Freemax Maxpod
Freemax set out to make a great starter kit with the Maxpod - mission accomplished!
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by Antony Lord
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Freemax Maxpod
I’ve used several Freemax kits in the past and have always been fairly impressed by them, so when they asked if I’d care to take a look at their new Freemax Maxpod kit, I was more than happy to do so.
Freemax have been innovators in the vape arena for a long time with the introduction of the first mesh sub ohm coil and new wicking materials with the Fireluke tank all the way back in 2017, which I’m sure we can all agree has massively influenced the direction the market has taken ever since. They haven’t just been sitting quietly on their laurels since then though, and their technicians have been been quietly beavering away in the background for the last three years trying to bring the same experience to the starter pod segment with the following aims:
“We are trying to find a balance of flavor, vapor, throat hit, nicotine intake, coil life and most importantly, compatible eliquid options. - Freemax”
So it’s time to get stuck in and see if they achieved all they set out to do.
The kit comes in a fairly small box with a photo of the Maxpod in your chosen colour on the front, specifications and contents list plus a scratch ‘n’ sniff authentication code on the back, and Freemax branding on the sides. Sliding the outer cover off, you are presented with the Maxpod battery plus two blister packs containing the pod with a preinstalled 1.0Ω coil and a separate 1.5Ω coil. Underneath this you will find a smaller box with all the usual paperwork, a micro usb cable and a lanyard.
My kit came in a rather eye-catching canary yellow colour, but it’s also available in red, blue, green, silver and black, so there should be one to suit your tastes and, checking on the Maxpod page, it’s a bit of looker whichever colour you go for.
The Maxpod battery is your typical stick style device but measuring in at 80mm tall, 22mm wide, and 14mm thick and weighing 56grams, it’s a little chunkier than I was expecting but the added weight and thickness actually felt comfortable in use. Looking down from the top, you can see where some of this extra bulk comes from with thick zinc alloy construction which feels like it’s been made to last. From here you can also see the contact pins and two magnets to hold the pod in place, along with the draw activation sensor. The sides have a slight brushed metal finish with a small (approx. 1mm) air inlet on each side and the usb charging port on one side. This frames the bright front and back panels nicely with “Freemax” branding on one side and “Maxpod” on the other along with a led indicator. The led is used for the usual error messages and battery life indicator (white > 71%, blue 31 to 70%, red <30%). You’ll want to find a charger once it goes red though as you won’t get many more puffs once you’ve hit this level.
The Maxpod battery has a 550mAh internal battery with a constant 3.3 volt, output giving 11W for the 1.0Ω coil and 8W for the 1.5Ω coil which gives an estimated 200 puff per charge. Performance seemed fairly consistent thanks to this with no obvious drop off in performance as the battery drained.
The Maxpod charges at 0.73amps and the indicator led will turn red whilst charging. However, in my tests this turned off after 40 minutes with 475mAh recorded but my test rig still showed a 0.4amp draw at this point and charging didn’t stop until 55 minutes with 512mAh total recorded. Vape whilst charging isn’t supported, but with a sub one hour charge time this shouldn’t be an issue.
The Maxpod battery also has all the safety features you would expect in a modern kit and even passed the blow test (for those of you new to the vape scene many older draw activation systems would auto fire if you blew into them).
The pod and coils both come in blister packs. The pod already has a 1.0Ω mesh coil preinstalled and there’s a separate 1.5Ω mesh coil supplied in the kit. The pod is your standard PCTG construction with coils press fit from the bottom and a fill bung on the side. Filling can be a little fiddly, as with most similar setups it can take awhile for elquid to to move from one side of the coil to the other, but take your time and you’ll soon get the hang of it. With the high ohm/low power, you won’t be ploughing through eliqiud either so this isn’t something you’ll be doing more than once or twice a day anyway. The pod is held in place with two powerful magnets, and there’s a satisfying snap as they pull into place in the battery housing. It easily passed the shake test as well so you shouldn’t have any concerns about losing the pod or it coming loose in pockets. One downside of this arrangement is that you can't directly see how much eliquid is left, but if you tip the Maxpod on its side then you can see through the drip tip.
Both coils are clearly geared more towards mouth to lung vaping with a fairly narrow bore and a medium tight draw in use. They both feature NS Mesh Coil technology inspired by the Fireluke and M Pro product line, with SaltCoilTech 2.0 with honeycomb mesh and flax/organic Cotton. The cotton/flax ratio is different for each coil, 66.66% flax and 33.34% cotton for the 1.0Ω coil, and 44.44% flax and 55.56% cotton for the 1.5Ω coil, to ensure the broadest eliquid compatibility whilst giving good flavour reproduction across the board. The coils have four surprisingly large 2mm wicking ports, and I found wicking consistent throughout with no surprise dry hits and, more importantly, no flooding or leaking. Flavour was also good, easily matching or exceeding many similar kits. I’ve been particularly fond of the orchid pod kit recently and the Maxpod kept up with that easily, and my 1.0Ω coil is still going strong after a week of fairly heavy use which has surpassed the claimed 5 to 8 refills.
Pros
- Solid construction
- Good flavour from coils
- Fast sub 1 hour charging
Cons
- Pod can be a bit fiddly to fill
- Difficult to see eliquid level
Conclusion
I’ve been enjoying a bit of a mouth to lung vape recently, especially during my time at home in the current covid19 lockdown, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my week with the Freemax Maxpod, with consistent performance and flavour reproduction alongside decent battery life for this style of kit. The mouth to lung draw would also make this a great kit for a new vaper looking to quit cigarettes and I’d have no hesitation recommending this to them.
I thought at this point I’d ask our resident “pod queen” DeeDee to chip in with a few thoughts as this is her area of expertise and I knew she’d also been sent out a kit to review on the forum:
“The Maxpod is 100% a mouth to lung setup and the flavour is VERY good. I would say it’s comparable to the likes of the Caliburn as it has that nice tight draw, but I cant believe I am going to say this.....I prefer the flavour on the Maxpod!
I have not been as lucky with the coils though as both depleted flavour within four days and started to taste a little burnt, but that could be due to the fact I might vape more or the juices are different. As you can see from this review, Antony had no issues with the coils so maybe I was just unlucky.
The Maxpod is a very good kit and I would recommend this both for new starters trying to quit as well as long term MTL users that prefer a tight draw.” @DeeDee
Freemax set out to make a great starter kit with the Maxpod combining all their experience with mesh coils and innovative wicking materials to give a good user experience, and I would call it mission accomplished.
Antony Lord
Reviewer at POTVI 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.
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