Lost Vape Thelema Elite 40 Kit

Lost Vape have been busy lately designing some rather nice looking devices. Antony takes a look at the new Thelema Elite 40 kit which might have an ace up its sleeve

by Antony Lord
Sep 2, 2024

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Lost Vape have been fairly quiet of late, but they’re launching a new series of pod mods based around a standardised core platform and pod system. The first release is the Thelema Elite 40 kit which taken at face value appears to be just another entry in the sea of mouth to lung/restricted direct lung pod mod kits, but Lost Vape have pulled a bit of a blinder and introduced this with an optional RBA pod (the E-Plus RBA) which looks like it could make this quite a flexible little kit.

With this in mind, I asked our good friends over at Sourcemore if they could send these over for review. After using the Thelema Elite 40 and the E-Plus RBA for a few days, I decided it would be best if I split this into two separate reviews so today I’ll mostly be concentrating on how the Thelema Elite 40 performs as a stock coil pod system and then following this up with a more detailed look at the E-Plus RBA which will also work with other upcoming Lost Vape kits.

Specifications

105 x 36 x 18mm
80.6 grams
Internal 1400 mAh battery USB-C charging
5~40 watt output
resistance range 0.3~1.0ohm
3ml (2ml for TPD) pods
Optional E-Plus RBA kit

The Thelema Elite 40 is available in a staggering fourteen colour options, and Sourcemore sent over the “silver blue” variant with a “calf leather” grip. Inside the box you’ll find the Thelema Elite 40, two E-Plus pods, a rather short USB-C charge cable, a lanyard (which I never use, why do companies keep including them?), plus the usual array of paperwork.

The main chassis is zinc-alloy but isn’t too heavy, making it perfect for slipping into a pocket. It looks and feels like an oversized starter pod with its flattened pen style design, and the slightly wider design and leather grip makes it very easy to hold especially with the bold cutouts running down either side of the chassis. The button placement is perfect if you’re right handed as your natural grip will place this directly under your thumb, and it works quite well with a left handed grip as well and I never found myself blocking the airflow in either hand.

Up top there’s a large recess for your pod with two spring loaded contacts, magnets to hold your pod in place, and a relatively large airflow with auto draw system. At the base there’s some venting ports for the battery.

On the front of the Thelema Elite 40, you’ll find an adjustable airflow control along with a bright monochrome screen and a USB-C charging port. Although the screen is small and basic, all the information you need is easy to find at a glance. This is all powered by the quest 2.0 chip with wattage adjustable in 0.5 watt increments up to a maximum 40 watts via an easy to use single button menu system, and it can be used by either pressing the power button or via an auto draw system

The Thelema Elite 40 boasts a 1400mAh internal battery which is quite impressive given its compact form factor. In my charge test, this hit a peak charge rate of 1.356 amps with a final recorded capacity of 1382mAh achieved in 1 hour and fifteen minutes.

The Thelema Elite 40 uses the new E-Plus pod system, and you’ll find a 0.3 and 0.6ohm pod in the kit, a 0.8ohm coil is also available plus an optional E-Plus RBA kit. I feel a better mix here would have been the 0.3ohm pod paired with the 0.8ohm pod to give you a better spread of the airflow options out of the box, having said that the 0.6ohm pod gave a fairly respectable loose mouth to lung draw which was fine by me, and the 0.3ohm pod gave a very nice, restricted lung draw.

The PCTG E-Plus pod has a 3ml capacity for international releases but will obviously be restricted to 2ml here in the U.K. The duck bill design along with the slightly wider pod give this a nice mouth feel, and the lightly smoked pods make it fairly easy to see your e-liquid levels and this has been a completely leak free experience. The fill port is a decent size, but its position means that you will need to remove the pod for filling, and it can get a bit messy if you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing. After using one of the pods, I disassembled it to test the coil and can confirm that it’s magnetic and therefore kanthal, so it’s suitable for those of us with nickel sensitivity issues.

I found that the auto draw system worked flawlessly with the stock coil pods but became a bit temperamental when using the E-Plus RBA so I had to fall back to using the power button for that. The quest 2.0 board will limit the maximum power to suit the coil in use, this is great with the stock coils as it stops you burning them out, and the available power is well matched to the pods, however it can be a limiting factor when using the E-Plus RBA which I’ll cover in more detail in a separate review… a RBA mode unlocking the full 40 watts would be helpful here!

Conclusion

The Lost Vape Thelema Elite 40 is a cracking little pod kit, I had a great time with the stock coil E-Plus pods and would be happy to recommend the kit solely on this basis. For me though, this really shined when combined with the optional E-Plus RBA kit even if the “smart” wattage limitations sometimes got in the way a bit (more on that in a separate review), and it offers a compact alternative to something like a Boro mod that you can throw into your pocket as a daily driver.

Many thanks to Sourcemore for sending the Lost Vape Thelema Elite 40 over for review.

Pros

Compact, versatile stock coil pod system
1400mAh capacity
Optional RBA kit

Cons

Auto draw doesn’t always work well with the RBA
Whilst the power levels are well matched with the stock coils it can be a bit limiting when using the E-Plus RBA kit

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.