Mod Reviews

Vandy Vape Nova AIO

Vandy Vape have released another great, affordable Boro style mod, and Antony went hands on with the new Nova AIO

by Antony Lord
Apr 9, 2025

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Vandy Vape are dipping their toes back into the affordable Boro mod market with the Nova AIO. The long-standing link between Tony-B and Vandy Vape’s previous Pulse Boro designs seems to have come to an end (presumably because he’s deleted all of his vaping content from YouTube) so this time they’ve teamed up with the Indonesian ONYX Ltd. as their design partners so I was interested to see what innovations this new collaboration would bring. Our friends over at Sourcemore have been kind enough to send over a review sample for me to check out.

Specifications

83.5 x 44.9 x 27.6mm
193 grams
Single 18650 battery
Output 5~60 watts / 0.5~8.0 volts
Resistance range 0.2~3.0ohms
Onboard USB-C charging
NOVA RBA included in the kit

The Vandy Vape Nova AIO is available in three colours with traditional silver and black versions being released initially but a green version has also recently been added to the lineup (although that’s not available at Sourcemore at the time of writing), plus it looks like there are blue and matte black editions in the pipeline. It comes nicely presented in its box with the NOVA rba/tank and an integrated drip tip already preinstalled. On this top layer, you’ll also find additional airflow pins for the RBA, extra air flow adjustment pipes for the integrated drip tip and a USB-C charging cable, finally underneath there's a bag containing spare O-rings and a brief user guide.

The Nova AIO is powered by a single 18650 battery which is inserted from the top with a screw down battery cap and an exposed battery compartment. I’ve grown quite accustomed to exposed battery designs these days so I’m not as bothered by them as I once was, and there is adequate material around the compartment to provide a degree of protection. Obviously make sure your battery wraps are in good condition though (as they should be in any case).

The Nova AIO features a C-Frame style design, and in the “silver shiver” version I was sent for review, it has a silver body wrapping around the sides and the back with a bold contrasting black inlay across the top, bottom, and front of the device. This colour motif is mirrored in the “black prestige” version whilst the upcoming colour options will have coloured sides with either black or silver inlays. Branding is kept to a minimum with a simple NOVA logo on one side and Vandy Vape/ONYX logos hidden on the bottom of the device.

It’s quite a hefty beast despite the diminutive size, weighing in at around 193grams thanks to the primarily zinc-alloy and stainless steel construction so once you’ve added in a battery, tank/RBA, and e-liquid, you're looking closer to 240 grams. This does lend an air of solidity though and it all feels well put together. The coloured zinc-alloy chassis has a slightly raw unfinished feel, but does nicely offset the matte textured black top/bottom and front panels which I believe are stainless steel.

One of the signature features on previous Pulse AIO designs was the ability to customise your mod, and Vandy Vape have made moves in this direction with the Nova AIO allowing easy removal of the button and front panel. The button is simply held in place with magnets but does feel like it’s held in position well enough that I wouldn’t be overly concerned about accidentally losing this whilst I was out and about. The front panel also relies on magnets but also has a small rail system near the top for added security. It does sometimes require a gentle tap from the top to get it to seat properly in a small lip at the bottom, but is very secure with no panel movement at all once this is done. Sadly there doesn't currently seem to be any accessory kits so this is rather pointless unless you intend buying multiple Nova kits and doing a bit of mix and matching yourself.

The current trend in Boro mods is to mount the tank sideways, and the Nova AIO follows this pattern. Whilst I appreciate the open airflow design on three sides that this affords, it does mean you’ll have to pick any Boro tank carefully as realistically you're going to need something with a side fill option. As luck would have it, the supplied tank has both front and side fill options and is fully Boro RBA compatible so this is perfectly adequate for the task in hand, or you can go for one of our own side fill tanks as shown on the right, but anything that has a custom tank system with no side fill option is likely to be a no go here.

You do get a rather nice integrated drip tip system included in the kit which even has optional airflow inserts included if you really want to dial in your draw. I did run into a few issues when I was first trying to get the Nova AIO setup, even with the included drip tip though.

First of all, this has an adjustable positive pin (which is a good thing) but I had to adjust this quite a bit before I could get a reliable contact. Once I’d done this, it was solid, but I did find myself having to tweak this more often than not if I changed RBA’s. Secondly the 510 nut threading is Boro compatible (again a good thing) but this is actually recessed slightly into the top plate so I found it very hit and miss with other integrated drip tips as many simply can’t be screwed in far enough to make any sort of connection to the top of the RBA.

The included Nova branded RBA is a rebadged version of the RBA included in the last Pulse AIO. It’s a great beginner friendly system and you can get a pretty good vape from it but as I already had another RBA setup I opted to stick with that for testing. If you want a more detailed breakdown of the included RBA then see my earlier review HERE.

So with everything set up, what's the Vandy Vape Nova AIO like to use? Well let’s just say that fire button placement takes some getting used to, I’d say it took me about two days to settle down with it and find a comfortable and consistent way to grip the mod and use the button. It's all good now that I’ve gotten used to it though.

The onboard Vandy Vape chipset is solid enough with both wattage and voltage modes onboard and these can be adjusted with the up/down buttons recessed into the base along with the onboard USB-C charging port. The screen is rather small though, so be sure to have your reading glasses to hand! I did feel that the performance seemed to fall off a bit of a cliff once the battery bar reached the final segment, but it was pretty consistent up to that point.

Conclusion

Another solid budget Boro mod is always welcome especially for anyone looking to get their first Boro mod, and Vandy Vape have even included a rather nice RBA system and side filling tank in the kit, which is a bonus. Despite my initial misgivings about the unusual button placement, I quickly adapted to this so I’d happily recommend the Nova AIO kit to anyone wanting to start their Boro mod journey.

Many thanks to Sourcemore for sending the Vandy Vape Nova AIO over for review. As usual they’ve given me a discount code for you to use as well: VVNA will get you the kit for $47.19.

Score: 8/10

Pros

Compact design
Works with a wide range of RBA’s
Relatively inexpensive
Good starter tank and RBA included in the kit

Cons

That button placement takes some getting used to
May not work with all your integrated drip tips

Antony Lord

Reviewer at POTV

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I was a twenty a day smoker for 25 years and like most smokers I was always going to quit "next week". Having hit my mid forties and having the usual smokers cough and difficulty with anything more than moderate exercise it was obviously time to give up the cancer sticks. I bought my first e-cigarette in 2013 when they were expensive, difficult to find and quite frankly... crap. I used it for about a week then went back to the roll ups, mark up another failed quit attempt. The fact that I had just changed jobs and was under quite a lot of stress probably didn't help. Move on to 2016 and whilst I was browsing eBay I noticed that one of the suggested items that would occasionally pop up was for a cheap e-cigarette. It looked similar to the one I'd bought 3 years earlier but it was only £5 (about 8 times cheaper than before) so I decided to give it another go on a whim. Once the kit arrived I managed to gradually replace the cigarettes with my new kit over a two month period and got into watching YouTube reviews for newer kit. My cheap and cheerful kit was replaced by a more upmarket affair, and being a noob I made a mistake once it arrived... I put in the supplied direct lung coil, this was of course a complete revelation and I haven't touched a cigarette since. Oh and I no longer spend the first five minutes of every day having a coughing fit either.