Tornado Mega Cartomiser – Tobacco High

[prof beard]

Well – where to start.  A small envelope from TW appeared which, as well as the expected bottle of liquid to review, contained a big black plastic thing…

I quickly identified the big black plastic things as a Tornado cartomiser which contained, I surmised from the TOB.HIG label, “high” tobacco flavoured liquid.

Ummm – thought – I haven’t got a Tornado…   But I did have a long 901 to 510 adapter and, after removing the end caps from the carto,  quickly had a weird looking SD Mk 2:



(I must point out that the regular “short” type of adapter won’t work, the carto threads are too recessed.  I understand from others that the Tornado charger adapter will do much the same job).

Pressing the SD button produced a fierce crackle from the carto (a fresh SD Mk2 battery is 4.2v as opposed to the tornados 3.7v).   Drawing on the big fat whistle tip resulted in a huge cloud of warm vapour….

Now to the content.  Sticking ones nose up the carto identified a fairly rich tobacco smell not easy to narrow down in terms of odour that way though.

The liquid tastes, to me, like a very “toasted” type of cigarette tobacco – more a rich US or European cig than a UK one.   The taste is rich but not noticeably sweet and the aftertaste has some nut and toasted bread along with tobacco.  The taste becomes just a “bit much” after prolonged vaping for me.

The vapour is excellent  (I don’t know how quickly it will tail off – I’ve been using it for about three hours so far) and the hit (for what I guess is probably 18mg liquid) is excellent.

So – so far so good – the carto is much less “metallic” in taste thus far than many 808 cartos I’ve tried, vaper and hit very good and flavour on the right side of acceptable.  I’m going to try refilling when it runs out (I have a blunt syringe) but whether I will be bothered to do it more than once (or buy more – blanks preferably) will depend on:

i) how much faff refilling actually is
ii) how long a refill lasts
iii) how long the carto lasts

Overall, I’m quite impressed, but it IS early days…

[Ellen]

Tornado Cartomiser  Tobacco High - July 2010
I've really been looking forward to trying these. It arrived this morning,
I've attached it to a fully charged Tornado battery  and for starters I put it alongside another Tornado battery that I run  with regular atomiser, cone and a plastic drip tip.The cartomiser set up stands a few ml shorter.  And somehow the whole device makes The tornado look smaller to me. A very neat setup. I'm very impressed.

Well, it's 10am Saturday, 3rd July and I'm going to get started. First inhale and first impression. Very good indeed. On inhale, it's a lovely warm vape, and the flavour is one I've always liked, the TW pre-filled tobacco type, high. It is the same flavour that is in the regular pre filled cart, which come with the Titan/Tornado starter kits I've had. But with it in this cartomiser, there's even more flavour to it. Slightly nutty too. The throat hit is great. Very smooth, and the vapour production is huge.
The tip is very comfortable to vape with, I was unsure how it would feel, as I haven't tried this kind of tip before. It gets warm too. Not hot, just warm on the the inhale, which I like myself.
I'm going to go off for now, and give it all day to see how I get on. But so far a huge thumbs up.

11.45pm Saturday 3rd July - back again. I've been using the cartomiser all day. It's been great. Felt strange not using any extra juice, and I also found I have vaped a lot less than I normally would.  As I'm getting a very satisfying amount of nicotine from each draw.. Half an hour is usually my limit without a vape, but I was able to go longer.
 I'm not saying this will happen with everyone, it's just my personal finding.
Now, the flavour is dropping off a little. It may still have some more to give, so I'm going to leave it for the night and see what happens in the morning, sometimes carts seem new again the next day to me, as you've had a break from vaping. So I'll be back.

It's now Sunday morning, and the cartomisers had a rest from me. I managed to get another couple of hours of vaping out of it before it tasted dry (when you would normally refil) So it lasted a good 17 hours for me.  As we all know, everyone is different on how much we vape.

I wasn't sure if it would take more battery life, as it feels very powerful on the draw. But as I wasn't vaping as much, the battery too lasted me all day through to the night.

