Several suggestions on buying e-cigarettes

General Things to Think About

No matter who you are, there are a few factors that everyone needs to consider when looking for the best e-cigarette kit for your needs.

These aren’t the most important things for your decision, but it’s worth keeping them in mind as you consider the benefits and drawbacks of different devices.

How Much Are You Willing to Spend?

Switching to vaping will almost certainly save you money, but the start-up costs may seem fairly high.

Whereas each pack of cigarettes is ready-to- use, when you’re starting to vape, you need to get an e-cig, a charger, a tank and some e-juice. The running costs of vaping – mainly buying new coils and e-liquid – are very low, but you need to invest when you first get started.

So setting yourself a budget is important. Nobody can tell you what the right figure is for you, so you’ll have to consider your situation and see how much you can put aside. That said, for a pack-a-day smoker in the UK, the £11.20 average price of a pack of (kingsize) cigarettes means you’ll spend about £78.40 a week on smoking. That’s more than enough to get even a higher end vape kit!

The most important thing to think about is how much you’ll be vaping. If you want to fully make the switch to e-cigarettes, spending a few days’ cigarette budget on getting set up is more than reasonable.

However, you might not be sure you’ll like vaping, so you might not be keen on spending so much.

The best advice here is to give vaping a try before you commit to a big purchase. If you have a friend or family member who vapes, ask to try their e-cig out and see what you think. Sometimes it takes a while to get into vaping, but this should give you an idea of whether or not it’s for you.

It’s up to you how much you want to spend, and even though we’d recommend focusing more on getting the right e-cig for your needs, make sure you don’t put too big a dent in your bank balance.

You can get some excellent vape kits quite cheaply, so spending a week’s smoking budget isn’t needed. 

How Important is Ease of Use?

One of the main factors which can help you distinguish between the different vape kits available is how easy the device is to use. No e-cigarette is really that complicated, but some undeniably have a bigger learning curve than others.

Cigalikes are the simplest devices: you screw the cartomizer into the battery and use it just like you would a cigarette. When you’ve finished a cartomizer, you just throw it away and screw another one in its place. If you want to vape with as little fuss as possible, this is the best type of device to choose.

Pod and tank systems aren’t much harder to use than this, though. The key differences are that you have a pod or tank that must be filled with e-liquid before you start using it, and when your coil has passed its prime, you’ll need to unscrew it and replace it with a fresh one. It’s a touch more hands-on than vaping with a cigalike, but still very straightforward and well suited to beginners.

Mods (and most pod mods) are the only devices that may be too complex for new vapers. These have display screens, two or more buttons in addition to the main “fire” button and often features like the ability to adjust your wattage or set a maximum temperature. For the most part, you use these in a very similar way to basic tank systems.

However, mods may also include a menu system (to change between wattage mode and temperature control mode, for example). Most will display things like the resistance of your coil which beginners might not be too familiar with.

But, just like getting used to a new mobile phone, it doesn’t take long to get to grips with navigating the system and to learn what everything means. On a day-to-day basis, all you’ll really need to do is choose a setting with the dedicated buttons and vape in the same way you would with a basic tank system.

So some vape devices are more complicated than others, and if you want to have the simplest experience possible, it’s best to avoid mods. However, with all of the benefits mods offer, it’s important to remember that they’re really not all that complicated.

What Do You Want Your Device to Look Like?

The clichéd advice that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover is very true when it comes to vaping.

Just because an e-cigarette looks like a cigarette, this doesn’t mean it’s the best replacement for cigarettes. And just because a mod looks nothing whatsoever like a cigarette doesn’t make it the wrong choice.

That said, you may have a preference for the appearance of your device, and if you do, it can narrow your options down a lot. Not everybody wants to vape from a boxy e-cig, and not everybody wants something that looks like a cigarette.

This is completely down to personal preference, so you don’t really need any guidance on this point.

But one piece of advice I’d offer is that a cigarette-like appearance might seem important to you when you’re first starting, but that feeling fades very quickly. Keeping the focus on what the e-cig can do rather than what it looks like will probably lead to you getting a more capable device.

Do You Need Something Discreet?

Not all vapers want to blow huge clouds. Although most e-cigarettes can produce a substantial amount of vapour, sometimes you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.

If you’re technically allowed to vape at work, for instance, but don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable with huge clouds, great vapour production could actually be a downside. Here, “stealth vaping” becomes a consideration. This is when you vape but purposefully produce very little vapour.

Some devices are much better for stealth vaping than others. Generally, cigalikes or tank systems have a lot more potential to be used discreetly. This is because the vapour production is less than with mods, and the devices themselves are also easier to conceal than a big, hulking box mod.

Combined with some stealth vaping techniques, if you use a cigalike or a compact pod system such as the Innokin EQ Filtr, you’ll be able to vape in a way most people won’t even notice. If you’re likely to need to “stealth vape,” you should keep this in mind when you’re choosing your kit.