Astral
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Freemax Marvos S 80w kit.
Disclaimer: This is an independent review of a vape device kindly provided to me by @Freemaxtech and is not associated with Planet Of The Vapes or any other organisation. The opinions here are purely my own and I am not receiving any payment or inducement for them.
Marvos. A name dangerously close to 'Marvellous' and in some senses dangerously close to being right.
One suspects that's almost what Freemax wanted to call their new 80w SBS baby all along but couldn’t quite bring themselves to do it.
Not that you could really argue with them if they had, as in a world of trends this sexy little kit is one of the better ones and seems to compete with its pod/mod rivals on almost every level.
On first impressions, I couldn’t help but feel they were onto a winner and properly nailed what a SBS pod kit should look like.
Freemax has opted for taste and understatement here instead of their usual vibrance, and for me it’s all the better for it. Although it is a little unexpected considering how vivid and colourful their Maxos range is.
At just 110.2 x 51.7 x 25.7mm and 156g it’s a tiny little unit too, and its two-thirds, stitched leather wrap is so tastefully done it complements the zinc alloy and stainless steel body beautifully - and this is one of the few cases where I think the leather might actually be genuine leather.
The colour schemes are equally well balanced: the silver grey, gunmetal red, gunmetal yellow, black/black and black/blue are all attractive and, in my eyes, there’s not a bad one amongst them.
In the hand it feels super ergonomic and the materials used are all eminently tactile - particularly that leather, and provide a lovely hand-feel as well as intuitive operation. The knurled cap on the single 18650 battery tube is also a nice piece of detailing too.
The large power/fire button and the 5v/2amp USB Type-C charging port on the back, and the side-mounted 0.96” TFT colour screen set above the horizontal up/down rocker button, provide ease of operation too and require little knowledge or know-how for usage. It’s all fairly intuitive stuff.
Clicking the fire button five times turns it on and off, and pressing it on its own naturally ermmm… fires it.
Hold the ‘down’ and ‘fire’ button simultaneously and you’ll scroll through the blue, yellow, green, red and white on-screen colour options, and hold the up and fire button together to reset your puffs. Hold them together and you lock it.
Clicking the power button three times takes you through your modes.
You get all your on-screen basics like your battery level, voltage, wattage, resistance, puff-counter and puff-timer, as well as your colour choices, and you’ll find all these set out in a large white font, over a black background with interlacing in the colour of your choice.
The three operating modes - wattage, VPC and bypass - all provide ample, but not complete, options for the discerning vaper - there’s no temperature control or TCR here - and the various protections - short circuit, overheating, under-voltage, overcharging and deep discharge - should provide sufficient safeguards for the uninitiated.
Although given the spec and scope of the pod and coils, I’m not sure it’s the uninitiated who are the people this kit is really aimed at.
The airy, free-spinning 4.5 ml DTL PCTG magnetised pod and the 0.15ohm (60-80w) and 0.25ohm (40-60) MS Mesh coils are very much aimed at the DTL market, so if you’re an MTLer you’ll need to resolve the situation yourself via the mod’s 510.
They say the 810 drip-tip is specially designed to prevent spit-back too and in testing it certainly seemed to work, all I got was condensate and good vapour.
If the pre-installed pod isn’t to your tastes though, never fear, there are three other aftermarket pods available too. These are the DTL glass pod, the RTA pod and the DTL pod tank, and these, along with the alternative 0.35ohm (30-40w) and 0.5ohm (20-30w) coils, provide everything a DTL pod user could want, but it’s said there’s going to be more options available in the future, so who knows what Freemax has up their sleeves?
So if that’s your cup of tea you’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about - and as for tea, that’s relevant here too. After all, it’s the tea that makes it.
Not in the PG Tips variety, you understand - although that would be nice if you’re offering… - but in the sense of the tea-fibre cotton they use in their coils.
Don't ask me what tea-fibre cotton actually is or even does for coils because I haven't got a clue, but I know I like it, and I know I like almost as much as I like a cup of the old Darjeeling.
After a quick Google search there doesn't seem to be much information on it but it seems to be somewhere between voodoo and witchcraft - and as stock coils go these are some of the finest around.
Actually, scratch that, they're better than that. They’re exceptional and it’s a reason to buy this pod alone. Freemax really does know how to make 'em.
So while this kit may look all rather classy and tame, what we have here is a real wolf in sheep's clothing, and one that I suspect those PG Tips chimpanzees might take a cheeky puff on as they’re moving those pianos.
Not even they could mess this one up surely?
Just don’t let them do the unboxing. There’s only one chimp doing that and that’s me!
When it came to that though, there was little to disappoint but you do only get the mod, the pod, the spare coil, the USB Type-C cable and the literature, so even I managed that unsupervised.
Actually, there was very little about this kit to disappoint at all.
After seeing the early promotional photographs and already liking what I saw, I was looking forward to reviewing it and it was something I ultimately did with pleasure.
The only complaints I have now are with the fact that it currently excludes MTLers almost entirely and caters only for DTL.
Fine if you are a DTLer yourself but a real downer if you’re not.
Sure you can use another tank, but catering for the whole spectrum of vapers from the outset surely should be a prerequisite?
All in all though, this kit has been a delight to use, and as long as you remember it's a single-track affair then this is without question one to consider.
Kits like these might be much of a muchness these days but with its tasteful looks, satisfying leather grip and exceptional coils this one stands out amongst the crowd and puts itself at the forefront of the genre. With its choice of four pods and a 510 connection to boot there’s little to better it, really only a true SBS kit will do that.
Freemax might well have taken their time in joining the SBS pod/mod party but they’ve arrived now and they’ve done it with aplomb.
They’ve also done it by far more than just arriving fashionably late, they’ve done it by simply arriving ‘fashionably’.
Unfortunately little of that fashionability has rubbed off on me though and I’m still the mundane, boring chimp I’ve always been.
Now, where’s that cup of tea?
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. Honestly, I swear you must have more arms than a conjoined octopus with the amount of mods you've got!