So if you havn't guessed already, it's a huge thumbs up from me.These cartomisers are great, I really like them, and I'm sure I'd buy more. They would be especially good to have if you are travelling on a long journey. Pop the cartomiser on,  no worries about refilling, for 1 day at least.  In the car, plane, train,  for one less thing to worry about while travelling, I think they are well worth the money. I've really enjoyed doing this review (can you tell).  Now I'm off to order my Dad one too.
I haven't attempted to refill, (yet) as I just wanted to show what you can get from the original Cartomiser. I believe the time I got from the original set up is worth it. A multi pack would be good too.  So if there is a way to keep using it, you'll certainly get your money's worth.   where there's a will there's a way. 
Enjoy.

[Fruits]

Tornado Mega Cartomizer

I managed to find a long 901-510 adapter to fit this cartomizer on my Screwdriver. A short one wouldn't work. It did look a bit odd on my SD, almost as big as the body itself, and has quite a large mouthpiece. I soon got used to it though.

First impression was that it tasted pretty good. Vapour production and throat hit was very good straight away for a cartomizer. I've only used 808's before.
I continued using the cartomizer and was very impressed with the amount of vapour and hit it gave me. I thought it was on par with a good 510 atty and cartridge.

I did get pretty bored of the flavour after an hour or 2. Im not keen on many prefilled carts or cartomizers I've tried, but it was perfectly vapeable.
I managed to get 5 hours vaping out of it before it was tasting a bit dry/empty and thought I'd have a go at refilling it.
Unlike 808 cartos that im used to this had more of a normal cartridge mouthpiece. I prized of the little end bit and it looked pretty sealed to me. I tried to drip a few drops in but it didn't seem to sink in very well.
So I turned it over and dripped straight into the hole on the connection end. I managed to get 70 drops in this way before I noticed it was pouring out the mouthpiece. Not sure how much I spilled.

I vaped away again after topping up with 70 drops and managed to get 7 hours of lovely vapour out of the refil. Very impressive.

When that felt like it was running out I repeated the dripping into the connection, but only managed 30 drops before it would leak out. Im sure there must be more ingenious ways of refilling them as each time it would take less juice. The atomizer part felt like it was still going strong so maybe a better way of refilling would help, but I kept at it and got 4 days of heavy vaping out of it before I managed to break it by tightening it to the adapter too hard and pulling out the wire trying to get it apart.

I didn't notice it getting very hot like the 808 cartomizers do. It got hot but no where near too hot to use. Another plus for this.

I was going to give up on it then anyway as it was losing its hit and vapour production after 4 days.
I did try and dismantle it to take a quick look, and it seemed pretty robust and didn't want to let me in without a struggle. A tiny bit of the wool was burnt, but not very much at all. Pretty good I thought.

The good thing about refilling it was that for some reason the flavours didn't seem to mix. I put Hilton in first and only tasted Hilton, then I went to mint and only tasted mint, then cola and only tasted the cola etc etc.

I really liked it, much better than I expected, almost felt like a LR atty, loads of vapour and a great hit. Highly recommend it. If you don't vape as much as me then it could last you a day or 2 each fill, and could last a week of refilling. (I vape more than average)

Im sure people have found better ways of refilling by now so give them a try if they're out there as this is a good cartomizer. More flavours would be good, and well worth keeping a few in your supplies box. I was very pleased with it.

[sosjander]

Tornado Cartomiser – Tobacco High - July 2010

A few weeks back now, an envelope arrived from TW which I knew would contain a small bottle of liquid for sampling and reviewing. What I didn’t expect was to find an additional item in the package – a strange-looking lump of plastic, wrapped in polythene.

“What the ‘eck is that?” I said to myself. “Is it one of those carto – doohickey – atty – thingamabobs? (cue ‘Klunk’ from the ‘Dastardly & Muttley Show’). That’s it!! It’s a cartomiser”.

If like me, you’ve never seen one of these before in the flesh, it’s a shade under 2½” long – including end caps - and ½” in diameter, which fits on to a Tornado battery.  The cartomiser supplied to me was black, so it seemed only fitting to grab hold of and attach a fully-charged black Tornado 1000mAh manual battery. Now with a total length of 5½“, it really looked the part – especially with the top of the battery (the silver ring) running round it. Hmm, sophisticated, even………  

So, how did I find the experience? I’ve given my thoughts on flavour, hit and vapour after around two hours of moderate to strong use…..

