Eleaf Pros & Cons
- Caters to Novice Vapers
- Attentive to Customer Needs
- Safety-Oriented
- Innovative, Unique Designs
- High Value for Money
- English Content Full of Errors
- Limited Customer Service Information on Website
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First Impression
Eleaf is a vaping company based in Shenzhen, China that was founded in 2011 and has since grown steadily in popularity into the international enterprise it is today. While many of the foreign vaping companies seem to be competing to create the largest, most powerful devices, Eleaf has carved out a niche for itself creating simple user-friendly devices for beginner and intermediate vapers. Rather than compete in an overcrowded marketplace, Eleaf successfully built its own unique brand and has sold hundreds of innovative products to its growing club of loyal customers.
Eleaf generally caters to beginner and intermediate vapers who are craving something either more powerful or interesting than an e-cig or simple eGo style device but aren’t quite ready to tackle temperature control, variable voltage/wattage, TCR, or chipsets. While Eleaf does cater to advanced vapers as well, you won’t necessarily find a lot of devices with advanced OLED displays and sensitive controls. Many of Eleaf devices have the capacity to vape in a sub-ohm range but are programmed to run without variable wattage or temperature controls.
Advanced users looking for powerful, well-built devices as side mods they can toss in a bag and take with them when they’re stepping out of the house might also enjoy Eleaf products. Want a mod for your purse? Throw in the Eleaf iCare Mini! Need a mod for the long car ride up to Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving? Throw in the Eleaf iJust S! All they require is a few clicks of the fire button, and they’re ready to go. Eleaf’s vaporizers are truly some of the most user-friendly devices on the market. Talk about simplicity!
While they don’t advertise 200W and 300W levels of power, they’re not meant to! Eleaf devices are sleek, portable, and discreet. We regularly review Eleaf products, and so we thought we would give you an official E-Cig Brands review of the company itself!
Eleaf Vapour Production
Of course your vapour production really depends on the product you’re use. If you pick up an iCare 40 or iCare 10 with 1.1Ω coils, don’t expect to be chucking clouds because these are mouth-to-lung devices that vape at above 1.0Ω. There is a wide variety of mods, and atomizer heads available from Eleaf none of which are exactly the same. While the iCare devices are meant as stealthy, pocket mods, the iJust line and iPico are meant for heavier vaping.
Many of the simpler devices are not customizable, so you cannot alter the wattage to your liking. Essentially, since they are designed with the vaping novice in mind, most of them come without temperature control or OLED screens. Some of their newer devices do have OLED screens, but the classics like the iJust and the iStick Pico do not. Because they are less sensitive and because they cannot be manually adjusted, they cannot offer what the higher-end mods can. That being said, they weren’t created as high-powered box mods.
Even though Eleaf does their best to economize, they never sacrifice power for simplicity. Eleaf vaporizers are inexpensive, but the larger mods sure do deliver some hefty clouds. Many of their box mods like the Pico or the iKuu come with sub-ohm coils and high-drain internal batteries, so they do fire like your average box mod.
Since most of Eleaf’s mods are pen-style devices or mini mods though, they rarely use more than a single 18650 battery if they even use external batteries at all. So, you cannot expect them to fire like double or triple 18650 devices from SMOK or Sigelei. Nonetheless, they do hold their own. You won’t be entering any cloud-chasing competitions with these babies, but you will get a decent throat hit and a reasonable amount of vapour. These are definitely not your standard cig-a-likes. However, Eleaf does seem to try to be expanding, and so you’ll notice a bunch of newer mods that can take two or even three batteries and can reach very high wattage levels.
Eleaf Vaping Accessories
You won’t want to miss Eleaf’s selection of atomizer coils especially the NotchCoil, which was developed jointly by Wismec and Eleaf. It has a resistance of 0.25Ω and is built out of stainless steel. The NotchCoil is one-of-a-kind because it isn’t a coil in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, it is a sheet of stainless steel with sections cut out of it, so it has the surface area of a clapton coil without any of the extra weight. It can be vaped between 40W and 60W and is compatible with the Cubis, Cuboid Pro, and Cuboid Mini vaporizer mods.
