thanks for the heads up about Smok. Considering your comments I might give something else a try. I’m just after something that is durable and does the job. I don’t mind paying extra for good quality and reliability
For an amicable price, (one that doesn’t hurt too much if you don’t like it), the Geekvape Legend 2/ L200 is a good shout as per
@John R . You can buy them for £35-40, Amazon sell them too, and they’re decent. I can’t vouch for TC as I don’t use it at all, but in wattage mode they’re excellent, and battery life is good too.
Vaporesso do two good mods in the Gen 200 and Target 200 also, they’re the best around at the price point imo. The board is super simple to use, excellent battery life and just works very well. No TC though, although I believe you can do an update to get that, but again not my bag. The only different between the two is the aesthetics, both work exactly the same way. Again available almost everywhere, including Amazon.
Aspire are also worth a mention. The VRod and Rhea are both good mods. Heavy, but I like that, good on cells and a nice design. They do again share the same board, but the Rhea has an additional menu button whereas the VRod access to the menu is done via button combination.
Lost vape, Dovpo and Thinkvape also do none DNA chip versions of some of their mods which should be decent, although I can’t affirm to that as whilst I have the aforementioned mods they are the DNA versions.
To touch on the Smok alien mine is almost paint free, as it all fell off. But it’s been an abroad to a hot climate twice, (it’s now my holiday mod), been dropped and all sorts and still works fine. I do agree however Smoks quality control can be dubious, but the Aliens that did work worked well.
Good luck. Basically buy what you like, but there is no need whatsoever to exceed the £50 mark to get something decent.