If you’re looking to vape marijuana but don’t want a portable dry herb vaporizer, finding the best wax, dab or oil pen is one of the most convenient and effective ways to do it.
While many dry herb vape pens don’t get the job done very well, a quality wax or concentrate vape pen allows you to get the medical or recreational benefits of marijuana on-the-go and with a relatively simple yet effective device.
But if you’re new to marijuana vaping, deciding on the best dab pen for your needs can seem difficult. Although checking out individual dab pen reviews is the most effective way to get all the details on a specific device, this list of our top picks for the best dab vapes gives you some awesome devices to consider.
The Best Wax and Dab Pens
7 – Atmos Magna
You can pick up the Atmos Magna for $54.99, making it one of the best dab pen options for vapers on a budget.
The Magna from Atmos is a dab pen with a classic vape pen look, great performance and an affordable price. It’s built around a 650 mAh battery, which has a single button for operation and strikes a good balance between battery life and portability. It has a glass mouthpiece, with a magnetic chamber cover so it’s super easy to gain access and refill as needed. The cover also doubles as a cooling chamber, so the vapor has a comfortable temperature by the time it makes its way up to the mouthpiece.
It has three temperature settings on-board, which is pretty impressive for such a simple-looking and user-friendly pen, and it heats up in just five seconds. There are two atomizers included in the kit, one single quartz and one dual quartz option, with titanium coils on both. In terms of pure vapor production, you get better performance from the dual coil, but both do more than enough to keep you satisfied. You get plenty of little extras with the kit, too, including a packing tool and a leather carrying case, in addition to the USB charger and the two coils.
6 – Grenco Science G Pen Connect
You can pick up the G Pen Connect for $179.95.
The G Pen Connect from Grenco Science doesn’t look like most of the best dab pen devices on this list, or on the market altogether. It basically looks like a compact vape mod with a tank attached to it sideways, so the mouthpiece is at right angles to the longer side of the battery. This is kind of a weird choice, but it does make the device more compact, even with the substantial 850 mAh capacity battery. This will likely last you through a couple of days of use – depending on how much you vape – and there are three voltage settings built into the system. It charges with the included micro-USB cable.
The heating element is ceramic, which is a great choice in terms of preserving the flavor of your concentrate. You access the tank by removing a magnetic cap at the opposite end of the top section from the glass mouthpiece, so you can load and re-cover your concentrate easily. The chamber has a reverse airflow system, which ensures you get great vapor production and pure flavor from your material. There’s a spring-loaded carb release button on the top section, which allows you to easily clear and clean the chamber. The glass mouthpiece connection works well on its own, but it also comes with an adapter so you can easily connect to a water attachment.
5 – PuffCo Plus
Get the PuffCo Plus for $89.95.
PuffCo is a big name in the world of marijuana vaporizers, so it’s not much of a surprise that one of their devices is in the running for the title of best quality dab pen. The PuffCo Plus has a cool, streamlined look, with a solid-color, metallic body with a single button in the middle. The pen tapers inwards for the mouthpiece, which has a small silicone tube poking out from the top for your lips. This is a double-function mouthpiece, though, because if you push down on this part, it will push out a loading tool from the bottom (which PuffCo calls “the dart”). This means that when you’re adding material, you just need to unscrew the mouthpiece section and push down, then you have everything you need.
The PuffCo Plus only has a 520 mAh battery, which is smaller than some of the other options on this list, but offers 50 puffs on a full charge and can be recharged in just 45 minutes. It has a series of slits around the base of the chamber (just above the button) for airflow, but the focus with the Plus is more on flavor than clouds, with an all-ceramic oven ensuring that all you taste is the pure flavor of your concentrate. You can use it on-demand (press the button to vape), or give the button a double-press for a 12-second session. It comes in a kit with the device, mouthpiece, USB charger and a few cleaning swabs for $89.99.
4 – Yocan Magneto
The Yocan Magento kit costs just $39.99.
The Magneto from Yocan is one of the most affordable options on this best dab pen list, and it also sports a huge battery to keep you vaping for longer between charges. It maintains the style and form of a traditional vape pen, but it’s much thicker, owing to the substantial 1,100 mah battery that can easily keep you going through a couple of days of use. The device is a solid color (stainless steel or black), with Yocan and Magneto printed around the bottom on opposite sides, but other than that there’s only a diamond-shaped fire button and a USB charging port on the body of the device.
