Pod System Reviews

Aspire x NoName Zero G kit

Si has coined a new vaping term! Let us introduce the new Aspire Prestige Zero G kit which could be the worlds first "Podank"!

by Si Davies
Jan 8, 2021

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https://www.ukaspirevendor.co.uk/collections/aspire-prestige-zero-g-1500mah-pod-system

RRP £74.99

I nearly turned this down to review, ANOTHER Pod! Thankfully I took it on as Aspire have come up with something rather good, very good in fact!

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit box

Specs

1500mAh internal battery
304 Stainless Steel/Black liquid silicone rubber body
RBA Deck included within
1A Type C Charging facility
5-40W wattage range
0.1 - 3.5Ohm resistance range
Mechanical adjustable wattage
109.5mm x 26.2mm size

The Zero G is a collaboration between Aspire and he who will remain nameless (NoName) to add to the new ‘Prestige’ range, so you should know it has potential as not just any old pod will do to meet the Prestige criteria.

On the face of it, what’s so special about this kit? Well to be honest I wasn’t too sure myself until I actually got my hands on it. The mech style wattage dial at the base stood out, and the general styling looks like it will appeal to old-school vapers. Other than that, you need to dig a little deeper to appreciate what the Zero G has to offer.

Unboxing

I’m one of those people that appreciates a quality box and presentation, and the Zero G comes in a really posh looking package. The outer sleeve is a typical Aspire sleeve but when you remove that you are greeted with a classy looking split box, each side slides off to reveal an even nicer presentation of the contents. I really liked this and it made unboxing rather pleasing and no plastic has been harmed in the production.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit posh packaging

All the extras are packaged into small boxes neatly displayed with embossed gold graphics showing what’s in each box. There’s also an envelope with the manual and some stickers.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit contents

In the box

1x Zero G Pod Device
1x Zero G Replacement pod (2ml TPD)
1x RBA Deck
1x RBA Chamber
1x 510 adapter
2x Replacement RBA Positive Pin
1x 0.65Ohm AVP Pro Mesh Coil
1x 1.15Ohm AVP Pro Coil
1x Coil Removal Tool
1x Screwdriver
1x USB Type-C Cable
1x Instruction Manual
1x Replacement set of O-Rings

Straight away you see there are quite a few bits n bobs included, but the main thing that grabbed my attention was the INCLUDED RBA kit – this was the point I started to get very interested in this kit.

The optional MTL 510 drip tip was very welcome but as soon as I spotted the little airflow pins, my interest really peaked. These were for the RBA and held the promise that this could be something special.

First Impressions

There’s no getting away from how good my first impressions were upon opening the package, but there were a couple of niggles. First one is personal taste, the urine coloured tank and matching drip tip. Also I wasn’t impressed with the lack of a spare tank section, this could be a real problem to its lifespan, I would have been far happier with an extra frosted tank and drip tip option.

Other than that, I found the whole thing really interesting as I investigated all the bits and twiddled with the wattage ring. There are a lot of details you start to notice and I was impressed with the minimalistic design of the pod and RBA.

I was a little unsure about the 26mm diameter at first but after handling it and using it for a while, I actually like it compared to my 22mm stick mods. Styling wise, they have done a great job in designing what is essentially a cylinder. The silicone grip pieces look and feel really good, the teardrop fire bar is really well done though I didn’t like the LED position inside the fire bar.

The pod design lends itself more towards traditional tanks when mounted, it doesn’t look like a pod at all. Throughout setting up and using the Zero G, I just couldn’t get used to seeing it as a pod (in a good way). It mounts like a pod with its magnetic connection, but here’s the strange part, the pod can rotate on the magnets into three positions. They make no difference but it rotates far too easily that I felt the ‘pod’ would easily fall off and immediately saw it as a con, BUT in usage this was never an issue which surprised me and, like a saddo, I enjoyed tinkering with it between vapes.

"Podank"
Yup I’m gonna go with that, you have pod/mods, now there’s pod/tanks, "Podank" rolls off the tongue better – you heard it here first!

