ninjavape
Postman
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2015
- Messages
- 342
Gizmo 20 V2
RRP £89.99
Tl:dr version: It’s a fabulous piece of British engineering to solve a problem which is surprisingly not very well catered for: shortening the length of an e-cig so it can be disguised in your hand, it does this with more convenience and longevity than anything else I’ve found.
Pros:
- Great design, completely hidden in the hand stealth
- Top notch quality, built to last
- Standard 18500 battery or 18350+ kick
- Locking ring
- Price
- Magnets work against you when screwing in switch
- Can’t adjust power easily when out and about
The Gizmo’s design is a logical answer to reducing height, putting the battery beside the tank. All the Gizmo V2s are the same height regardless of the tank size and now feature a locking ring as part of the redesign for version 2. In my opinion they look better now too.
All Gizmo V2s are anodised, even the plain aluminium coloured one, how do I know this? You have to scrape away some of the anodizing inside the battery compartment for the small contact which springs out the side of a kick. If you’re precious about your Gizmo and frugal with your scratches, you’ll probably do this a couple of times before you have trouble free operation but it does highlight that despite appearances, your hand is insulated from the electrics and along with the vent hole, should provide adequate protection.
Depending on the luck of the draw with your tank, your airholes might not line up with the slot for them, if this bothers you it’s a case of finding the right thickness of paper to site between the tank and 510. Having a circle of paper with an inner hole made by the 510 of your tank and it’ll screw down to a different point. After solving, I can say honestly it didn’t matter for me either way, when I had a tank with obscured airflow the operation was actually slightly quieter.
The Gizmo 20 with a 10.5A 700mah 18350 battery on a kick aligns perfectly with the capacity of an Aerotank v2 (nice quality feel) or EMOW Mega (shorter, less exposed glass and wider base area for cotton wick) using Naturevape coils at 7-13.5w. The battery section ends up being wider than the tank part of Gizmo 17 and slightly on the 20.
Do I wish I’d bought the 24 version? Not at the moment but that could change when my Taifun GT2 finally arrives, I might not be able to hold it as stealthily and have my thumb line up with the drip tip if it were larger. The Gizmo 20 fits pretty much perfectly in my hand and the Naturevape coils work really well for flavour at stealthy power levels; I genuinely find some notes there I don’t get with a Derringer and can’t recommend them enough. No point running something like a Subtank even with the right 18500 battery unless you just really like the form factor, paying out to make the device really inconspicuous, then blowing a cloud seems counter intuitive.
Back when purchasing I was paranoid about running batteries beyond safety and the 3.2v cutoff supplied by the kick, along with the consistent power delivery means the 18500 battery supplied remains unused, it was only a red Efest anyway. The purple ones have a better amp rating and strangely the red 800mah 18350 supplied with the kick and smaller o-ring doesn't last as long as the 700mah 10.5a purple ones I bought from Torchy. The o-rings are optional but remove the slight battery rattle that would happen otherwise.
When screwing the switch in after a battery change, the magnets are pushing against your efforts, when it’s sat on a flat surface and you take your time or are used to doing this it’s no problem. If you’re in a hurry or walking along, trying to screw in can go wrong as you try to catch the threads. I can say I do it first time probably 29 out of 30 times now and these aren’t going to wear out so while I put this down as a con… the design is sound.
I promised to write this review over two months ago when first received but I wanted to make sure it was based on more than just a little use and I’d compared it to more than the ego batteries I was using at the time. I use this daily and it complements a Sigelei Mini, rDNA40 and a Nemisis (clone) for my power needs. I have my eye on one more (who am I kidding) device but the Gizmo is what I take out of the house without fail, there's enough capacity to see me from wakeup to return from work, if I’m popping out it’ll be all I take and is the one I take the most pleasure in holding.
This is going to be an honest (and already longwinded) review and as such I have to mention I sent my first unit back due to a minor cosmetic marking made during machining, on one hand it seemed a bit pedantic but I was paying rather a lot for the perfect solution so I wanted it to be perfect. Rather than explain, here’s the email exchange:
Did my mention of reviewing make a difference to the outcome? It’s not possible to answer that but I’m sure it would have been a (literal) minor blemish in an otherwise excellent product regardless, they lived up to their word and now I do have the perfect stealth device.
Before I bought this I was using an Aerotank Mini with 53mm 350mah ego batteries and they offered a similar amount of stealth if held at the correct angle although lacked a bit on power delivery and were noisier. It wasn’t a terrible setup and the batteries would conveniently but inconveniently need charging after 1ml of use which is about the same as the point to refill the Aerotank Mini. Moving to the Gizmo V2 solved the problem of carrying a bottle, extra battery and/or charger, refilling and allowed me to use the EMOW Mega tank with a wider base for a better wick. Is it over £100 better and more convenient after batteries, a kick and postage? In my opinion, yes. It's probably worth mentioning the smallest of my ego batteries in question (as pictured above) have all died despite little use and my backup is now a dripper which offers something else instead.
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