Our iJoy Tornado Nano review puts the RTA to the test, looking at everything from the ease of building on the two-post Velocity-style deck to the vapor and flavor you get from the tank. Is it worth picking up?
Is it worth picking up?
The iJoy Tornado Nano atomizer does a commendable job of distilling everything great about the original Tornado into a smaller package. The Velocity-style build deck and top-filling design make it very easy to use, and the addition of a pre-built coil is a nice extra for anybody not comfortable with rebuilding.
The performance is also phenomenal. There may be a few downsides – no access to the coil without emptying the tank, for instance – but on the whole the RTA is an outstanding offering. For just over $30, it’s not the cheapest RTA on the market, but it’s a solid offering and you’re unlikely to regret the purchase.
Full review
Back in the early days of vaping, rebuildable tank atomizers were often more trouble than they were worth. But things have changed. The thumb-screws and SS mesh wicks have been rapidly replaced with high-quality build decks – worthy of top-end RDAs – and Japanese organic cotton, and the performance has gone from mediocre to absolutely outstanding. The iJoy Tornado Nano is one of the most recently released options for tank-loving rebuilders, and offers a 4 ml capacity vape tank, a Velocity-style dual coil build deck, top-filling design, 24k gold-plated contacts and more, fitting the key features of its larger sibling into a more compact package. But is it worth the $30.90 price-tag? We’ve put it to the test for our iJoy Tornado Nano review to find out.
The iJoy Tornado Nano was provided to us for the purposes of this review by VaporDNA. As always, this review will offer a completely honest appraisal of the device.
What You Get
The iJoy Tornado Nano rebuildable tank atomizer comes in a plastic box covered by a yellow sleeve. This bears a cartoon tornado on the front and the key specifications of the tank on the back. Inside, your tank rests in a foam block with a pre-made coil installed. The remaining compartments contain a spare glass tube for the tank, the RTA head, a hex key, some spare grub screws, some pre-wrapped twisted kanthal coils, a selection of spare O-rings and a 510 drip tip. This is a really nice offering, with everything you need to get started vaping with the Tornado Nano atomizer, as well as some pre-made coils for anybody new to rebuilding.
iJoy Tornado Nano Review – The Design
Appearance
The Tornado Nano RTA has a straightforward but effective design, both functionally and aesthetically. The body of the tank is almost completely taken up by the glass tube, leaving only thin slithers of black at the top and bottom for the top cap and base. It’s also available in stainless steel, if you prefer that to black (which is a little bit more expensive).
The design on the atomizer heads tops this off, with “Tornado” etched into each in the Disney logo font. It might not sound that appealing, but it actually looks quite good. The drip tip is short and wide, but you can attach a 510 one if you prefer. Adding the included 510 option makes the whole tank look a bit odd, though.
Structure and Layout
The tank has a simple structure, and if you’re familiar with modern tanks you’ll be right at home. The airflow control ring is at the base, with the coils screwing into the bottom section. The coil and chimney section screw together too, but the chimney can’t be removed from the top cap. The glass tank is only held in place by the top and bottom caps, too, so you can’t get access to your coil without emptying the whole thing.
Top-Filling Mechanism
The iJoy Tornado Nano is a top-filling vape tank, which is always great from an ease-of-use perspective. It works just like you’d expect. You unscrew the top cap (along with the drip tip) and this reveals space for you to fill up around the central chimney. Many tanks have four openings around the chimney, but the Nano has two bigger ones, making refilling even easier.
The only downside is that the top cap is really flat. This was probably to keep the tank looking compact, but makes it a little fiddlier to open up. It isn’t a huge issue, though. You just have to grip onto the squat little drip tip, rather than the wide section of the cap.
Airflow Control Ring
The airflow control system on the Tornado is really simple. It’s a slot-style system, with two long thin openings on opposite sides which can be set anywhere from completely open to completely closed using an outer ring. This outer ring pulls right off, but stays in place without issues if you’re not intending to remove it. Two opposite points on the ring have shallow ridges cut into it so you can grip the ring more easily to make adjustments. Everything works just like you’d expect, so no complaints here.
The Color-Changing Glass Tube
Yes, you read that right. The spare, apparently-black glass tube you get in the box isn’t like any ordinary tank tube. It actually changes color when you vape, going from a deep black to a translucent color you can just about see your juice level through. This is a cool addition, in a way, but also a bit useless. Filling up is harder because you can’t see your e-juice level unless the glass is already warm from vaping. However, it does give the tank an interesting look when it’s been sitting undisturbed for a while.
Overall, the design of the Tornado Nano is good. There are a few things that could have been improved, but on the whole it looks great. It’s quite straightforward and vapers will feel right at home with how everything works.
The RBA Head – Ease of Rebuilding
The RBA head is really the main draw of the Tornado Nano. The atomizer head gives plenty of space for rebuilding, thanks to its substantial width and the Velocity-style deck layout. The deck has an 18.6 mm diameter, so it’s still smaller than most RDAs but is much better than many RTAs on the market.
The original Tornado took things to extremes, with three holes in each post to support outlandish multi-coil builds. The posts on the Tornado Nano only have two holes in each, but the potential for ambitious builds is still definitely there. One set of post holes are on the outer edges, and the others are in the tops. This makes it easy to unscrew and tighten down the screws on the Tornado Nano.