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit pod close up

The standard pod is superbly simplistic and cleverly designed. Obviously I didn’t need to strip it down to use, but I wanted to see how many components it had.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit pod tank parts

The TPD version has a silicone bung pressed into the tank section. This comes out with a little force, and naturally you MUST insert this back in to abide with the Tobacco Police Dept (TPD) or risk 30 years in prison!

There is a top ring which is purely cosmetic and screws over the tank section, a nice touch as without it the whole pod looks a right pig. The drip tip is a standard 510 so you can use your own if you prefer. The magnetic base has a silicone bung for filling it up. Fitting a new coil is simple enough as it’s a press fit (plug-n-play), and changing coils is faff free though it might be a fingernail breaker as it fits in pretty tight.

RBA option

This is where the pod become a "Podank" (get used to it), it all strips down and assembles like a normal RTA and only the base differs.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit RBA close up

Aspire include a 510 threaded adaptor which screws into the base and can then be used on a 510 connection mod or building platform. The chimney section unscrews to reveal the small build deck. At this point I felt it was more suited to MTL builds as it’s quite small, perhaps you can build sub ohm RDL but I was more keen to try a MTL build.

I chose the medium airflow screw which was already fitted by default, fortunately you can easily change this afterwards as it screws in for underneath which is a pro.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit rba build

I threw in a simple KA1 round wire build in, 1.2Ω, 2.5mm inside diameter, but it looks like a 3mm would fit. I’m not a fan of the screw clamping method, but this one proved easy to use and had no issues with the leads springing out as I tightened them up. Care is needed to trim the legs as there’s not much room between the chimney.

Wicking was surprisingly forgiving. I used Muji cotton and roughly judged how long to cut the legs by folding over to the wicking ports. Mine were a touch longer than I usually fit but I wanted to see if it still wicked. Tuck the legs into the wicking ports and ensure you don’t pack them in too tight, 2.5mm diameter needed a little thinning out and 3mm would certainly need more thinning, perhaps a snip off the corner too, but for my build it was fine.

Prime your coil by applying e-liquid onto the coil and pulsing at low power until the cotton has fully saturated, then screw the chimney back on and then screw the tank section on. The way I always assemble threaded parts is to screw in the opposite direction (lightly) until it clicks into the thread, it should then screw on easily without cross threading.

One thing to point out is there is only one plastic tank section which is threaded. Wear and tear or accidental cross threading will make the whole kit useless. Once that plastic piece is knackered, you can’t use the mod or pod, and Aspire really should have included a spare for this kit.

Filling it up was a slight pain at first as it was a little tricky to see what was going on, I found it best to fill at a 45 degree angle, I soon got used to this and it’s relatively mess free.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit filling

Operation

5 x Fire = Turns device On/Off. (LED flashes)
Rotate base dial = Increase/Decrease wattage.
Press and hold Fire to …. erm vape. (LED lights up)

Yep, that’s the lot! (Thank god for the manual).

Battery and Charging

The internal 1500mAh battery is a decent enough size but considering its size, I would have preferred a higher capacity. I’m guessing it has a Li-Ion 18340 cell judging by the body size. A better option would be a slightly taller mod with an 18650 option. Despite it being USB-C, it only charges at 1 amp, though this wasn’t much of an issue as it charged in a reasonable amount of time.

I’m probably being too picky as I’m quite happy with the Zero G for MTL vaping, but RDL vapers might not be as satisfied.

Using either the 1.15Ω pod or a 1.2Ω coil in the RBA around 10 watts, I found the battery lasted me well over a day of regular use. The 0.65Ω at 20-25 watts obviously lasted around half a day which wasn’t ideal as you can’t simply lob another battery in, this is one kit where you need a power-bank for top up charging.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit assembled

Ergonomics

The Zero G is a nice size and 26mm feels more natural in the hand than some of the thinner pen mods/pods I own. The silicone pad is ideal and doesn’t require as much grip as a smoothed off cylinder mod. My only niggle would be that I often found myself losing the fire button and having to fumble around to find it, this wasn’t a constant gripe and I got used to it.

Weight wise, in zero gravity it was incredibly light! Back on Earth, it feels weighty but not heavy if that makes any sense. I really liked the weight and it all felt sturdy and rugged.

The wattage adjustment dial felt tactile to rotate with just the right amount of resistance to make accidental adjustment very unlikely. There’s something quite satisfying about a physical adjustment dial and it all feels very mechanical, only the LED gives it away as a safety featured mod.

