This Joyetech Ocular C review takes an in-depth look at a very unique mod. It has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from any dual-battery device, but with the addition of a touchscreen interface and a lot more. But is it worth the $70 investment?
Is it worth picking up?
The Ocular C is definitely a unique mod, and if you’ve always wanted a mod that can store your contacts and work as an MP3 player as well as vape in TC or VW modes, then it could be the device for you.
Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and while the core functionality is good, there are many small irritations that build up as you use the device that ruin the experience. Throw in the bulky, heavy design, some problems with the design and layout, and it’s hard to recommend for the $69.99 price-tag.
Full review
Vape mods tend to be fairly basic when it comes to technology. You’ll get an OLED display screen and some little practical features beyond the bare minimum, but nothing compared to the computer-in-your-pocket smartphones we’ve all become accustomed to. The situation is in many ways pretty understandable – it’s not like you need all that much to vape, and what else do you need a mod for? But if you’ve been clamoring for something more technologically advanced, you aren’t completely out of options. Joyetech has answered your prayers in style with the Ocular C, a touchscreen vape mod. It has all of the standard features you expect on a mod but with a hell of a lot more too. The question our Joyetech Ocular C review is trying to answer is: does the mod depend on the gimmick or is it actually a worthwhile mod on its own merits?
What You Get
The Ocular C comes in a basic white box, with a glossy front cover bearing a picture of the device. Inside, the mod is encased in a foam layer, and you get a USB cable and a manual along with it. This isn’t the most fully-equipped mod you can pick up, but as long as you have some juice, two 18650 batteries and a tank, you’re ready to vape.
Joyetech Ocular C Review – The Design
Appearance
The Ocular C doesn’t do much when it comes to the basics of the design. It has a blocky, cuboid appearance and little else in the way of design. The large touchscreen occupies the front face of the mod, with a fire button off to the right hand side and a micro USB port and headphone jack – yes, you read that correctly – on the left. The Joyetech logo is barely visible above the touchscreen, and the Ocular C logo sits below it. And that’s basically it when it comes to the appearance of the device. It keeps things nice and simple, which is a big bonus really, because trying to do too much when it comes to design tends to go badly. Overall, the shape is a little unimpressive but it looks cool enough regardless.
Touchscreen Display
The touchscreen display is the big selling-point of the Ocular C, and it has been executed reasonably well. The screen itself looks like it occupies the majority of the front of the mod, but really only a smaller rectangular section in the middle of the device is interactive. The screen itself is full-color and well-presented, with the home-screen featuring a circular central display which shows your main setting, adjustment buttons on the edge of the circle and a row of key information – the current, resistance, voltage and a puff timer – along the bottom. There is a battery indicator, a clock and a screen lock icon.
If you’re interested in aesthetics, there is the option of having pictures displayed on-screen through the menu system, but we’ll cover that in more detail later on.
Overall, the touchscreen display is very clear, and despite being a little smaller than you might assume after first seeing the device, it’s sensibly laid out and gives you all the key information you need at a glance.
Fire Button
The fire button is located on the edge to the right of the screen, and is oval-shaped and slightly recessed into the body of the mod. The button gives a satisfying click as you push it in, and is located towards the top of the mod which puts it in a comfortable location for your thumb to fall on it when you hold Ocular C.
Battery Compartment
The battery compartment on the Ocular C opens and closes with a small clasp rather than a magnetic system. After opening the clasp, the bottom of the mod swings open and reveals two cylindrical slots for the 18650 batteries. The contact points are gold, and are labeled with a positive and negative symbol so you know which polarity to insert the batteries. Closing it back up is easy too, just pull the clasp in and close the door.
510 Connection
The 510 connection occupies the top of the mod, on the left hand side of the screen (opposite the fire button). There’s a circular indented section for where your tank will sit, and the stainless steel 510 connection has a spring-loaded and gold-plated contact. So you won’t have any connectivity issues when you’re vaping with the Ocular C.
Overall
The Ocular C is fairly straightforward in design apart from the touchscreen. It has a blocky shape and is quite heavy, but goes easy on buttons, logos and anything else that would clutter up the appearance. Overall it’s nothing too impressive, but there isn’t much to complain about either.
Joyetech Ocular C Review – Features
Variable Wattage up to 150 W
Like pretty much any mod on the market these days, the Ocular C features variable wattage vaping, allowing you to set any output wattage between 1 and 150 W. You adjust this using the two sections on the circle on the home-screen marked “+” and “−,” and the adjustments are made in 0.1 W increments. If you hold down the adjustment button, it starts to scroll more quickly so you can make big adjustments more quickly. When you reach 100 W it scrolls in 1 W increments at minimum.
Temperature Control With Ti, Ni200 and SS
The Ocular C also features TC vaping with all common TC coil materials: titanium, stainless steel and nickel. The device allows you to set any temperature between 200 and 600 °F (or 100 to 315 °C), and if you tap the “W” symbol in the bottom right of the screen, this activates this setting and you can adjust your ramp-up wattage freely across the whole 1 to 150 W range. There are also three memory modes which allow you to set a custom TCR value for your coil, which gives you plenty of options for adjusting the performance to suit your preferences or your specific build. The TC mode is really well executed, on the whole.
