Hello folks! I've got an exciting review for you today. For those of you who keep up with my reviews, you know I'm a 21700 battery mod freak, lol. Vaporesso recently released the Armour Max and Armour S which are both 21700 devices, and Sourcemore was generous enough to send out the full Armour Max kit for me to test out. The Armour Max (dual 21700) and Armour S (single 21700) are a few of the newer, if not the newest, non-pod external battery devices to be released on the market in some time. The Armour Max kit includes the new iTank 2 which is very much a rehash of the original iTank, but with a different and improved way of accessing the refill port. You can expect the same great flavor output with the same GTi coils and the same massive 8mL tank they passed onto the new iTank 2. The Armour Max mod holds two 21700 external batteries and has much of its exterior covered in TPU to enhance fall protection (thus the name of the mod). This device is not however IP-rated (Ingress Protection) and is not advertised as such, so no vaping in the shower and no burying this in the sand! There are a few new innovative features on this great device, but also some things I think Vaporesso missed the mark on. We'll get into that further below.
I want to thank Sourcemore for providing the Vaporesso Armour Kit for this review. As always, this critique will be conducted in a fair and honest manner. All opinions stated here are my own.
I encourage you to visit Sourcemore and Vaporesso for a more well-rounded look at the device with the available colors, specs, and package contents.
(photos can be clicked on for better viewing)
⇒ TEST RESULTS & OBSERVATIONS ⇐
Intro:
The Vaporesso Armour Max box is actually quite big. Maybe it's the fact that I've been handling pod devices and disposables so much recently, that a full kit just feels extra big to me, I don't know - but this package is certainly not small. This should be a decent heads up for you that the fully assembled kit, namely the mod, is quite chonky and very much the opposite of a small pod device - I love it!
The package contents includes everything you'd want in a full kit which includes, the Armour Max mod, iTank 2 (with a pre-installed coil and rubber tank protector), spare 0.4Ω GTi coil, spare straight glass, USB Type-C charging cable, 2x 18650 battery adapters, and all the paperwork you love to read.
iTank 2:
The iTank disassembles quite easily for cleaning. The one thing you should be extra careful of is if you choose to remove the glass from the chamber housing, on the bottom of the chamber housing there are double o-rings (seen on the left component, above) that can be a bit tight when pulling it through the bottom and top portion of the glass where it tapers down. Make sure you're holding onto the glass firmly so that it doesn't pop out of your hand when you do manage to pull it off.
The rubber tank protector seen here can be finagled off of the tank, it just takes a bit of wiggling and prying. I chose to take it off because I think the kit looks better that way, but if you're accident prone, you might want to reconsider doing that.
The airflow control (AFC) ring is adjusted on the base cap. A quarter turn clockwise will fully close it. While fully open, I would consider the airflow to more or less be an open DL (direct-lung draw). There's a slight resistance, but certainly not enough to be considered an RDL (restricted direct-lung draw). If you want a more flavorful vape, consider closing the airflow a bit.
As I'd mentioned above, the iTank 2 is very much the same tank as the original iTank, but instead of sliding the top to the side which seemed to confuse a lot of people, they spring-loaded the top cap which is now flips open by button activation. The spring that actuates the top cap is fairly aggressive, so make sure your finger or knuckle isn't lined up with the back side of the release button when pressing it.
The 810 drip tip has two o-rings on it, and there are none inside of the top cap. Keep this in mind if you're thinking about using your own 810 drip tip or 510 drip tip adapter.
There are no guides or slots that require the coil to go in or be positioned in a certain way. The coil simply drops in like you see it, give it a firm push, and the bottom cap when screwing it on will make certain it's making the proper connection. On the inside of the base cap, there are 3 tiny flat-top prongs positioned in a triangular fashion. These are positioned so that when you screw the base cap on, these will press on the bottom of the coil.
The 0.2Ω coil will come pre-installed in the tank. The recommended wattage is 60-75W, but I generally vape a bit under the recommended wattage for a few reasons. The first being, I like a cooler vape. The higher the wattage, the hotter the vape. The second reason is that I've noticed coils generally last much longer when they're vaped at a cooler setting. For the 0.2Ω coil, I believe I vaped it at around 50-55W
The spare coil that comes with the kit is 0.4Ω and is recommended at 50-60W. Again, I have the mod set at 35-40W and it's vaping fantastically.
Armour Max Mod:
The Armour Max mod is pretty beefy and has quite a bit of weight to it when it's loaded with batteries. I would not consider this a comfortable pocket item, but no dual 21700 mod really is. In hand, it's comfy because the edges are tapered down and rounded, but make no mistake - it's girthy. If you're a previous owner of a dual 21700 mod, this should come as no surprise to you.
Most of the exterior is covered in TPU which is a softer plastic and acts almost like a hard rubber. It's more or less all of the areas you see covered in black. This is what provides the additional drop protection which to me is more important that an IP-rating. IP-ratings are nice, but I'd say by and large, the majority of the mods we break are from drops which cause internal and external damage that either effect the mod cosmetically or renders the device unusable. The Armour Max is certainly not impervious to these outcomes, but the TPU should do a nice job of helping to prevent them.