The atomizer has a multi-layered ceramic coil, with the upper layer intended to melt the concentrate and let it flow through the lower layer, which continues the vaporization process. This makes sure you get the most out of your material, and notably improves performance in comparison to more traditional systems. It also features a storage space for your concentrate at the base, so you don’t have to carry an extra container around with you, and the mouthpiece has an integrated pick tool.
3 – Atmos Kiln RA
You can pick up the Kiln RA with plenty of extras and tools for $74.99.
The Atmos Kiln RA combines a sizable battery with a dual-post replaceable atomizer (hence the “RA” in the name) to take your concentrates vaping experience to the next level. It’s one of the best wax pen style devices on the market thanks to its excellent flavor and efficient performance.
The device comes with a 950 mAh internal battery, which is higher in capacity than many of the other contenders for the title of best dab pen, but achieves it without impacting portability too much. Despite the capacity, the Atmos Kiln is less than four and a half inches long, and although it’s a little fatter than some devices, this makes it a good choice for portability and stealth.
The Kiln RA has a ceramic chamber, which both offers great heat-resistance and doesn’t impact the flavor of your concentrate. The actual atomizer is a ceramic disc, but unlike on the standard Kiln, you can replace it easily when it runs out. This is a huge benefit because on other devices you’d have to replace the whole heating chamber when the old atomizer died. Throw in the high-quality build, the improved airflow and the efficient vaporization and it’s easy to see why the Kiln RA is considered one of the best concentrate vape pens on the market.
2 – Dazzvape Melter
You can pick up the Melter for $39.99.
The Melter from Dazzvape is another option if you’re looking for the best quality dab pen that’s much thicker than your average vape pen, but that offers substantial battery life and exceptional performance. The Melter has an in-built 1,400 mAh battery, which is perfect for if you’ll be vaping out of the house a lot, and has an LED indicator to give you a rough idea of your remaining battery at all times. The power output is based on your remaining battery life (from 4.2 down to 3 V), and it’s button-operated so you simply push it when you want to take a hit.
There are two options for atomizer on the Melter, with a triple titanium coil (wrapped around quartz rods) included with the kit. You can also get a ceramic donut coil (purchased separately), but the performance from the standard option is great anyway. It has a better adjustable airflow system than many dab pens, with two slots in the control ring around the base of the atomizer which you can use to cover or uncover up to four holes on either side. Closing more of them off improves flavor, but you can also open them up if you want bigger clouds, giving you plenty of options for tailoring your experience. It also has integrated storage for your concentrates, and comes with a dab tool for applying the material to your coils.
1 – Pax Era Pro
Get the Pax Era Pro for $70.
The Pax Era Pro is a close contender for the title of best oil pen, but it’s a bit of an unconventional offering. While the Pax 3 offers dry herb vaping alongside an attachment for vaping concentrates or wax, the Era is designed specifically for concentrates, and looks a lot more like the JUUL than most other marijuana vaporizers or wax pens.
Just like with the JUUL, the Pax Era Pro has “pods” that contain extract for you to vape. You can buy these from various places – Pax.com has them available and has a store finder you can use to find a seller near you. Of course, this depends on where marijuana is legal to use either medically or recreationally, and this does limit the number of people that can get the most out of the Pax Era. The Pax 3 may be a better choice for recreational users in other places.
That said, there are some huge benefits to vaping with the Era. It’s so simple to use – since the pods are ready-made you don’t need to fill anything, you just drop it in place and you’re ready to vape. If you’ve ever used the JUUL, you’ll feel immediately at home, and the design takes some clear cues from it too. The battery is small – just 240 mAh – but it recharges in 45 minutes and still has brilliant battery life for such a tiny weed oil pen.
It might be simple to use, but that doesn’t take away from what it can do. There are four settings on the Era, and with the addition of the app, you can adjust the specific temperatures they represent. It may have no buttons, but by shaking the device with a pod in place (which shows the remaining battery) and then removing the pod, you start the device cycling through the available settings. Just reinsert the pod when it’s on the setting you want.
The Era is the JUUL of the marijuana oil pen world, and is arguably the best vape pen for oil altogether. It costs $30 for the actual device, but most of the cost comes from the pods.
An Introduction to Dab Vape Pens
The five devices above include some of the very best concentrate vape pen devices on the market, but if you’re new to the world of vaping wax, concentrates, oils and dabs, you might have a lot of questions about what it is, how it works and how to choose the best wax pen for your needs.
Although we can’t cover everything here, the remainder of the post addresses some key issues ranging from the very basics – like “what is a dab pen?” – through to more complicated questions like “are dabs bad for you?”
