Simon G
Olympian
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2016
- Messages
- 26,312
I was sent this kit free of charge by Innokin.
I'm a bit late to the party and you've probably read or seen a few reviews of this already, so I'll try and try cover some ground and talking points that might not have been addressed already.
I was very keen to try this kit to see how the release version of the Zenith II compared to the pre-release version I tested a few months back. I've also been testing the '4th gen vaping technology' in the Sensis for a while now and this new Coolfire Z80 has similar features and almost identical display. It's doesn't however have exactly the same features as the Sensis.
First a round up of the Coolfire Z80
The battery cap is great, a minor thing to some but the screw in battery cap on the Z80 is both beautiful and well designed. It functions perfectly, with a flip up 'handle', venting holes in case of an emergency situation with a battery (or are those ventilation holes for cooling? I'm never quite sure.) I'm never usually a fan of this type of battery cap, but this one has won me over. It looks and feels like a classy bit of engineering.
This is light for a mod of this size and style, just a hair over 85g. With an 18650 battery it's around 132g. You can absolutely carry this in your pocket without it feeling weighted down.
The Z80 has a USB-C connection for charging and I've tested that charging out several times now. The supplied cable, as always from Innokin, is a nice quality white cable that's long enough to reach from the socket to a nearby table. (sounds like nothing to shout about, but we all know that isn't always the case.) Battery cut off is about 3.2-3.3v, which is fairly typical. After charging fully the battery reads at 4.13v which is perfect as it means there no danger of overcharging and it will increase the overall life of the battery a little. With Innokin's record on safety and my experiences with their products I would have no qualms about buying this mod, fitting it with a good battery and charging with the onboard charging system. It's relatively fast and doesn't get overly warm either.
The menu is logical and simple to navigate. After you know that holding up and down (or plus and minus if you prefer) together gets you into the menu you can navigate around and change settings without needing the manual. It's all very intuitive, which is a big 'pro' for me. I don't mind mods packed with features but sometimes the menus are awful, thankfully this isn't the case here.
You'll either love how the mod looks or you won't, it doesn't really matter what I think, but for what it's worth I think this is a very handsome looking mod. The version I have is gunmetal grey and light grey alcantara, which is a synthetic material often used for car interiors. It feels really soft and similar to a short cropped suede. There's also a thin padding underneath which makes it very comfortable to hold, especially for a finger firer like me. Overall it reminds me a little of the old Lost Vape mods (when they were good!) .. like a single battery version of the Therion or something. Obviously this light grey material will get dirty in use, so if that bothers you you might want to pick up a different option.
I expect you all know about the F0/Fourier tech, thing by now, if not then in it's simplest terms when you fire this mod it supplies an AC rather than a DC current to the coil. It's supposed to extend coil life and provide better flavour. I'm not sure about the better flavour, but after testing using the Sensis for months I do believe that average coil life can be extended by at least a couple of weeks. I've tested 4 coils in total 2 in F0 and 2 in regular wattage on the Sensis and in both cases the coil stayed good for a couple of weeks longer than the other 2 in regular wattage. The flavour will still deteriorate over time but did not get offensively dirty tasting anywhere near as quickly.
What isn't on the Z80 is the 'wattage+' option from the Sensis and there is no temp control on the Z80 either. While this might be disappointing to those that use TC regularly, I think it was the right choice for this kit. It's a 'platform series' product and at this time there are no Z-coils that are compatible with TC, so having the feature on the mod could lead to confusion (and destroyed coils) for new vapers. I definitely feel that there's a place for well made but simple to use products like this.
Right now I don't have any issues with the mod at all, If I were going to design a mod myself it probably wouldn't be much different to this. If you like how it looks and vape at fairly low wattage then I can't see any reason not to recommend this mod. It's got a similar vibe to the old Coolfire 4 too, which I think is really cool.