Despite my earlier reservations, I found the "Podank" stayed in place perfectly, though I did find myself rotating it a lot (I lost my fidget spinner), and it felt quite therapeutic as you rotate against the magnet polarity.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit connection

Performance

If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then I scoffed the Zero G like a tramp on chips. It performs so damn well in each style, MTL and RDL pod coils give plenty of flavour and keep up wicking when chain vaping. It's the first time I’ve tried the AVP Pro coils, and I’m really impressed with them. Considering I was mostly interested in the Podank RBA, I found it a bit of a wrench changing over to it. I wish I had an extra pod to swap over when I feel like it.

Thankfully the RBA was also spot on for me, instant, smooth and flavourful. It reminded me of high end tanks and most importantly, it was nothing like those other pod RBAs as it really vaped like a MTL RTA. The whole vape experience came together and ‘pod’ was the furthest thing from my mind, I simply had an awesome RTA on top of a cracking mech style tube mod. I don’t care that the tank doesn’t screw on and the mod doesn’t take other attys, they belong together, end of.

Airflow

I decided to cover airflow separately as it’s quite varied. In pure pod mode, the airflow is only adjustable via the airflow ring, whereas the "Podank" also has an interchangeable airflow screw resulting in quite a different vape.

RDL in pod configuration is sooooo good, the airflow ring has three air intakes and the adjustment is tight and effective. Fully open was pretty much my sweet spot for RDL but too tight for a full DL draw. Tweaking the power down and closing the airflow off a little gave me a satisfying looser MTL if that suits your preference.

MTL in pod configuration impressed me just as much even though I expected it to leak air from the side of the pod. Thankfully the seal was great so the airflow ring performed perfectly. I closed it off to around 1mm as I prefer a rollup style tighter draw. You can go a touch tighter closing it off fully, but that was a cheek puller draw. I’m really impressed that Aspire and Whathisface nailed the airflow.

"Podank" configuration was a little different, the main airflow control is in the interchangeable airflow pin which can be swapped easily without stripping the "podank" as it is screwed in from the base. There are three sizes which pretty much cover RDL, loose MTL to tight MTL. The airflow ring isn’t as effective as air gets in from around the edge of the pod and the battery section, it doesn’t seal as well as the pod base for some reason, and there is a gap so choosing the right pin is key. I preferred the smallest pin and am more than happy with the tight MTL draw that gives me.

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit all angles

Conclusion

The ‘pod’ title could put a lot of anti-podders off this superb kit but I think that would be a shame as the Zero G is much more than just another f*****g pod. I can’t quite bring myself to classing it as a pod, the "podank" is pretty much a superb MTL RTA with a magnetic connection into a bespoke mod.

I’m confident enough to say that if you enjoy MTL RTAs and don’t like pods, I still think you will really enjoy the Zero G as a stock coil kit and RTA kit. The tank and mod belong together and create a perfect partnership, I very much doubt anyone will say “what’s that pod in your hand?”.

Could they have made it a full 510 connection mod and tank? Sure but this way is much more convenient as a kit that should stay together (for the kids).

Full DL users won’t find much use with this kit as the airflow is for RDL to MTL.

Pros

Versitile
Faux mechanical style power dial
High end style RBA
Superb airflow options
Is it a pod? Is it a Mod/Tank – call it both (or a Podank)
AVP Pro coils
Smart design and engineering
Ideal for both RDL and MTL

Cons

Oi! Aspire – where’s the spare tank?
USB-C but 1A charging

Final thoughts

Apire have excelled with this collaboration and it is a fine addition to the Prestige range. As a MTL fan, I’m especially pleased with this kit for both the stock coil and superb RBA option with a high end look and feel but at a reasonable price. Many thanks to UK Aspire Vendor for sending this in for review.

When is a pod not a pod? When it’s an Aspire Zero G.

Score: 8.5/10 – Best MTL/RDL "Podank" out there.
(9/10 if it had a spare pod, so it’s best to buy a spare pod/tank assembly for it).

Aspire Prestige Zero G Kit flash

Si Davies

Reviewer at POTV

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My 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!