Freemax Marvos X 100 Kit
Si is tripping the light fantastic with the Freemax Marvos X 100W Kit
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by Si Davies
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Supplied by Freemax for review
https://www.freemaxvape.com/marvos-x-100W-kit
RRP = $64.99 (just over 60 quid)
What do we have here then? Only a brand spanking new addition to the Marvos range with the MARVOS X 100W Kit and it knows how to make an entrance with its rather flash light show which is even more enchanting than the recent Maxus Solo 100W kit.
Light Reading (Specs)
- Size: 33*31*137mm
- Capacity: 5mL (TPD 2mL)
- Resistance Range: 0.1-3ohm
- Output Wattage: 5-100W
- Output Mode: Power/Smart/VPC/Bypass
- Battery: External Single 18650
- Output Voltage: 0.7-4.2V
- Input Voltage: 3.3-4.2V
- Charger Specification: 5V/2A
Unboxing
One of the best parts of reviewing new kit is the not knowing what to expect, the Marvos X landed on my doorstep without advanced warning so unboxing was an unusual and welcome surprise. Freemax have packaged the Marvos X kit in an efficient open box with an outer sleeve, and the manual provides the top protection. The outer sleeve is quite artistic but generic so your colour choice is shown via a sticker on the one side.
Once open, you’re presented with the full contents in one layer of foam, the kit includes all you need other than a battery and e-liquid. There’s the actual Marvos X mod, the new top-fill pod, two different ohm coils, and a decent length USB-C cable along with the manual, warranty card and battery warning card.
First Impressions and Overview
Grabbing the mod out of the box left quite a good first impression as it felt superb to hold and the leather detailing is rather stunning, the ergonomics are also impressive and it feels very natural to hold. The pod is a mixture of plastic and metal which match the mod quite well but it looks a bit open without a coil or e-liquid, the 2ml version especially.
The Marvos X is a pod mod which means that the mod will only take compatible Freemax pods, meaning you won’t be able to use your own tank on it. On the plus-side, the pod and coils have been specifically designed to work on the mod.
The pod is a magnetic fit which simply pops into the base, the magnets are quite strong and the pod stays in place well. I did notice a little wobble in the fit but I found that rotating the pod a little to find the best magnetic sweet spot avoided this.
Fitting an 18650 battery is done by removing the magnetic leather cover, the simplest way is gripping it from the top edge and levering it open. Once I discovered this, I found it very easy to remove and the strong magnets held it in place really well with absolutely no wobble or movement.
Let There Be Light
The moment you pop a battery in you are greeted with quite a bright halo of colour changing light around the battery, I initially thought it was too bright but there’s a good reason for this which only becomes apparent when you pop the battery cover back on.
Shiny Happy People
The LED lighting not only shines through the front face but also shines around the contour of the battery cover and looks stunning, I have a few colour lighting mods but this one looks the best I’ve seen. Freemax have made sure that the lighting shines fully from top to bottom equally and the default effect is a ‘waterfall’ cascading downwards while colour changing in a smooth animation, obviously I cannot show this in the photos but Freemax’s official site shows it a little, but you only fully appreciate it in person.
Lighten Up Pal
Okay, okay, enough about the lighting for now, the style of the mod is also pretty interesting. The metal alloy body has been well sculpted, rounded off for comfort and with the odd recessed detail here and there. Overall it looks good, lit up or not.
Light Sabre
One thing that struck me was the height, it’s quite tall, and the height of the pod is one of the tallest I’ve seen. This is fine for the proper 5ml version but is a bit odd for a 2ml TPD pod. Obviously this isn’t Freemax’s fault, but I will be buying a 5ml pod for it and the height won’t bother me a bit, I really like how it looks in the hand as it is.
I especially loved the decorative leatherwork, Freemax do mention the combination of ‘ancient and modern’ and it works surprisingly well, I was almost bored of leather as it has been done a bit too much in my opinion, but it is a welcome addition in this case. Compared to Freemax’s MAXUS 100W, it looks more expensive somehow.