Unscrewing the chamber from the deck reveals the two posts and the building platform. There are two airflow holes directly under where your coils sit, and four wide wicking ports so you can keep them supplied with juice.
The chamber screws into the tank’s chimney from the top, so it has threading on the top and bottom. This means you can actually screw the chamber into the bottom of the deck while you’re rebuilding. This gives you a little stand for the deck while you’re getting the coils wrapped and attached.
The Velocity-style deck means that attaching your coils and getting everything set up is about as easy as possible. The post-holes are comfortably big enough for lower-AWG wire types or even Clapton wire, each having a 2 mm diameter. Finally, getting the wicking set up is pretty easy too. I got good performance with a lot of wick but cut so the tips were just barely visible in the wicking ports when the chamber was screwed on.
It goes without saying that the performance you get will depend on your build, but on the whole I got great flavor and vapor with every setup I tried.
The 0.3 Ohm Chip Coil – Performance
If you don’t want to build, the Nano comes with a pre-built, dual twisted kanthal “chip coil.” This is wicked with cotton, and you can easily replace the wicks when the flavor starts to diminish.
The performance from the chip coil is excellent. It’s rated for between 40 and 80 W, so here are some quick notes on the flavor and vapor throughout the recommended range:
- 40 W: The Tornado Nano’s chip coil offers satisfying vapor production even at 40 W, and the flavor comes through well. However, the key component of the flavor is the main thing I pick up.
- 50 W: The vapor production is notably boosted at 50 W. The flavor comes through much more fully, bringing the subtleties through more clearly. At this point, the vapor has a pleasing warmth to it without being too hot.
- 60 W: Things start getting nice and cloudy at this point, and the flavor improves even further. The vapor starts to get a little hot around the drip tip, but it’s still tolerable.
- 70 W: Aside from the expectedly better vapor production, this is the sweet spot for the flavor I’m testing the tank with (Para Mour from NJOY’s Artist Series), with every note coming through beautifully. The heat of the vapor on the stubby attached drip tip is getting very hot though, almost intolerably so.
- 80 W: At the upper end of the recommended range, the vapor production is great but the flavor passes its peak. The vapor is also a little too hot for my tastes.
So the performance is fantastic throughout most of the recommended range, with 60 to 70 W offering the best blend of vapor, flavor and vapor temperature.
iJoy Tornado Nano RTA Review – In Use
The design and performance of the iJoy Tornado Nano vape tank is excellent, on the whole, but how does it stand up on a day-to-day basis?
Refilling
As mentioned in the design section, the Tornado Nano’s top-filling design makes refilling a breeze. Unscrewing the cap can be a little difficult because there isn’t much to grip onto, but once you’ve got it open there are no problems. There’s plenty of space to refill, and with the clear tank it’s easy to see when it’s full. This is a big limitation of the color-changing option though.
Changing Coils
The structure of the Tornado Nano makes changing between your RBA head and the chip coil a little more difficult than with some other devices. It can be hard to unscrew, and you’ll likely pull out the whole chimney section when you do. Then you have to remove the coil from the bottom, but when it’s still slightly coated with juice this can be a bit harder than you may hope. Drying it off first helps a lot.
Once you’ve contended with that, though, changing your coil is really simple. Just screw the new coil down into the base or into the bottom of the chimney, then tighten the other connection up and you’re good to go.
Airflow Settings and Making Adjustments
The airflow control ring on the Tornado Nano works just as you’d expect. It’s easy to make changes on-the-fly to suit your preferences. On the minimum setting, it’s suitable for mouth to lung inhales, but it opens up wide for lung inhales too. For me, the mid-range settings are perfect, still being suitable for direct-to-lung inhalation but also maintaining more of the flavor of your e-liquid.
Tornado Nano Leaking
A consistent annoyance with many sub ohm tanks is leaking, and the Tornado Nano isn’t completely immune to this. For the most part, you’ll avoid problems, but when it goes wrong it really goes wrong. Your juice comes streaming out of the airflow slots and you’re left desperately scrambling for paper towels. This tends to be during refilling, but you can have some very slight leaking after refilling too. However, the chip coil doesn’t suffer from this issue very often.
The RBA head is where you may run into problems, but this comes down to how you set up your wick. You need to ensure the deck is well-covered by wick to prevent leaking, and this means using a substantial amount of cotton. Once you’ve got the hang of it you won’t have problems, but you may run into issues at first.
The Drip Tips
The drip tip incorporated into the top cap of the Tornado Nano is pretty short, but it’s a bit wider than the standard 510 options. The performance tends to be better with this than the 510 option also included with the tank. However, the vapor right around the tip can get quite hot, especially when you vape at higher wattages. The 510 drip tip can be inserted directly into this one, which solves the problem a little, but the thinner bore does concentrate the vapor a little and make it harsher to vape.
This isn’t a big problem, but the Nano would have been better with a wide-bore drip tip.
Overall
On the whole, the Tornado Nano is great in use. There are a few areas for improvement, but in the grand scheme of things all of the downsides are pretty minor.
Build Quality
The iJoy Tornado Nano vape tank is excellently put together. It uses high-quality materials, from the Delrin drip tip to the PEEK insulators and the 24k gold plated contact point. Everything is well-built, all of the threading works just as you’d hope and there were no problems throughout testing.