Eleaf has a number of unique accessories to offer besides their standard tanks and coils, which can all be purchased separately. They have a “vape nut,” which acts as a filter to clear the air for when you vape in enclosed spaces like in the car. This could be particularly useful for those who vape indoors or in public areas with non-vapers because the fans automatically detect vapour density and adjusts accordingly.
Eleaf also sells a reverse charging adapter which allows you to turn any 510 end into a USB port so you can charge your cell phone from your vape mod. You might want to combine the reverse charging adapter with the Avatar Intelligent Battery Digicharger, which is compatible with almost all of the rechargeable batteries on the market so you won’t have to purchase multiple chargers even if you have more than one device.
Eleaf also sells their signature silicone sleeves, extra O-rings, and colourful decals for the iStick and the Pico.
Eleaf E-Liquid
You may never have realized that Eleaf offers e-liquid, but they offer quite a few flavours. Plus, all of their flavours are packaged with childproof caps. They have a stunning thirty-four different tobacco-flavoured e-liquids as well as fruity, herbal, and food and drink-inspired vape juice.
Unfortunately, there are no customer reviews on the Eleaf website, so it’s hard to tell how popular a flavour is just by looking at it. It’s also not entirely clear whether you can buy the e-juice from the eleafworld.com website or not because you can’t click on any of the flavours. There are no prices, nor can you tell the PG/VG blend and nicotine content available for each flavour.
The American, British, and French Eleaf websites ironically aren’t selling Eleaf-brand e-liquids. You can find Jam Monster, KungFu Vapor, Naked, and plenty of other top e-juice brands. You can, however, purchase Eleaf e-liquids from various online retailers like vapoluck.com and vapinc.com.
We are particularly curious about Eleaf’s characteristic flavours such as “Sunshine,” “Spring Rain,” and “Rainbow,” which are tobacco blends that promise to be reminiscent of these natural phenomenons. I’m not sure exactly what rainbow tastes like, but I would sure like to know!
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Battery Performance and Charging
It’s a bit difficult to speak about battery performance in any great detail because there are so many different devices. The internal automatic battery for a small mouth-to-lungs device is not going to have anything in common with the batteries in an advanced vape pen. Box mods typically require you to purchase your own 18650 batteries and load them separately in which case the amperage and battery life isn’t at all determined by Eleaf.
If you’re loading 18650 batteries, you’re purchasing them from Sony, LG, or Samsung. That being said, you can expect anything from 320mAh all the way up to 4600mAh on Eleaf devices.
In terms of power, you’re also going to expect quite a range. You can vape an iCare at 15W, an iStick Pico at 75W, and an iKonn at 220W. Most of Eleaf’s devices, however, are beginner to intermediate devices, so you can generally assume the power output will be between 15W and 50-75W for the majority of vaporizers.
Eleaf Selection
Eleaf has three major vaporizer lines: the iStick, iJust, and the iCare. They have released multiple editions for each line, and they have recently come out with a few different high-end box mods including the iKonn and the iKuu. The iCare basic is a simple device that resembles a USB card in appearance. It was followed by three vape pens of average width as well as a miniaturized version of the original and then a second, more advanced one.
The iJust is a powerful pen-style device with an internal battery. The iJust is meant for intermediate vapers who want to level-up from cig-a-likes and eGo-style devices without having to navigate a complex interface. While some of the beginner devices are limited in terms of capacity, the iJust S has a 5.5ml tank capacity and 2600mAh battery capacity.
You also have the iJust X, which is an all-in-one device with even more impressive specs and a similar manual battery yet no OLED display. Unfortunately these devices do not come with adjustable airflow control. There is a vent for airflow, but to limit the amount of air that comes through it, you’ll have to use a rubber O-ring included in the kit on top of the device. However, we found that, for the most part, we left the airflow fully open anyway.
Lastly, you have the iStick series, which is a regular box mod with a removable 18650 battery cell and tank. There is a large OLED screen to control the wattage, and the entire tank disassembles for easy cleaning. While the first couple of models are fairly basic, Eleaf has come out with an iStick RDTA, iStick squonk tank, and iStick mega for cloud-chasers that takes three 18650 batteries.