Marvos CRC Pod
Freemax have produced an improved pod to go with this kit, the CRC pod, which takes MS mesh coils. It comes with an MS-D mesh coil 0.15ohm and an MS-D mesh coil 0.25ohm, and they are backwards compatible with some of Freemax’s older pods.
The coils are a press fit and really easy to press in or remove without the need of tools, the pod provides full coil and juice visibility with the fully clear plastic tank section.
The main improvement to this pod over others is the handy top-fill mechanism; you need to pull it upwards then slide it open to reveal the fill port. This method makes it perfect for storing in your pocket or bag as the locking method is pretty fool-proof and will stay closed.
Filling it up was a bit of a pain though, mostly due to the TPD 2ml version as the thick plastic tank section prevented your bottle tip from fitting inside, so you needed to be careful squirting the e-liquid through the gap. I suspect that the regular non-TPD version won’t have this problem though.
Light Switch (Controls)
As with most Freemax products, the controls are intuitive and easy to navigate, this passed the ‘RTFM’ test (Read The F**king Manual) as I found no need to refer to the instructions at all and was able to suss out everything intuitively. I did look through the manual afterwards to see if it made sense, and it is well illustrated with clear instructions.
- 5 x Fire = Turns device On/Off
- 3 x Fire = Enters top menu (Up/Down to navigate and Fire to confirm)
- Press & hold Up/Down = Locks/Unlocks adjustment buttons
Menus
- MODE = Selectable power modes:
- SMART = Auto wattage selection
- POWER = Adjustable wattage
- VPC = Variable Power Curve (where you can adjust the preheat)
- BYPASS = Auto Voltage
- SET = Puff counter/LED/Reset options (shedloads of colour options to play around with)
- EXIT = Select this mode when exiting the building :p
I won’t go into the LED controls but there are plenty of them with some very cool options such as TETRIS, but personally I didn’t find any as soothing as the default WATERFALL, but I did have a play around with the brightness and speed of the animation. This menu is part of the fun to play around with and find one that suits you, or for those that hate LED lights in their vape you can turn the LEDs off (but I doubt those users have read this far).
The large screen is bright and very clear, well almost. I’m not a fan of inset text within a block colour as it’s just hard to read, fortunately the main figures aren’t affected, such as wattage, mode and voltage applied. Another niggle is the lack of battery percentage as you just have a battery bar which leaves guesswork.
A nice little touch with the screen is the draw time animation with a fast circular animation during vaping which displays the firing duration time and briefly stays on screen after releasing the fire button so you can check.
Lockdown
I almost forgot, the Marvos X has a physical locking switch at the bottom of the screen, this fully locks the mod including Fire which makes it perfect for storing in your pocket or bag. Along with the locking top-cap, this makes it ideal for those always on the move.
Finally there’s the airflow control ring which is located on the pod housing, it is dual sided and very airy when fully open, Freemax always provide plenty of airflow with their kits, and the Marvos X is no exception. It closes off to a decent RDL draw, and the ring is on stoppers so it’s quite easy to adjust without looking.
Light My Fire (Performance)
There were no surprises here as I’m already a user of these coils and I can tell you they are awesome for flavour and cloud chasers (especially the 0.15ohm), but for those new to these coils, here’s how each one performs:
I could waffle on about the thirteen reasons why these MS-D coils perform so well but Freemax have done it for me:
MS-D Mesh Coil 0.15ohm (60W – 80W)
This coil is the better option for those that like plenty of flavour and high vapour production, this coil punches well above its weight considering its size. The vape quality at 70 watts is superb, you get a warm, flavourful vape with a surprising amount of vapour and it reminds me of the performance of the Mesh Pro dual coil but at lower wattage. It keeps up with chain vaping nicely. This would be my coil of choice for this kit but for a couple of snags; 70 watts with a single 18650 battery means it won’t last a working day, I got around four hours of regular use but noticed the power dropping off towards the end. The other reason is down to the TDP 2ml version as it can be quite thirsty and I found myself forever refilling after 1.5ml
MS-D Mesh Coil 0.25ohm (30W – 50W)
This was a much better option for this kit, 45 Watts was plenty and it still provided a very flavourful and warm vape. Vapour production was still reasonable, but I think flavour is this coils stronger point. Naturally the battery life was much better, and I was getting around five or six hours, the more I used this coil the less I felt I was missing out on the 0.15ohm one, I was simply loving the vape. I’m a flavour chaser, and I was getting tons of it.
