At $76 for the Vaporesso Target mod and the matching tank, it’s a pretty appealing package on paper, but how does it stand up in practice? We’ve tested the mod and tank for our Vaporesso Target VTC Kit review to find out.
The Vaporesso Target VTC kit does its job well: offering a complete vaping package (minus some juice and a battery) with all the features you’d expect from a modern box mod, and its design makes it almost unbeatably comfortable to hold and use. The TC could be a little better, but once you’ve got it set up properly it works well, and the wattage mode does exactly what you want it to. For $76 – and with 8 % off when you use the coupon code “AECR” (without quotation marks) – it’s a great kit, and while there are many excellent mods on the market, you won’t be disappointed with what it has to offer.
Mods have come a long way in a short space of time. The low-tech tubes with a handful of features and pitiful wattage output have become feature-rich, high-power box mods of today, and those box mods are getting a lot less, well, boxy. We’ve gone from the world of the Vamo to the one of the ubiquitous iSticks in just a couple of short years.
This is the world the Vaporesso Target VTC steps into. It has an ergonomic, joystick-like design, and its straightforward operation makes it a viable option for newer vapers. The tank it comes with also shows just how far the technology has come, offering sub-ohm vaping with a simple, replaceable coils that feature ceramic wicks to maximize their lifespan and offer heat resistance.
At $76 for the Vaporesso Target mod and the matching tank from Heaven Gifts, it’s a pretty appealing package on paper, but how does it stand up in practice? We’ve tested the mod and tank for our Vaporesso Target VTC Kit review to find out.
What You Get
The Vaporesso Target VTC Kit comes in a basic box with an image of the mod and the Vaporesso logo on the front and the contents listed on the back. Lifting the cover, your mod, tank and spare coil are nestled in some slots cut into a block of foam, and there’s a small separate box for the USB charger. The kit comes with a spare temperature control (Ni200) ceramic coil, and a kanthal one comes pre-installed in the tank as standard. It isn’t the biggest collection of goodies you’ll find in a starter kit, but it offers most of the gear you need to get started and there are no real complaints.
Design and Compatibility
The design of the Target VTC mod is quite unique, to say the least. The device looks like a joystick, with a body that gets thinner towards the middle, slopes slightly forwards and bows out a little towards the top. The fire button is like a trigger, positioned so your index finger falls naturally onto it when you grip the device, and the extended section at top of opposite side sits perfectly in the nook between the base of your thumb and index finger. It might have an unusual appearance, but it’s well-designed from a comfort perspective.
It’s also quite compact, measuring around 3 ½ inches (92 mm) tall and under 2 inches (48 mm) wide, meaning that it’s easy to slip into a pocket or a bag and it will be comfortable to hold for most. The tank and drip tip add around an extra two and a half inches (62 mm) onto the height, but it’s designed for the mod so it fits comfortably and matches the style perfectly.
The downside is the resulting aesthetics of the mod, which may not be to some vapers’ tastes. The black version looks better – I received the mod in white for review – but there is a slightly tacky element to the appearance. There are five colors to choose from, though, so you can match the appearance to your preferences to a certain degree.
For the more functional elements of design, the mod does exactly what you want it to. It has a 510 connection – ensuring connectivity to most atomizers on the market – two adjustment buttons, a clear OLED display screen and a USB port for charging along the front edge. You need to use your own battery – and a high amp drain one at that – and it’s inserted and removed through a magnetic cover.
The magnetic cover does its job, but the design could be a little better. The bottom of the cover opens outwards, but the upper magnet attaches to an extended section, which tucks up into a corresponding cavity on the inside of the mod. The first part of the removing the cover leaves this extended section at a diagonal angle, slightly wedging it in place before you’re supposed to pull the cover directly downwards. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s very difficult to accomplish this smoothly.
The tank is straightforward from a design perspective, having a 3.5 ml capacity, a bottom-coil design and filling up from the bottom. The coils use ceramic wicks, which are fed by nine hexagonal openings in the atomizer head. The atomizer heads screw into the base of the tank in the way you’d expect, and the enclosed design of the tank section means you can access and change them without emptying out your juice (if you invert the tank, that is).
Finally, there’s an airflow control ring on the base of the tank, which reveals two slot-style openings on either side of the tank for adjusting your draw. A metal stopper confines the motion of the ring so it simply opens and closes without spinning the whole way around. This is well-done, overall, the ring moves easily, but it has enough resistance to stop it from being adjusted accidently. Overall, there are some minor issues with the design of the mod, but it does a great job on the whole, and both the device and the tank can easily be used with your other gear.