Packaging & Design
Eleaf’s packaging is clean and simple. Their devices come in white boxes printed with their logo. You will find, however, that they lag behind in terms of marketing. While their products are displayed attractively on affiliate sites, their own website is ridden with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
It’s evident that this China-based company does not have a content editor whose mother tongue is English. Their marketing, while somewhat unprofessional, thankfully does not detract from the quality of their vaporizers though.
Eleaf Warranty
On their website, Eleaf claims that they will replace any products for free within 90 days if there are any manufacturing defects. They ask customers to contact them directly via [email protected] and ensure a reply within 72 hours.
Before sending in your products, you’ll have to verify the authenticity of your product via the online security QR code checker. You can then either email or call them and they’ll email you a form that you send in explaining the issue. In return, they’ll send you a shipping address to which you can mail your device for repair.
You should remember that Eleaf is a Chinese company, and their customer service representatives are Chinese. So, they might not speak English as their first language, and they might not speak English very well at all in fact. It’s not entirely uncommon to have communication issues.
If you purchase Eleaf devices from a separate retailer like DirectVapor, for instance, you’ll go through them instead. In that case, you will contact them and send your products directly to them for replacement or repair.
We highly recommend that you purchase your devices through a vaping outlet or affiliate company that will take responsibility for its own merchandise. Unfortunately, this tends to be a problem among Chinese vaping companies, but it shouldn’t necessarily deter you from purchasing their products from other outlets.
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Customer Service
You can contact Eleaf via email at [email protected] or [email protected] or you can contact them by phone at 86-755-33193193. Otherwise, you can send a message directly from the Eleaf website.
There is, admittedly, not a ton of customer service information on the website. However, Eleaf also has a Facebook page that they regularly update with promotions and new products, and they respond to instant messages within 24 hours. As mentioned above though, these are not American or European companies, so their customer service might be a bit spotty simply because they lack the language skills necessary for communication.
Eleaf Starter Kits
Eleaf has a variety of starter kits, and the three main product lines are outlined in the section above. However, we thought we’d also describe some of our favourite Eleaf starter kits in detail to give you a better idea of what they look like and how they function.
Eleaf iCare/iCare Mini
The Eleaf iCare and iCare Mini are mouth-to-lung devices that are the size of an e-cigarette with the capacity of a vape pen. They aren’t even that much larger than a USB memory stick, but they come with 650mAh and 320mAh respectively. The mini comes with a portable charging case though that extends the battery capacity to 2300mAh. The Eleaf iCare and iCare Mini couldn’t possibly be simpler. You don’t even have to turn them on. Simply inhale and enjoy.
Eleaf iJust S
The Eleaf iJust S is a pen-style device for the beginner or intermediate vaper. Though slim and portable, the Eleaf iJust S has a 3000mAh battery capacity and holds 4ml of e-liquid. Pop on the new 0.18Ω ECL coil and enjoy thick, dense clouds of vapour. There are no variable controls or settings to fiddle with. Simply power up the pen and get vaping.
Eleaf iStick Pico Resin
While there are several versions of the Eleaf iStick Pico, we absolutely adore this one because of the resin finish. The resin finish has a marbled, metallic pattern that is unique for each mod. You can slide an 18650 battery into the mod by unscrewing the top cap and filling up the MELO III Mini tank.
While the iCare and the iStick are designed as beginner and mouth-to-lung devices, the Pico can power up to 75W but is still small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It vapes in temperature control mode and has a bright, clear OLED screen. You’ll be, without a doubt, the most stylish vaper around with this mod.
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Overall
If you’re new to vaping or if you’re simply looking for a simple little side mod, then you’ll definitely want to check out Eleaf. Their designs are straightforward and user-friendly. You can find many of their devices on sale at Apollo E-Cigs, and DirectVapor. While Eleaf customer service can be unreliable, if you go through one of these vape shops, you should have no issues whatsoever. You’re better off dealing with the retailer and not with the company directly.
We highly, highly recommend Eleaf. Eleaf is constantly innovating, so you’ll always have something new to look forward to, and each device is extremely unique. Definitely don’t take our word for it though. Try them out yourself!