If power consumption is an issue for you and you need a longer lasting all day vape kit, then you can always use the MS mesh coil range as they will also fit, I can recommend the 0.35ohm especially as that lasted me the best part of seven hours, however you won’t quite get the quality that the MS-D coils produce.
Moonlighting
Which brings me onto the backwards compatibility of Freemax’s pod range; the Marvos X takes the MARVOS DTL Pod, The MARVOS Glass Pod and the MARVOS RTA Pod, I don’t own a glass pod but the others fit perfectly.
The brucey bonus is that the new MS-D coils will also fit the older devices (though the 0.15ohm will still be a battery gobbler), either way I was pretty chuffed with the swapability options.
I settled into fully testing the 0.25ohm in regular use and giving it some hammer with chain vaping sessions to test the coil life, after 25-30ml of e-liquid, it’s still going strong with no drop off in flavour so far. I don’t normally chain vape all that much so I’m expecting these coils to last a very long time.
Traffic Lights
As for the experience of using the kit; the novelty of the LED light show never wore off but I did find myself turning the brightness down a fair bit (especially in the evening), even as low as 10% brightness it was still visible in day ‘light’, 20% was my happy place (literally as I found it strangely therapeutic). The mod was comfortable to use, the firing speed was instant (light-speed as it were), and at 45 watts, the mod never got warm and I didn’t feel I was thrashing the battery.
Recharging was a mixed bag. It charges at 5V/2A which is a big plus, but the charging screen was too basic with only a battery bar on screen with no percentage or time. The charging time will depend on which 18650 you use, but I did find the 2 Amp charging made it convenient to top-up charge when the opportunity arose.
Conclusion
The Marvos X was just a joy to use from start to finish even with the TPD niggles. Yes, the LED light-show is gimmicky but that’s a good thing for those like myself that enjoy LEDs and electronics, the novelty didn’t wear thin for me and toning down the brightness made it especially pleasing during use.
That aside; it was the vape quality that rounded off this bundle to become one of my favourite 2022 releases, the new MS-D coils deliver such good flavour and last well to make it vape as good as it looks.
Ignoring the lighting (which you can turn off if you choose), the mod’s styling is nice and classy with some very nice leatherwork and metalwork. The metal top on the pod makes it look less ‘pod-like’ though I would recommend trying to get hold of a 5ml version.
High’lights’ (Pros)
- MS-D Mesh coils are superb
- Flavour
- Pleasing LED light-shows
- Stylish leatherwork
- Top-fill pod
- Beginner friendly interface
- Physical locking switch
- Build quality
- Ergonomics
- Backwards pod/coil compatibility
Dimmers (Cons)
- 2ml TPD Pod filling can be messy
- Limited battery info
The couple of cons are far from deal-breakers and you just get used to them rather than them continuing to niggle you.
Moonlight Shadow (Final Thoughts)
The Marvos X 100W pod/mod kit is one of my favourite pod/mods of 2022. The gimmicky LED lighting is just my cup of tea and looks even better than the MAUS 100W in my opinion, and with the vape quality being this good and assuming you like the looks, then you can’t really go wrong buying this kit.
Score: 8.8/10 – De-light-ful
Si Davies
Reviewer at POTVMy background is Engineering and Professional Photography. Mostly from POTV users knowledge I learned so much about pretty much all styles of vaping and equipment, Cloud Chasing, Squonking, Mouth To Lung, Direct To Lung, Pods, Mechs, Rebuild-able tanks and atomisers etc, and have experience with many many devices and atomisers, it's become a hobby and enjoy trying out the latest gear. I like to think my reviews are plain speaking and informative without getting too technical, if I have to resort to reading the manual then I don't consider it user friendly!
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