The buttons are soft, yet clicky, and sit flush with the TPU on the front of the mod to allow the TPU to maintain the protective qualities it offers. This should aid in helping any drops from harming the buttons and their functionality.
In the top two pictures above, I noted two features that are fairly innovative. Many of the newer devices we've seen in the last year or so have been given an added physical switch that either cuts the circuit to the battery, or shuts the chip off. Vaporesso chose to add a physical locking mechanism, but it locks the firing button from firing instead. When the firing button is slid up, like you see in the picture, it cannot be fired. It's kind of difficult to see, but there's a closed lock symbol just below the firing button that lets you it's locked. When the firing button is slid down, it can then be activated, and this is denoted by the open lock symbol above the firing button.
The second innovative feature is the push-button battery hatch release located on the back side of the mod just below the vertical VAPORESSO logo. We've seen slide-switch battery hatch releases numerous times before, but they've always been located on the battery hatch. This has always been rather counterintuitive because you have to push the battery hatch in to apply enough pressure to slide the switch to unlatch it, but you can't alleviate that pressure because the switch will slide back. So essentially, you're holding the battery cover in, but also want it to open at the same time. The design Vaporesso has chosen here, allows you to release the latch that's holding the battery hatch closed, without having to apply pressure to the battery hatch itself. The button requires a decent amount of pressure to release the latch, but that's more of a positive than a negative. You certainly don't want to door to be opened too easily by accidentally pressing it or dropping the device and having the batteries auto-eject. In my opinion, this was thought out pretty well.
Dual 18650's (use provided adapters), 20700's, or 21700's all work in the Armour Max, and I would suggest batteries that are verified to be 25A CDR or above. Consult the "Battery Tests" found in Mooch's blog here, if you are unsure what batteries to buy or how accurate the CDR values are for the batteries you have. Molicel P26A's/P28A's (18650) and P42A's/P45B's (21700) are most often your best bet for high wattage devices.
The USB Type-C port charges at 1.7-1.8A which is a happy medium. 3.0A charging capabilities can cause the device and batteries to get very hot, and a 1.0A charge is quite slow. This Axon chip does support pass-through vaping.
The UI:
The Axon chip has been changed from previous iterations in terms of how the UI is laid out. To me, they left out some valuable information in the display, but the chip itself functions pretty much like any previous Vaporesso mod and is easy to navigate and understand. Therefore, I'm not going to go too in-depth with every function, but I will provide you with the basics.
The wattage ranges from 5 to 220W in single watt increments and does not round-robin. The scroll speed is fast, but not so fast that it's impossible to make 5 or 10W changes. Some mods accelerate the scroll speed so fast that you're forced to continuously single press to make these finer adjustments, and single presses are sometimes in 0.1W increments. That can be very cumbersome and annoying, and if you have a mod that does this, you know what I'm talking about. Vaporesso did a great job of finding a satisfactory point with all of these aspects in mind.
Shortcut key combos are as follows:
> Down + Fire Button (Hold): Enables/disables Smart Mode
> Down + Up (Hold): Locks Down and Up buttons
> Down + Up + Fire Button (Hold): Shows the chip version
> Up + Fire Button (Hold while in a TC Mode): Allows wattage adjustment up to 80W
> Down + Fire Button (Hold while in TC Mode): Locks coil resistance
> Fire Button Pressed 5x: Turns mod on/off
> Fire Button Pressed 3x: Access to menu options
Menu Options are as follows:
> SETTINGS: Allows various adjustments to Smart Mode (on/off), TCR Lock, Puff Counter, Color Theme, Brightness, and other minor things.
> F(t): Rapidly oscillates the wattage to activate different flavor notes
> PULSE: Slightly slower oscillation in wattage to activate different flavor notes
> ECO MODE: Constant wattage at mod setting
> TC-SS MODE: Temp. Control for Stainless Steel
> TC-NI MODE: Temp. Control for Nickel
> TC-TI MODE: Temp. Control for Titanium
(TCR values for each TC mode are predefined and unable to be adjusted)
Like most Vaporesso mods, the Axon chip does apparently have a step-up converter, aka a "boost" even though there's no mention of it the specs which I think is Vaporesso doing themselves a disservice. If you're selling a car with a turbo in it, wouldn't you advertise the turbo? With that being said, the voltage cap is only 9V, which isn't much higher than the stock 8.4V provided with a fully charged set of batteries. However, what this does do, is allow constant voltage for when each of the batteries are reaching their cutoff voltage at 3.3V, enabling you to maintain a voltage higher than 6.6V for high resistance builds. This is sometimes necessary for multi-coil rebuildable RTAs, RDTAs, and RDAs, and is a nice touch even for a dual battery mod.
The Axon chip does a fairly good job of drawing power down evenly with married batteries. Charging the batteries inside the mod also charge fairly evenly, although I'll always recommend removing the batteries and using an external charger.
