Our VaporFi Vex 150 TC review takes an in-depth look at the dual battery box mod: is it one to pick up, or one to leave at the vape store?
Is it worth picking up?
The VaporFi Vex 150W TC is a solid dual-battery mod. It’s loaded with features, performs like a champ and will comfortably keep you vaping throughout the day.
The lack of a detailed instruction manual may be a bit of an issue for newer vapers, and it must be said that the home-screen layout and the menu system is lifted pretty much wholesale from various Joyetech devices, but it still makes for an excellent mod.
As is often the case from VaporFi, it’s expensive, but if you want a knockout mod from a reliable, US-based company, it’s worth the money.
Final review
Dual-battery box mods are for the serious vapers. While single-battery mods often put out about 75 W of power, are generally portable and come with plenty of features, the battery life is limited by the fact you only have one cell to work with. Dual-battery mods may be bulkier, but in return you get a bigger maximum power output and double the battery life. That’s why they’re increasingly becoming the devices of choice for longer-term vapers. Although VaporFi has mainly focused on single-battery – and often in-built battery – mods, the Vex 150 TC sees them offering customers the benefits of dual-battery systems. But is it worth $74.99? Our VaporFi Vex 150 TC review takes a look to find out.
What You Get
The Vex 150 TC comes in a branded white box with an image of the device on the front and a list of what’s included on the back. You don’t get much unless you opt for the full kit, though, with the mod, a USB charging cable and a manual being the only things included. If you choose to pick it up as a kit, you’ll also get a tank or RDA alongside the mod, as well as a 30 ml bottle of your own custom-made e-juice.
The Design
Appearance
The Vex 150 TC has a no-nonsense appearance. It’s rectangular and wide, with completely bare sides, a display screen and the usual buttons on the front and a sizable “VaporFi” logo on the back. The edges at the front and back taper off a little to break up the blocky appearance, but overall it does still have that bulky, square appearance. The device is available in stainless steel or black, but in either case the overall appearance is similar. It’s hardly a show-piece mod, but it gets the job done with its understated and powerful look. The logo on the back edge could be a bit smaller, but it’s not too bad.
Display Screen and Front Panel
Most of the action with the Vex 150 TC happens on the front of the device, where the display screen sits with a square fire button above it and two adjustment buttons below. The display itself is OLED, which always makes for clear and well-presented screens, and it has the same layout as many recent Joyetech devices. Your mode and main setting are shown at the top, with lines for your voltage/wattage (in VW and TC mode, respectively), atomizer resistance and current underneath. Below this, the display has two battery indicators – one for each battery.
The fire button is square and sits almost flush to the front face of the device, with a smaller square engraved into the front. The two adjustment buttons below the fire button are linked, and bear a + and – symbol so you know what you’re doing.
Overall, the front face of the device is logically laid out and presented really well.
Battery Slot
The battery slot is found on the bottom of the Vex 150 TC, along with the name of the device. There’s a small latch you move to open the battery door, which swings open to reveal two 18650 battery slots. On the underside, there are + and – signs to show the correct polarity for your batteries. The door is sturdy, and the slots fit your batteries snugly.
The only problem here is that it’s a little difficult to get the battery door closed sometimes. You can do it, but you need to make sure you push the door right in before moving the latch back into the closed position.
510 Connection
The Vex 150 TC has the standard 510 connection, so it will fit pretty much any atomizer you own. The connection is spring-loaded and gold-plated, making the connectivity excellent with the vast majority of atomizers.
Overall
The design features on the Vex 150 TC are admittedly basic, but it really offers everything you could need from a device. It might not have any genius innovations, but it gets the job done.
VaporFi Vex 150 TC Review – Features
Variable Wattage
As is standard on pretty much any mod released these days, the Vex 150 TC offers variable wattage. The range of settings available stretches from 1 W (absolutely and completely useless, but still) right up to 150 W. This is more than enough for most vapers – personally I rarely exceed 60 W – and while some dual-battery devices promise up to 200 W, this is the most you can actually achieve without resorting to “pulse” firing. However, for higher-ohm builds you may hit the voltage limit if 9 V before the wattage limit.
Temperature Control
With “TC” in the name, it’s no surprise that the Vex 150 TC offers temperature control vaping. The device lets you set a maximum temperature from 200 to 600 °F (100 to 315 °C) as long as you use a nickel, titanium or SS316 coil. However, it also offers an adjustable TCR mode, which means you can tailor the device’s response in TC mode to suit your preferences (more info in this post). You can also lock the resistance at room temperature – a vital feature for consistent performance – and set your own ramp-up wattage.
In short, the Vex 150 TC offers everything you could want from a TC device, so there are no complaints here at all.
