Mod Reviews

Aspire Vrod 200 Sub Ohm Kit

Antony is looking at the latest workhorse dual 18650 battery kit from U.K. Aspire Vendor, the Aspire Vrod 200

by Antony Lord
Mar 4, 2021

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Aspire Vrod 200 kit

Today I’m looking at the latest workhorse dual 18650 battery kit from U.K. Aspire Vendor, the Aspire Vrod 200. The kit is available in a variety of colours, and I was sent the “Retro Brown'' version for review.

Aspire Vrod 200 kit packaging

Inside the box you’ll find the Vrod 200 mod combined with the Guroo tank along with an extra coil, spare “glass” and o-rings for the tank, USB-C charge cable and an instruction leaflet.

Aspire Vrod 200 kit box and contents

Vrod 200 Specifications

88 x 45.7 x 30.4 mm
142.7 grams
Dual 18650 batteries (not included)
Output 1~200W/0.5~9.0V
Wattage / Voltage / Bypass / TC / Custom curve modes
Resistance 0.1~3.5ohms
0.96” TFT colour screen
2a fast charging

The Vrod 200 is a relatively compact dual 18650 mod and in this gunmetal and brown leather, it's quite a stunner. The other colour options also look very nice as well. Whilst I’ve found the overall build quality of all the Aspire kits I’ve looked at recently to be very good, I do think that the QC could do with a little tightening up sometimes as I did notice a couple of minor blemishes in the finish (look at the top of the mod in the photo below…it came out of the box like that) and my screen is slightly skew as well. None of this is a deal breaker though.

The main branding on the unit is embossed on the leather side panels with “aspire” on one side and “Vrod 200” on the other. These large “leather” panels are lightly cushioned and make this an extremely comfortable mod to use as a daily driver. This is further aided by having the control panel and buttons laid out in a “side fire” orientation which means this is only 45.7mm wide making it suitable for those of us with smaller hands. In this side fire orientation, I found that the metal fire button naturally came to rest under my thumb and this is nicely textured with a positive click. The up/down buttons are plastic and also have a very positive feel with zero button rattle all round. The 0.96” colour screen is reasonably bright, but it is under a tinted panel and doesn’t reach the same brightness levels as the similar screen on the Nautilus Prime X I reviewed recently.

The large centrally located spring loaded 510 plate is raised 0.1mm off the top of the mod which should protect it from atty rash, it's 24mm across as well so you shouldn’t experience any major gapping with atomisers. At the narrowest point across the top, this is roughly 27mm so larger atomizers fit here with ease. My 30mm test atomizer didn’t actually look too bad on here although there was obviously some overhang where those cutouts in the frame are located.

The battery door is the flip open variety and this has performed well, it feels rock solid when closed and I have no worries about it coming open in pockets and the like. Battery orientation is clearly marked on both the battery door and at the bottom of the battery tubes which are plastic to reduce the risk of accidental shorts. I did find that the battery on the negative side tended to get stuck, it’s not in there too tight and I think it’s catching on a small lip between the inner and outer frames, a gentle shake releases it easily enough though. If needed you can charge the batteries via the USB-C port on the control panel, this actually hit the claimed 2amp charging rate as well which is very impressive.

I’ve found the performance on these modern Aspire board to be excellent and this stays true to form. You also get the full range of modes here from wattage/voltage/bypass/TC/curves so this is definitely a fully featured chipset unlike a lot of the cutback offerings I’ve seen from other vendors recently. Wattage is adjustable in 0.5watt increments up to 100W and 1W increments above that, In voltage mode, adjustments are made in 0.01volt increments across the full 9 volt range which should please those of you who prefer voltage mode.