Vaporesso Target VTC Features
The main two features of the Target VTC mod from Vaporesso are its variable wattage and temperature control features. The variable wattage operates over a huge range of 5 to 75 W, offering a substantial amount of power from a single 18650 battery, and more than enough for vapers like myself who rarely venture over 40 W. It supports any coil of 0.15 ohms or higher in either mode.
The temperature control works with nickel coils, and allows you to set any maximum temperature between 200 and 600 °F (or 100 to 315 °C). Support for titanium would have been a nice addition, but since most temperature control coils are nickel it’s not too big a deal in most cases. You can also lock your starting resistance by pressing the “–” and fire buttons and holding them for a couple of seconds. This keeps the performance consistent as long as you lock it when it’s at room temperature, but you have to remember to unlock it if you change atomizer.
The mod also comes with the more expected features from any modern device. It will read the resistance of your coil to two decimal places, automatically recognizes when you change atomizer (asking you to confirm it’s a new coil when you attach one, as shown above), it can be locked and unlocked (as well as turned off), and you can flip the orientation of the display screen by pressing the fire button three times in quick succession. It also comes with a standard array of safety features, including high temperature, low battery, short circuit, low resistance and reverse battery protection.
In Use
So how does it work for day-to-day vaping? How does the device and tank combo perform?
The device itself does exactly what you want it to, and its operation is pretty simple too. For a somewhat new vaper hoping to upgrade but not to something too complicated, it’s a pretty solid choice of mod. There are a few button combinations to remember – hold down “+” and “–” to switch between modes, hold “+” and fire to lock the mod and hold “–” and fire to lock your resistance in TC mode – but other than that it’s simply a case of dialing in your desired setting and vaping away.
In wattage mode, there’s very little to complain about. You hit the comfortably-positioned fire button and vape, with all of the information about your current setting, coil and remaining battery life displayed clearly on the screen for you. Changing setting is easy with the two dedicated buttons, and the device is pleasantly responsive when you hit fire.
One minor complaint is that it takes a long time to make any big adjustments to your setting. If you hold down the “+” or “−” button, it will continually increase, but unlike on other devices this doesn’t get progressively quicker: it just plods along at about 2 W a second all the way to 75 W. This is only irritating if you’re making a big change, though.
Temperature control mode works well too, with some limitations. When you first hit fire in TC mode, it ramps up at 70 W, leading to a short, high power burst before it hits the maximum temperature, cuts out abruptly and is replaced by a lower wattage applied to maintain the temperature.
You still get a solid amount of vapor and a satisfying vape – it does keep to the intended temperature quite well – but it makes for an unusually stinted experience at the start of your draw. The option to set a specific wattage for TC mode would provide a smoother, more consistent vape. Locking the starting temperature is a must; otherwise the performance varies quite a lot as the resistance fluctuates.
The tank is hard to fault, though. The ceramic coils work beautifully, even when you’re low on juice. Even in wattage mode, dry hits are greatly reduced, and the lifespan of your coils is notably increased thanks to the heat resistance of the ceramic – even if you fire it completely dry, you won’t burn the wick. You do have to let the juice soak in for a couple of minutes when you first fill up, though. In TC mode with the ceramic coil, there’s virtually no chance at all you’ll get a dry hit. The flavor and vapor production are consistently excellent, too.
The tank is easy to use, too, making it a good option for newer vapers. It needs to be inverted to refill or change coils if you have some juice in the tank, but everything stays well-isolated and there are nice big holes for refilling. The coils screw into place snugly, and the whole process of replacement is intuitive and simple. The only downside is that you have to screw the coil in well, otherwise it can come a little lose when you’re tightening up the tank.
The inclusion of a USB port for charging the mod is a useful addition. It means that you rarely have to go through the (slightly awkward) process of removing the battery – you can just plug in to recharge via USB instead. The device also works in pass-through mode so you can vape as you charge – a must for any newer vapers without a spare device or battery.
This all combines to make vaping with the VTC kit a generally positive experience. You get solid performance in either mode – with some caveats in TC mode – and the device is both comfortable to use and portable. It’s a mod that’s perfectly suited to newer vapers thanks to its simplicity, and still has plenty to offer to long-term vapers.
Manufacturing Quality
The Target VTC mod and tank from Vaporesso is well put together. There are some issues with the battery cover, as mentioned earlier, but both the mod and tank are sturdily built. The stainless steel 510 threading works well, and the body of the mod is a zinc alloy. Everything on the tank screws in place snugly, but as mentioned earlier, you can have problems with the coil if you over-tighten the tank. Overall, though, the manufacturing seems solid.
If you're looking to find similar top performing devices, check out this list of the best e-cig mods or best vape pens we put together based on suggestions from the community.