VA Mini eGo Starter Kit Review

Electronic cigarettes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. As much fun as the high-tech large models are, I’m also fond of smaller gear I can stash in a pocket and take on the go. Apparently that is a popular thing because Vapor Alley now offers a kit designed for portability. Read on for the review of the VA Mini eGo kit.

What’s in the Box

Each kit comes in a soft sided zippered eGo case. Inside that case you’ll find

1 400 mAh mini eGo battery
1 Kanger T2 cartomizer
1 eGo Lanyard
1 eGo Charger

You can also add another battery (for some reason the 2nd battery is only available in black) or an additional Kanger T2 cartomizer.

Design

The design of the components in this kit are fairly straight forward. The kit is more a combination of existing parts into something that works pretty well for carting things around on the go.

The battery is a shorter version of a standard eGo battery, offering 400mAh of charge capacity as compared to a standard eGo’s 650. The battery is nearly identical to the slightly smaller Smoktech 350mAh I reviewed previously.

This take on the eGo is naturally a bit bigger because it has an additional amount of battery life. The battery also includes a small keychain for easy portability.

Like the Smoktech battery, this one also outputs a higher voltage than stock eGos so a fully charged battery will put out 4.2v of power, but will slowly drop in voltage as the battery depletes.

A 5-click on/off feature rounds out the list on the included mini eGo with this kit.

The Kanger T2 is also a piece of gear I happened to have reviewed before. If you’re not familiar with the T2, it is a 2ml clear cartomizer that features a replaceable head system, similar to the Vivi Nova tanks or some of the Vision cartomizers that are kicking around there.

The T2’s tank is straight sided unlike the Vision gear and is about the same diameter as the eGo battery itself (unlike the Vivi Nova). The one thing I noticed about the T2 in this kit as opposed to the one I reviewed is the wick is slightly different in this version.

The wick is slightly longer and is spread out, instead of being the short and stubby version found in some of the popular clear tanks. The change seems to have helped wicking somewhat.

When testing this kit, I was using a thicker e-liquid than usual and found it did a fair job keeping the coils wet. I still had to turn the device upside down from time to time, but in general it worked pretty well with a thicker wick.

Using the VA Mini eGo kit

From a performance standpoint, this kit is a pretty good matchup. The T2 cartomizers are very competent units, even though they tend to have a higher resistance than stated. The one that came with my kit came in at 2.5 ohms of resistance.

The extra power output of the mini eGo works well with that resistance. There was plenty of power to get good vapor out of the T2 without suffering from any dry hits.

I’d say probably the bigger draw of this kit is how pocketable it is. The battery with the cartomizer should fit easily into most pockets. The T2 cartomizer is also fairly rigid, which makes me feel comfortable sticking the thing in a pants pocket.

My other go-to for a pocketable device is the smaller eGo with the Bauway CE4 clearomizer. It’s also a good performer, but the plastic on that tank is thinner which makes me a little hesitant to stick it into a pocket. Interestingly, the T2 is shorter so both setups I use are the same height.

Battery life is decent, but nothing to write home about. There tends to be a direct correlation between the size of a battery and how long it will last. Smaller battery means shorter run time. I tend to be a fairly heavy user, but I still can coax up to 3 hours out of one of these batteries.

Coincidentally, I found that the battery and the cartomizer tend to run out for me at about the same time.

More reasonable users should be able to get 4 our more hours. Since being on the go means that it might be a while before you can get to a USB port to charge the e-cigarette, you might want to consider springing for the 2nd battery.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

The VA Mini eGo Starter Kit bundles a couple of well-matched items to produce a small combo with big performance. The assembled e-cigarette fits easily in a pocket and delivers great performance. The kit only comes with one battery. If you tend to take extended trips away from home base, you should probably opt for the 2nd battery. You’ll find this kit at Vapor Alley.

Pros