Veiik Cracker open pod system review
Heaven Gifts have sent over Veiiks latest entry into the starter kit market, the Cracker open pod system. This comes in a small, well presented box with a picture of the Cracker pod system on the front, a description and specifications on the back and various social media links around the sides. Once you open the box, you are presented with the cracker mod with one preinstalled pod in a plastic tray, and under this you will find a smaller box containing a lanyard, micro usb charging cable, spare pod and an instruction manual.
Specifications
- 54 x 45 x 13.2 mm
- Zinc alloy construction
- 500mah battery with 5volt/1amp charging
- 8 to 15 watt output
- 2ml pod with 1.2 Ohm ceramic coil
First impressions
One thing that strikes you immediately with the Veiik Cracker is just how compact it is, easily palmable in your hand yet retaining a solid, durable feel thanks to its zinc alloy chassis construction. Sadly it’s also a fingerprint magnet due to the high gloss finish, especially in the “glass” edition sent over for review. I also had to resort to using a display stand for photos thanks to its rounded sides which increase comfort, with no sharp edges in sight, but this meant it stubbornly refused to stand upright for its mugshots.
On the bottom there’s a micro USB port for charging, on the front below the pod there’s an led indicator and just above this is the small air inlet for your pod. Finally up top there’s a point to attach the supplied lanyard if that’s your thing.
The pod itself occupies one corner of the kit and is held in place with two surprisingly strong magnets. I’ve had no issues with it falling out in pockets etc. If you shake the Cracker mod, the pod stays firmly in place and in fact you can grab the whole kit by the pod and it still requires quite a vigorous shake before the mod will fly off into the distance. Filling is done via the hidden bung on the back of the pod. The filling port is a decent size, but you’ll want to fill slowly to prevent an airlock sending juice everywhere and Veiik recommend leaving the pod to sit for at least three minutes after the initial fill to allow the coil to fully saturate. The mouthpiece forms a gentle curve on one corner of the device once installed and you vape with the device from this corner position, this is very comfortable in use and quickly becomes second nature. Whilst this is an open pod system, which means you can choose your own eliquids, the coil is integrated into the pod so the whole capsule is thrown away once the coil is past its best, and a big thumbs up to Veiik for supplying two pods in the pack, which is something you don’t always see in these budget friendly starter kits nowadays.
In use
The Cracker is a draw activated pod system so no complicated buttons or menu systems in sight here to confuse any new vapers, simply inhale to activate. Veiik claim a “unique u-shaped airflow” for the cracker and the draw definitely leans more towards mouth to lung, but it’s not so tight that it feels like you’re sucking a golf ball through a straw. I personally found the draw to be quite pleasant with decent flavour for this type of pod system. I even got one of the new vapers at work, who’s been vaping less than two weeks, to give it a try and she loved the draw and the compact design of the Cracker. Unfortunately she didn’t like my choice of peppermint flavored eliquid as she doesn’t like minty/menthol vapes and prefers fruity flavours instead.
The Cracker pod uses the Veiik “alpha coil” 1.2 Ohm ceramic coil system in combination with their V2 micro chip with auto temperature control (TC) and power saving. I must assume that the alpha coil therefore uses a temperature control capable wire (stainless steel, nickel, titanium) but can find no mention of what wire type is used which is a minus point. Of course this meant I had to test this claim by vaping a pod dry and I concluded that it doesn’t have true TC as I was most definitely able to get a nasty burnt hit from the coil. I rather suspect that when Veiik say “TC and power saving” what they actually mean is “preheat punch”.
The led indicator on the bottom corner lights up when you inhale to show your battery life with three colours, white >50%, blue 30 to 50%, and red <10%. You don’t get much vape time once it hits that red level though so you’d better start looking for a charge point! Veiik claim 1 amp charging on the Cracker but in my tests it never went above 0.4amps, taking about an hour and twenty minutes to fully charge from flat with a recorded 430 mAh, slightly short of the claimed 500 mAh capacity. It does support vape while charging, but you’ll need to use a longer cable than the one supplied in the box to take advantage of that feature.
Pros
- Compact design
- 2 pods supplied in kit
- Decent flavour from pods
Cons
- Fairly slow charging
- Wire type not mentioned, not true TC
Conclusion
The Veiik Cracker open pod system isn’t really my cup of tea but should appeal to new vapers or those looking to quit smoking. With its simple draw activation and mouth to lung experience coupled with its compact design, it makes a perfect kit for those just starting out. In fact once this review is done, it's going to my impromptu tester at work as I’m sure she’ll love it. Battery life proved to be on par with similar kits with decent flavour from the pods which should be readily available as well.
Many thanks to Heaven Gifts for sending the Veiik Cracker open pod kit out for review, and don’t forget the “apotv10” discount code when ordering.
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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