The Menu System
Changing between TC and wattage mode, for instance, requires some menu system or combination of button-presses, and how this is handled has a big part to play in how easy to use the device is. For the Vex 150 TC, the system works just like on Joyetech devices such as the eGrip 2. Three quick presses of the fire button sets the top line of the display screen – showing your current mode – flashing. Pressing the “+” key changes the currently highlighted element, and pressing the “–” key changes the selected element. This is basically the whole process of operating the menu.
For example, let’s say you’re in wattage mode and you want to switch to TC mode, then adjust your ramp-up wattage. Three presses of the fire button highlights “Power,” and pressing “+” changes it to TC mode. Then you can press the “–” button to select the next element, which is the material of the coil. After changing this to the appropriate setting, another press of the “–” button highlights the “wattage” line, and then pressing the “+” button takes you to adjustment mode. After one press of “+,” you can now use both the adjustment buttons to dial in your chosen wattage.
It might sound a little convoluted, but if you have experience with mods, you’ll know that this is really quite user-friendly. It becomes second-nature in no time.
Additional Features – Stealth Mode, Key Lock and More
Though not covered in the brief manual, you can also set the Vex 150 TC in stealth mode and lock its keys. Press and hold both adjustment buttons to lock the keys, and press and hold the “–” button and the fire button together to enter stealth mode. Locking the keys is handy for when you’re carrying the device in a pocket or bag, but you can also switch it off with five presses of the fire button. Stealth mode is handy if you want to vape without the screen lighting up. This doesn’t come up often (at least for me), but it’s handy if you want to vape in bed without waking your partner or something like that.
By scrolling to the “Amp” section on the screen, you can also switch to a puff counter or a cumulative timer. Aside from the rare situations where you may want a puff counter, these are both fairly useless features.
Safety Features
The Vex 150 TC comes with all the safety features you expect from any regulated mod. This includes a 10-second cutoff, over-charging protection, a hard-wired limit to the current you can draw using the device, protection for if you put the batteries in the wrong way around and over-discharge protection to prevent you draining your batteries too much.
VaporFi Vex 150 TC Review – In Use
Performance: VW Mode
The Vex 150 TC performs solidly in VW mode. The device is responsive and hard-hitting, producing voluminous clouds and working well with a wide range of atomizers and across the whole power range covered. It’s easy to make changes to your setting too, because it scrolls quickly when you hold an adjustment button down. This is really what you’d expect from any VW mod, but the good news is that there are no issues to speak of with the device.
Performance: TC Mode
The temperature control functionality on the Vex 150 TC is also excellent. The range of options to tailor the performance to your tastes makes it pretty difficult to be disappointed with what’s on offer. With the ramp-up wattage set to a comfortable level, you get consistent performance in TC mode, with only a slight noticeable drop-off when you hit your designated limit. This gets more noticeable with high ramp-up wattages, but once you get it set up to suit your tastes it’s really great.
Changing Modes and Other Tasks with the Menu
One of the main tasks you’ll have to do with the Vex 150 TC is changing the mode you’re vaping in. Thanks to the simple menu system described in the last section this is pretty easy to do: just press the fire button three times quickly to enter the menu, then press “+” to change mode. Other tasks with the menu are equally simple, so you won’t have much of a problem if you’re comfortable with mods.
Vex 150 TC Instructions – Making Up for the Crappy Manual
One of the biggest issues with the Vex 150 TC is the manual, which contains very little information. For an experienced vaper, most of the tasks you’ll need to do are easy to work out, but for newcomers, things aren’t so simple.
I had to spend a while trying out button combinations before working out how to lock the keys and put the device in stealth mode. One particularly difficult thing to find is the option to adjust the Vex 150 TC’s TCR values for the adjustable TCR “memory” modes. Again, after a lot of trial and error, I found that you need to hold down the “+” and fire buttons with the device turned off to bring up the menu.
This is a little annoying, because this is what manuals are for. There is no reason to provide a manual doesn’t tell you how to use the device. In their defense, it’s technically referred to as a “quick start guide,” but the unavoidable truth is that it should tell you everything you need to know to use every feature. For new vapers, anything else is simply unacceptable.
Comfort and Portability
The Vex 150 TC is a dual-battery mod, so portability is inherently limited. However, the mod does still slip into a large pocket or a bag fairly easily, and it’s also more comfortable to hold than the boxy shape would have you believe. Overall, for a dual-battery device, it does quite well on this front.
Build Quality
As with most of VaporFi’s devices, the build quality on the Vex 150 TC is excellent, on the whole. There are a couple of little issues, though. Firstly, while this doesn’t happen much, the fire button has gotten stuck a couple of times after being pressed. And secondly, the battery door could be a little better designed, so you don’t have to keep pushing it closed as you close the catch. However, overall it’s excellently put together, reliably sturdy and works just like you want it to.