Flavour / Taste – From the draw, to the inhale, to the exhale there is a warm, slightly nutty, slightly woody taste which is very soothing with absolutely no harshness at all. I’m also picking-up what I can only describe as a mild coffee flavour in the mix. The aftertaste leaves a tiny bit of tingling on the tip of the tongue.

That coffee taste seems very similar to the PR Coffee, but without any of the dairy element. The overall flavour also reminds me of a stronger version of some pre-filled tobacco flavoured cartridges that I’ve consumed in the past. All in all, very pleasant….. 7.5/10

Throat Hit – It’s pretty good and suits the flavour well. Even after more than a couple of hours use it’s still there and hasn’t wavered at all. … 8/10  

Vapour Content – Good amounts of reasonably thick vapour is produced, and that level is maintained even after two hours of moderate to strong use…. 7.5/10

Diary - Tue July 27, 11:00am – Attach cartomiser to battery, let’s start chuffing….
Tue July 27, 2:00pm – Write-up notes of findings so far (see above), carry on vaping…….
Tue July 27, 2:45pm – Beginning to notice the flavour tailing-off slightly. Throat-hit still reasonable, vapour content still good.
Tue July 27, 3:00pm – Time to give the cartomiser a bit of a break, I think. The flavour appears to have dropped a little bit more, and there is a now a decrease in the throat-hit. However, the vapour is still pretty good but let’s have an hour away and see whether that returns any flavour and hit. Need something else to vape in the meantime. Ah, Sir Nick’s pre-mixed 36mg Mentholyptus , sitting right next to a 510LR attached to a smaller Tornado battery, all but 3’ away – that’ll do nicely….
Tue July 27, 4:00pm – Back on the cartomiser again, well, I must say I’m pleasantly surprised because not only has the flavour come back to almost its former glory, the throat-hit has returned with a vengeance (cough, splutter…) Wow, let’s see how long it lasts. I won’t cane it like I did for the first few hours but it will certainly get a few puffs on a regular basis……
Tue July 27, 5:15pm – Once again, flavour and throat-hit beginning to fade – and this time the reduction is quite sharp, vapour production is still fairly reasonable though. Time for dinner…..
Tue July 27, 6:45pm – Impossible to use now. No flavour, hit or vapour, everything has packed-up, but you can’t help but think that there is still life in the atty. Will try again first thing in the morning just to see if there is any response but somehow I doubt it.
Wed July 28, 6:00am – Two mediocre puffs and the cartomiser is history in its present form. In time though, I will definitely have a go a refilling with a couple of drops of liquid taken from a needle-tip dropper bottle but that, for me, is outside the scope of this review…..

In Summary – I’m impressed with the design, even right down to the flattened, concaved mouthpiece and not once did I feel that any juice would escape into my mouth. For the sheer convenience of not having to take various liquids out for a day-trip or a night out, if you’re a light vaper – and you’re happy to have only one flavour at your disposable, then you simply can’t go wrong with the cartomiser. For those of you, like me, who can do a good impersonation of a freight train then, for the small amount of room they take up, I’d recommend carrying a spare (or two) and a back-up battery – just to be on the safe side.

I like the idea behind this and I’ll definitely be adding a couple to ‘the stash' as it’s a useful piece of kit to have in an emergency although, in general, I’ll still be carrying a couple of bottles around with me whilst out and about as I like to have a choice. One final thing – I note that the cartomisers hold 2.5ml of liquid. Well, I was quite surprised that I’d gotten through that amount of juice in what was to me a short space of time. Perhaps I vape more than I realize - maybe it’s time to measure properly just how much I actually use on a daily basis.    

So, we have 7.5 for the flavour, 8 for the hit, 7.5 for the vapour content – I’m going to add another category just for the cartomiser and that’s going to be for the idea and the convenience factor – which gets a healthy 9/10. So that gives us an overall score of…. .  8/10

Happy Vaping everyone…….  

John