Many people consider the F(t) and Pulse Modes to be rather hoaky, but if you have sensitive taste buds, you can and will notice a slight difference in the vapes. This is more prevalent in juices that have a combination of different flavor types such as savory desserts or custards, fruits, tobaccos, and/or menthols.
Let me know in the comments if you can tell a difference while using these firing modes.
There are a few misses with the latest iteration of the Axon chip that I think are important. First off, the battery indicators shown above are quite a bit off. While charging (top left), the batteries show a lower charge percentage than when it's not plugged in (top right). This isn't a huge irk, but I just wish there was a bit more consistency here. Believing you have a 75% charge when in actuality, you're at or below 60% can make the difference between a full day of vaping, and being forced to recharge it at some point for heavy vapers. An argument can be made that yes, you're in the 3/4 percentile block, but I'd rather the mod tell me what I'm guaranteed in battery life, than overstating what I have left.
I also ran into an issue when I first got the kit up and running. The mod would not detect the GTi coil in the iTank 2. I unscrewed the tank and rescrewed it in several times and the resistance still read 9.99Ω which means no coil reading. I pulled the coil out and twisted it with a full tank of juice causing a bit of a juice mess, and still no coil reading. I put a few different tanks on the Armour Max and their coils read just fine. I unscrewed and rescrewed in the base cap thinking it wasn't making a solid connection with the coil - still nothing. Then I went into the UI and turned the Smart Mode on to see if it would auto-detect and voila, that was it. The mod comes with the Smart Mode disabled, which to me is usually a good thing. Smart Mode often overestimates the wattage for the coil, and this can lead to a very hot vape and premature coil expiration. In this case, it was needed to initially read the coil. So, to make a long story short, turn the Smart Mode on if you're having difficulties with the mod getting a resistance reading from the coil.
The UI does not have a readout for voltage or amps. I've given Lost Vape a lot of crap for doing this in most of their newer devices, with the exception of the Centaurus M200 which I'd highly recommend if you're looking for a dual 18650 mod (my review on it can be found here). Without a voltage or amp readout, you don't know how the mod is behaving. Because of this, I cannot verify its performance beyond answering the question, do I think it's doing the job? For the most part I would say yes for the 0.2Ω and 0.4Ω coils that come with the iTank 2, but what about other atomizers? Would you be comfortable driving a car that had no gauges other than a speedometer? Based on my research online, apparently the Armour Max has an amp cap at around 39A and a voltage cap at around 9V. I cannot verify this beyond the sources from which I pulled the information, but based on my previous experiences with the Axon chip, this is likely accurate.
Lastly, while the down and up buttons seem to be in the correct orientation when looking at the device, it's a bit counterintuitive when making adjustments on the mod. Generally speaking, the left button is usually a left-pointing arrow and the right button a right-pointing arrow. When navigating vertical menus, left usually brings you up in the menu, and right usually brings you down in the menu. It is indeed the opposite on the Armour Max with the down arrow on the left and the up arrow on the right. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's only a minor thing I noticed. Functionally, the UI is very easy to understand and operate.
⇒ CONCLUSION ⇐
While I may have gone quite a bit in-depth with what I felt was a miss in the mod, do not mistaken this for a mediocre or bad mod. The points I made above do very little in detracting from the overall appeal of the Vaporesso Armour Max, and there's much more to like about it than to dislike; especially as a full kit with the iTank 2. The main appeal is obviously the ruggedness which is always a huge bonus for mods that are otherwise quite fragile. This becomes even more vital in newer devices that continue to use aluminum-alloys and plastics in their frames and assemblies. If I had to choose the greatest of three evils to protect against (dust ingress, water ingress, or fall protection), I would certainly choose fall protection every time.
Overall, if you're in search of an affordable dual 21700 capable mod, the Armour Max is a great option. Even more so as a kit, because the iTank 2 is an absolute win all around.
++ Pros ++
> iTank 2 delivers same or better expectations than the OG iTank
> Protective rubber sleeve for the iTank 2 and OG iTank
> Uses same great GTi coils
> Very nice hand-feel considering its size
> TPU offers great fall protection
> Capable dual 21700 external batteries
> Innovative battery hatch release
> Innovative physical locking firing button
> Easy UI to understand and operate
> Boosted chip (from what I've read)
> Type-C charging at 1.7-1.8A (don't recommend doing, but capable)
- - Cons - -
> Coil resistance wouldn't read initially without Smart Mode
+- Considerations -+
> It's beefy
> Down and up buttons are a bit counterintuitive
> Missing voltage and amp readouts in UI
> Not IP-rated
OVERALL RATING (as a kit):
Solid 9.0
And that's all I got for you! You can find the full Vaporesso Armour Max Kit at Sourcemore for $53.69 using code "VAMK", or the Armour Max Mod for $40.19 using code "VAMM" at checkout. If you're a bronze member, you should get an even lower price. Remember to log in to see the lowest prices available for their products.
Again, I want to thank Sourcemore for providing me this kit for review. I hope this was an informative read for you. If there are any questions, feel free to leave a comment or PM me if the thread closes. Stay tuned for more reviews I'll be punching out shortly. Please enjoy the holiday season and...
Happy vape hoarding!
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