Aspire Vrod 200 kit battery bay and connectors

Guroo tank Specifications

27 x 42.9 mm (excluding 510 and drip tip)
86.5grams
2ml acrylic tank (TPD version)
810 drip tip
Press fit guroo mesh coils
Kanthal mesh coils

Aspire Vrod 200 kit Guroo Tank

The included Guroo tank has several innovations and is something of a looker with styling that looks to have been inspired by the recent Nautilus GT tank which Aspire developed with the famous Smokerstore/Taifun. This is 25.5mm at the base but flares out to around 27mm and feels extremely well engineered throughout, I love the textured knurling on the top cap and airflow control, and this is particularly helpful with the top cap, and the inclusion of a standard 810 drip tip is also welcome. On a side note, I think this is supposed to be pronounced “Guru” but I somehow find myself thinking of President Nixon from Futurama saying “Gurooooo” and having a little chuckle.

The top cap features a child proof design requiring you to press down slightly to turn much like a medicine bottle, this is initially very tight but loosens up a little in use once you have some e-liquid on that o-ring on the underside. You will need to keep a hold of the tank when removing the cap though as you’ll end up unscrewing the tank from the mod if you just try turning the top cap! The fill ports can also be found here. They are actually a bit on the small side so you may struggle a bit with larger bottle nibs.

Coils are a press fit design and are actually loaded from the top, they snap into place with a satisfying click when you push them into place. Removal is easy, push down on the airflow control ring and the coil will pop back up. This also closes juice flow control in the chimney section so you can even do this with a full tank of e-liquid, nicely done!

Unfortunately here in TPD land, we’re lumbered with a 2ml acrylic tank which has thick 4.8mm walls to limit the capacity. On the plus side, this means that the coils can wick properly but you will be filling this thing up every five minutes (literally!!).

Aspire Vrod 200 kit coils

Two coils are included, a 0.15ohm (preinstalled) and 0.3ohm, these both have a slightly unusual mesh design, but you’ll be glad to learn that they are both Kanthal so should be suitable for use by everybody.

The wicking ports are pretty generous for such a relatively small coil, and the wicks are made from linen and organic cotton. These perform well at the stated wattage ranges and produce good flavour, perhaps not quite as good as the Aspire BP coils I’ve used recently, but it’s a pretty close race. These are both direct lung coils so if you’re a MTL user, you may want to skip the full kit and buy the Vrod 200 on its own.

Aspire Vrod 200 kit handcheck

Pros

Solid Vrod 200 mod with a fully featured chipset
Good performance from the Guroo tank and coils
Kanthal coils

Cons

A couple of minor QC flaws (no deal breakers though)
2ml acrylic tank means you’ll be filling this a lot!

Conclusion

Another solid release from U.K. Aspire Vendor, the fully featured board on the Vrod 200 is a welcome sight with many other manufacturers pumping out simplified/cut down chipsets. This should definitely be on your radar. I’m also having a whale of a time with the innovative Guroo tank and as someone who is nickel sensitive, I appreciate the kanthal coils used here.

Many thanks to U.K. Aspire Vendor for sending the Aspire Vrod 200 kit out for review.

Antony Lord

Reviewer at POTV

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I was a twenty a day smoker for 25 years and like most smokers I was always going to quit "next week". Having hit my mid forties and having the usual smokers cough and difficulty with anything more than moderate exercise it was obviously time to give up the cancer sticks. I bought my first e-cigarette in 2013 when they were expensive, difficult to find and quite frankly... crap. I used it for about a week then went back to the roll ups, mark up another failed quit attempt. The fact that I had just changed jobs and was under quite a lot of stress probably didn't help. Move on to 2016 and whilst I was browsing eBay I noticed that one of the suggested items that would occasionally pop up was for a cheap e-cigarette. It looked similar to the one I'd bought 3 years earlier but it was only £5 (about 8 times cheaper than before) so I decided to give it another go on a whim. Once the kit arrived I managed to gradually replace the cigarettes with my new kit over a two month period and got into watching YouTube reviews for newer kit. My cheap and cheerful kit was replaced by a more upmarket affair, and being a noob I made a mistake once it arrived... I put in the supplied direct lung coil, this was of course a complete revelation and I haven't touched a cigarette since. Oh and I no longer spend the first five minutes of every day having a coughing fit either.