Sitting on top of this wonderful mod we have the new Zenith II. I was lucky enough to be sent the pre-release prototype and give my feedback on that a while ago, so I was curious to see what (if anything) they had changed based on people's feedback. The only difference I can see is a slight alteration to the airflow holes/slot/airflow ring, which now opens up even more than on the prototype.
There's a good reason for this too as the Zenith II is not just a MTL tank and in the kit you get both a 0.8ohm MTL 15-18w coil (which I use at 12w) and a 0.3ohm DTL 30-40w coil. I feel that there's quite a lot of people looking for this lower power, less battery hungry DTL kind of vape. Not everyone wants to be lugging around a 2 or 3 cell mod or spare batteries. Innokin call this RDL, Restricted Direct Lung, although with the slot fully open and the 0.3ohm coil in.... to me, there's nothing 'restricted' about it. It just isn't a 120w cloud chucking vape, but still very much DTL.
Once again the tank is designed by Phil Busardo and Dimitris Agrafiotis, I wouldn't call the Zenith II an evolution as such, in some ways it's a devolution from say the Zenith Pro, but it's definitely taken elements from both the Zenith, Zenith Pro and Zlide and kind of mashed them together and used ideas from all of them. I know Phil takes user feedback very seriously after speaking to him (or is that typing to him?) several times and this version does feel like it was driven by the people that used those tanks. It continues with the push in Z-coils that all the tanks mentioned above use. It has a smooth turning AFC, that doesn't fall off, a twisty top that's easy to fill. It's not really a fancy tank but it's extremely functional and just gives a solid vape. I would say that while obviously being built to a cost, so it can be part of a kit, any cost cutting has been done in areas that aren't important to the quality or functionality. It's just a solid, well performing tank that doesn't leak or cause any frustrations in use and to me that's what really matters most.
The prototype I was sent holds a massive (to us here in 2ml land) 5.5ml but because of the TPD bs, our kits come with a 2ml tank.... but do not fret my friends. At first I was a little 'huh' when I opened the kit and saw the tank was the same size as the Non-TPD 5.5ml version. I was expecting it to be shorter or narrower but this is not the case. I can 100% confirm that other than the 'glass' the TPD and non-TPD tanks are identical. The TPD version coming not with a glass section but an oversized plastic section. Because of this our TPD kits and tanks do not come with a spare glass like the rest of the world that get cool looking frosted or mirror glass, which is a shame. But, all you have to do is pick yourself a spare glass section or two when they are available and you'll have the same 5.5ml tank as non-TPD countries. … woop!
Depending the the kit colour, you'll get either a steel, gun metal or black tank. It's the same electroplated finish that is on the mod frame and my gunmetal version matches perfectly. It also comes with 2 tips, an ultum coloured one for MTL and a black one for DTL, although they are both 510 so you can use either obviously if you prefer one over the other. It's essentially just a different bore size and neither is super narrow or super wide. So it's really just personal preference rather than a rule that one has to be used to MTL/DTL. I like them both.
If you want to check out the full specs and range of colours you can obviously find all that at Innokin.com It's looks to be around £40 or under in the UK which is a great price. If you add on the price of a good battery and a 'spare' glass, it's still going to be under £50 for the full kit... For something that has the potential to last you for years and years, that seems like a very good buy.
Because of both it's ease of use and flexibility I think this would make an excellent first vape for someone. They can try out MTL and DTL, try a wide range of coils and adjust the device to suit them, without getting frustrated and everything getting too complicated. It feels perfectly balanced in that sense and cheaper than buying 3 or 4 different devices trying to find something that works for them.
For everyone else.... it's a really good mod, well made and a real joy to use. I can see this being very popular with the MTL crowd. I don't think it's going to be leaving my hand for a very long time and hopefully we'll see the mod for sale on it's own soon so RTA users can pick one up without the tank.
I'm not easily impressed these days and while this kit isn't necessarily reinventing the wheel, it's just all been done so well it's difficult not to just heap praise on it. I absolutely love the mod and the tank is really solid.
Finally just a big thanks to Monica @Innokin for sending this over, it's been a genuine pleasure.