What is a Dab?
Dabs are basically concentrated forms of marijuana, where cannabinoids like THC and CBD are extracted into a wax, oil, or “shatter” – which is a concentrated extract that is glass-like when cool.
These extracts tend to be quite potent in terms of THC content. Because of this, they're often used by people wanting efficient delivery for their medication or for recreational purposes.
Most extractions either use butane, propane or carbon dioxide for the extraction process, but then the solvent is evaporated away and you’re left with a high-potency extract that can be consumed in many ways.
What is Dabbing Weed?
But the terminology is a little muddied because “dabbing” is also used as a verb, to describe the process of consuming dabs. If you’re wondering “what is dabbing weed?” then the answer is basically heating a concentrate up using a hot surface and then inhaling it through a bong-like “dab rig.” There are many “e-rigs” or dab vape pens with an electric heating mechanism, but traditional dabbing rigs require a blowtorch to use.
What is a Dab Pen?
A dab vape pen is a vape pen you can for “dabs.” This can include e-rigs like the Dr. Dabber Boost, which work more like a traditional dab rig just with an electronic heating source, or something more like a traditional vape pen that can be used for vaping dabs.
How to Smoke Wax Without a Rig
If you don’t have a dab rig or a vape pen for dabbing, you can still enjoy your wax or concentrate with the use of a wax vape pen. Many of these work a lot like ordinary e-cigarettes – having a coil wrapped around a “wick” (usually made from quartz or something similar) that heats up when you activate the device – but are designed to vape concentrates rather than THC vape oil.
If you’re wondering how to vape wax, this is the simplest method, and even if you wanted to know how to smoke wax, vaping it is preferable for many reasons, so it’s worth trying out.
To use a wax vapor pen, you simply open up the cartridge to reveal the coil or coils, and apply a small amount of your concentrate (0.1 g usually is about right – which is around the size of a BB pellet) directly to the coils.
You need to be careful to avoid misshaping or otherwise damaging the coils when you add your concentrate, but it can be hard to get the concentrate off the tool, so it’s hard to avoid making contact at all. When you’ve loaded up your wax vape pen, you re-attach the mouthpiece and use it like you would any other vape pen: just press the button and inhale from the tip.
Types of Concentrate Atomizers
With many different types of concentrate – ranging from quite runny oils to near-solid shatter – there are several different types of atomizers used for vaping concentrates, and finding out the basics helps you make the right choice for the best wax vape pen for you.
The three basic types of concentrate atomizers are wicked, wickless and flat/donut style. All of these have a chamber for you to add your material, but they’re really intended for different uses.
Wicked Atomizers for Weed Oil Pen Devices
Wicked concentrate atomizers have a wick a lot like an ordinary vape pen, made from silica or cotton, and this means they can only be used with low-viscosity concentrates like oils or slightly waxy oils.
Wickless Atomizers for Wax Vape Pen Devices
Wickless atomizers have a rod (usually ceramic or quartz) in place of the cotton or silica wick, and are mainly used for thicker waxes and shatter. They’re especially good for higher-temperature or higher-power concentrate vaping.
Like e-liquid atomizers, you can get wax vape pens with single, dual or triple coils, with more coils generally creating a thicker vapor.
Flat Ceramic Dish Atomizers for Concentrate Vape Pen Devices
The final type of atomizer uses a flat, ceramic, donut-shaped dish that you add your material to without making direct contact with the coil itself. In fact, these designs have no exposed coil or wick at all. This is great for flavor, but these types of atomizer only really allow lower-temperature vaping.
Threading and Cross-Compatibility With E-Liquid Vape Pens
Most of the atomizers used in the best wax vaporizer pens have 510 threading, and this means they’re compatible with most ordinary e-juice vape pens on the market, and can be used with mods (though sometimes you’ll need an adapter to get it connected).
Ordinarily, you’ll buy a wax vape pen with everything you need – both the battery and the atomizer – but in some cases you might pick up a wax atomizer or a dab tank separately to use with a device you already have. Separately-bought wax atomizers often have exposed coils (either wickless or wicked) and are surrounded by a glass tank that bulges in the middle, but some look a lot like sub ohm tanks used for e-liquid.
Are Dabs Bad for You?
The dangers of dabs mainly depend on the production process rather than consuming it. The chemicals used in the extraction can remain in the finished product, and if the levels are too high then dabbing could pose risks. However, this is only really a risk with very cheap or home-made concentrates, and states with legal sale of concentrates set safety standards to ensure customers don’t buy dangerous products. There are also other extraction methods (such as CO2 extraction) which don’t involve potentially dangerous chemicals at all.
