is a little unconventional. I probably once used to know what threading this is, but the batteries are female like a 510, but it’s a larger diameter… RN4081 maybe? Anyway, suffice it to say not a whole lot of companies use this particular thread pattern on their e-cigarettes, so chances are you’ll be sticking with 180 if you purchase this kit. As an aside, 180 does offer more advanced e-cigarettes as well as the traditional-style models.
While not exactly a showstopper, I noticed on a couple of the cartomizers included with my review kit, the adhesive had begun to peel off, revealing the steel cartomizer underneath.
There are a few different flavors of starter kits from 180. The Optimal kit includes two batteries, a compact USB charger and a USB to AC adapter. You’ll also get your choice of 5 cartomizers in one of 3 flavors and strengths plus another 5 tobacco cartos at 0mg nicotine. Kind of an odd choice, or rather lack thereof.
Automatic batteries are pretty much the norm for most entry-level kits, and the 180 kit follows that convention as well. There is a 6 month warranty on the batteries.
e-Cigarette companies often feature automatic batteries because they are easier for smokers to get used to than the manual variety which are push-button activated. Just puff and go. This can be both an advantage or a liability.
In the case of the 180 smoke electronic cigarette, this seems to fall in the latter category. When I first puffed on my ecig, I thought there was an unusual amount of air in the puff even though the draw was not particularly airy. It took me a little while to figure out it was because the battery wasn’t reliably activating with the puffs I was taking.
While the draw is fine, the automatic switch appears to not be very sensitive at all. It takes a pretty healthy puff to actually get the battery to fire. I also noticed that the vapor production wasn’t that great until I took a few primer puffs to warm things up.
Once properly primed, vapor production wasn’t too bad, but it seemed like I had to work a bit for it.
Overall, it seems that the optimal kit is mostly adequate. Unfortunately, in such an overcrowded and competitive industry as this, I’m just not sure if that’s enough to make this particular kit from 180 smoke stand out.
You can check out this kit and the other offerings at 180 Smoke’s website.
Disclosure: I received this kit from the company for review purposes.