Safety Features
The Ocular C has the standard set of safety features for any VV/VW mod, including 10 second cutoff, short circuit protection, high temperature alert, low power alert, and also some extras, like a warning for when the difference in voltage of your two batteries exceeds 0.3 V. The touchcreen is obviously a lot easier to press accidentally than buttons on most mods, so it can be easily locked, and it automatically locks when you press the fire button too. Additionally, you can switch it off by pressing the fire button five times in quick succession. Overall, you can rest assured you’ll vape safe with the Ocular C.
The Features You Weren’t Expecting
The Ocular C is really unlike any mod you’ll have ever used before, because the features definitely don’t stop there. Here is a run-down of all the extra things you can do with Joyetech’s touchscreen mod:
- Pedometer: What do you mean you’ve never even considered combining a step-counter with a nicotine consumption device? Well now you have it. You’re welcome.
- MP3 Player: There is an onboard 2 GB SD card on the Ocular C, and you can use a dedicated music player if you want to save the battery on your cell phone but don’t mind draining your 18650s to listen to a few tunes.
- Photos: Coming packed with some hilariously cringe-worthy shots of handsome men vaping and some picturesque scenery, and with the option of adding your own pictures onto there too. If you want to personalize your mod, this is pretty cool in a way, but I can’t imagine most vapers being interested in doing it.
- Contacts: Because why store your contacts on your cell phone – which you can actually use to contact people – when you could keep them all on the thing you use to heat up a coil and inhale vapor?
- Calendar: Just why?
Joyetech Ocular C Review – In Use
Performance – VV/VW Mode
The Ocular C performs really well in VV/VW mode. It’s responsive, heats your coil efficiently and maintains your set wattage consistently. It works just as well across the whole supported wattage range and performs excellently with any atomizer you screw onto it. While the touchscreen distinguishes the Ocular C from the vast majority of mods on the market, in VV/VW mode you’re getting exactly what you’d expect from any device.
Performance – TC Mode
In TC mode, the Ocular C also performs just as you’d hope. The simple system for setting your ramp-up wattage makes it really easy to get it working how you want it to, and you don’t notice a sharp decline in output when the temperature protection kicks in. During testing, after hitting the limit, the temperature stayed within 2 °F of the set temperature and the output was very consistent. You won’t have any complaints about the TC mode on the Ocular C, and the adjustable TCR gives you the ability to adjust it to your preferences anyway.
Navigating Around the Ocular C and Changing Settings
The Ocular C’s touchscreen design would be expected to make the device pretty pleasant to access settings on and navigate around. For the most part, this is true. Changing modes is done with a simple swipe to the left or right from the home screen, and a downwards swipe takes you to the menu. You navigate to the next section of the menu with a downwards swipe, and simply tap any of the options you want to select from there. It’s essentially foolproof when it comes to performing the most basic functions.
Changing your setting using the touchscreen doesn’t seem as effective as if the device had buttons, though. The sections on the central circle you have to touch are quite small – they could have easily occupied the whole right and left hand sides, since the rest of the circle doesn’t do too much – and when you hold it down it’s really easy to overshoot your intended setting. You find yourself getting in the right ballpark and then individually pressing for 0.1 W adjustments until you get to your desired spot.
The Locking Function on the Touchscreen
The automatic locking of the touchscreen when you press the fire button is an important feature for a device like the Ocular C: without it, you’d accidentally press things all the time when the device is in your pocket. To unlock it, you simply swipe across the middle of the screen from left to right. That is, according to the manual. In practice, if you press on the right point on the screen on the right hand side, it will unlock.
This causes problems when you’re walking around with the device in a pocket or bag. On numerous occasions, I’ve pulled the Ocular C out of my pocket to vape, only to find the setting has changed or the device has even been switched to a different mode. Clearly, the simple unlocking procedure was completed in my pocket and the setting was adjusted. This is far from ideal.
Similarly, locking after every press of the fire button is good – because it means you won’t forget to do it – but it also has its downsides. If you change your setting and have a puff, but then want to change it again, you have to unlock before you do so. This isn’t a big deal but it’s easy to forget to unlock and it can make the experience of using the mod a little clunky.
Does the Screen Drain the Battery?
My first concern when starting to vape with the Ocular C was that the increased demand on the battery from the touchscreen would drain your battery more quickly than a standard mod. While this wasn’t as noticeable as I was expecting, it does seem to work through your battery faster than an ordinary device. Coupled with the blocky and heavy design, this puts it beneath much of the competition when it comes to a dual-battery device to use out of the house.
Build Quality
The build quality of the Ocular C is pretty good, as you’d expect from a well-respected manufacturer like Joyetech. The screen works well and is undoubtedly the most difficult aspect of this device to put together well. However, the fire button sticks a little bit. Not enough to really cause much of an issue, but definitely enough to give you the occasional scare when it seems to be stuck in place momentarily. Overall it’s built well enough, but not fantastically.