If you’re wondering “are dabs bad for you?” then the basic answer is: as long as you buy from licensed suppliers, the answer is no.
There are some risks to the process of using a dab rig, since it may involve a torch and will definitely involve hot surfaces. However, as long as you take sensible precautions (like you would when cooking, for example), then there is nothing to worry about. You should also start with a small amount of concentrate to ensure you don’t take too much at first. Tips like this are covered in this article, if you want more information.
The risks of dabbing to your health over the long-term aren’t really known, but it’s undoubtedly safer than smoking marijuana. Most of the research has focused on vaping marijuana, but the similarity to dabbing means that the risks are similar. So far, the studies suggest that vaping marijuana reduces your exposure to harmful chemicals and likely reduces risk in comparison to smoking, but more evidence is needed to draw any firm conclusions, especially on less-studied methods like dabbing.
Smoking Wax Side Effects
If you’re just getting into vaping concentrates or dabbing, you might wonder what the most common smoking wax side effects are. The good news is that most of the side effects of dabbing or vaping weed are generally mild and won’t cause you any major issues.
The most common side effect of vaping weed concentrates or dabbing is simply coughing. Generally, coughing is a sign that you’ve taken too big a hit. However, you might experience coughing sometimes even if you have smaller hits. This is nothing to be concerned about, but you might find that adding some water to your dab rig (like you would in a bong) or turning the temperature down on a vaporizer helps reduce the irritation and subsequent coughing.
The coughing many people experience leads to another of the major smoking wax side effects. After a big dab, some people get lightheaded and dizzy. This is especially likely if you cough because you’re interfering with your oxygen supply. One of the most well-known side effects of dabbing is the “dab sweats.” This is what it sounds like: often-profuse sweating that happens after you have a dab. The reason for this is a little mysterious, but it’s especially common for people new to dabbing.
Although you may experience other symptoms, these are the most commonly-reported side effects of dabbing you might have to contend with.
Choosing the Best Dab Pen
So what should you look out for when you’re trying to find the best wax vaporizer pen or the best dab vape pen?
There are many things to consider, and it’s always worth checking out dab pen reviews before making a purchase. However, here are a few simple things to think about when you’re shopping around.
What will you be vaping?
The best wax pen for your needs depends on what you’ll be vaping. Although most will only handle oils, waxes or other concentrates, some dry herb vape pens can handle flower and do a great job with e-liquid too.
If you’re only looking to vape THC or CBD concentrates, you’ll often save money by choosing a concentrates-only vape pen, but if you need anything else, something like the Pax will be perfect for you.
How much does it cost?
Finding the best oil pen on a budget isn’t easy, and the truth is that you generally get what you pay for. Think about the most you’re willing to pay, but remember the general rule that more expensive devices tend to perform better. Checking out dab pen reviews is particularly important for more affordable pens.
How portable is it?
Although most wax pens are quite portable, some are better for taking out of the house and general stealth use than others. Think about whether you’re likely to need stealth and how much portability is important to you before making your purchase. The Pax Era is a good example of one the best concentrate pen devices for portability and stealth.
How big is battery?
The capacity of the battery (in mAh) gives you an idea of how long it will last between charges. Generally speaking, a higher-capacity battery is preferable to a lower-capacity one, but the truth is that this sometimes conflicts with portability. Usually, higher-capacity batteries will be bigger and therefore less portable. So one of the main things to consider is which is most important for your purposes.
How many settings does it have?
The very best vape pen for wax will likely have a range of temperature/voltage settings, regardless of your preferences. Many devices limit you to just one temperature, and while this is usually great, you can really tailor your performance if you choose a device with more than one setting. Different cannabinoids are released at different temperatures (CBD vape pen temperature settings vary from THC vapes, and so on), so this is especially good for medicinal users or anybody who wants to have precise control over their experience.
These tips for getting the best wax vaporizer pen for your needs just cover the basics, but combined with the recommendations above you should be able to use them to find the right device for your needs.
Conclusion
Getting the best dab pen or wax pen for your needs does take a bit of time and effort. As well as perusing the options available and checking out wax pen reviews, it helps to know the basics of what a concentrate pen does and the things you should look out for when making your purchase.
The suggestions for specific devices in this post should point you in the right direction, but as always, the most important thing to do is consider your needs and how the dab vape pen you’re considering meets them. Just take a bit of time over the decision, follow the advice in this post and you’ll find something excellent.