How Portable Should Your Portable Vaporizer Be?
Portable vaporizers have literally taken over the industry, but what does make a portable vaporizer “portable.”
That said, we take a look at some of the important factors that help define what portable vapes are, may it be a weed pen, dab pen, nectar collector or even e-rig.
So, whether you’re on the hunt for your first on-the-go vaporizer or simply looking for the latest addition to your pocket-friendly vape collection, we’re here to help you find the ideal vape for you.
Table of Contents
- Portability Defined
- Heating and Vapor Quality
- Battery Power and Management
- Form Factor and Stealth
- Ease of Use and Controls
- Materials and Safety
- Bonus Features
- Quick Comparison Chart
- Yocan Picks
Portability Defined
Portable vaporizers are basically vapes that one can take with them almost anywhere they go. It shouldn’t keep you tied down to a desk and must be fairly easy to carry from one place to another.
When broken down, here are a few things to consider:
A portable vaporizer would have to be, well, small and compact, design-wise. Essentially, it should fit inside the palm of your hands or inside your pockets.
Helping you carry an on-the-go vape with ease is a device made using lightweight materials such as alloy.
Finally, they should be fairly easy to sip in and out of your pocket. A portable vape should fairly be slim and have round edges for ease of use.
Heating and Vapor Quality
Now that we’ve covered how a portable vaporizer should look and feel to your hands, it’s time to talk about how it should vaporize your favorite materials and how they affect the vapor quality.
At the time of writing, the industry has three acceptable heating methods for vaporizers in general. These are conduction, convection, and hybrid heating.
The first one uses a conductive surface to transfer energy and heat up dry herbs, wax concentrates, and oils.
Convection heating, on the other hand, uses hot air as a way to evenly vaporize various materials — usually for herbs, just like the Yocan Vane 2 Portable Herb Vaporizer.
Finally, hybrid heating uses both technologies to extract the active ingredients from your select ground herbs, waxes, or oils.
Also affecting vapor quality is the type of components used in heating elements for portable vapes such as ceramic (known for its low and slow heating properties) and quartz (ideal for getting immediate results due to its ability to quickly transferring heat).
Battery Power and Management
Granted a portable vaporizer like weed pen or dab pen must be relatively small, it is expected that they will not have the same battery life as larger, beefier electronic-rigs (e-rigs), such as the Yocan Black Celestial 2 E-Rig Vaporizer.
Typically, a handheld vape can carry a small yet dense battery with up to 1,800 milliampere (mAh) capacity. A good example is the Yocan HIT 2 Dry Herb Vaporizer.
Ideally, this can last you up to several days, depending on how frequent you take hits from your portable vape.
As one would imagine, the smaller the device gets, the lower the capacity is, say around 320 mAh. A good sample is the Yocan B-Smart Slim Twist VV Battery.
This should be good for a day’s worth of dabbing — even less if you partake in group sessions.
Form Factor and Stealth
Now here’s where portable vaporizers outshine their desktop counterparts. They are typically the choice of many consumers since (aside from being more affordable) they alloy them to reap the benefits of their favorite materials almost anywhere they go.
Key to this characteristic is the usual discreet design and small footprint of today’s on-the-go vapes.
Some good examples include the Yocan UNI 3.0 Plus and the Yocan Black Case. The first one has a blacked-out fascia with a modern digital screen while the other easily disguises itself as a pair of Air Pods Pro.
In addition, most stealthy vapes offer quiet operation through the use of somewhat silent buttons. Further, they can produce vapors with low odor, especially when paired with other Yocan accessories such as the Yocan Green Invisibility Cloak Personal Air Filter.
And since we’ve already mentioned controls…
Ease of Use and Controls
Portable vapes are also coveted since they are the easiest to use compared to products from other segments.
Here are a few examples:
Most dab pens and other on-the-go vapes are built with pre-set voltage levels to help make personalization easy, especially on beginners.
Some portable vapes (such as the Yocan Dubb 510 Threaded Dual Cartridge Vaporizer) even have an automatic draw feature, which means you no longer have to press any buttons. Just pull from the mouthpiece and voila!
Most discreet vapes from Yocan are equipped with an automatic shut-off feature, which turns the device off after meeting a certain time frame.
Shooting dabs outside when the weather seems chilly? No problem, portable vaporizers get pre-heating functions to warm up your extracts before your session.
Some vaporizers now have accompanying smartphone applications for added convenience.
Moreover, vaporizer manufacturers now pay attention to the control layout of their products. It is important to keep all the important buttons clustered together to make usage seamless.
Materials and Safety
Different portable vaporizers also use various types of raw materials to make device components. For example, some companies opt to use things like ceramic and glass. Compared to plastic and cheap metal, these create cleaner vapors since they do not have any immediate chemical reaction when exposed to heat.
In addition, they do not produce any weird aftertaste or smell when the vapors pass through them.
On that note, many vape users decide to buy stealthy vaporizers that use cleaner raw materials as they do tend to promote a healthier way of consuming their favorite dry herbs, wax concentrates, and essential oils.
After all, vaporization is a healthier way of consuming herbs, waxes, and oils as the act of vaporizing the said materials releases their active ingredients without reaching the point of combustion.
Materials and Safety
Different portable vaporizers also use various types of raw materials to make device components. For example, some companies opt to use things like ceramic and glass. Compared to plastic and cheap metal, these create cleaner vapors since they do not have any immediate chemical reaction when exposed to heat.
In addition, they do not produce any weird aftertaste or smell when the vapors pass through them.
On that note, many vape users decide to buy stealthy vaporizers that use cleaner raw materials as they do tend to promote a healthier way of consuming their favorite dry herbs, wax concentrates, and essential oils.
After all, vaporization is a healthier way of consuming herbs, waxes, and oils as the act of vaporizing the said materials releases their active ingredients without reaching the point of combustion.
Bonus Features
Aside from the aforementioned points we have covered, it is also good to note that some portable vapes have bonus features.
Below are a few of these appointments that are aimed towards improving your experience while using your travel-friendly vaporizer on the fly:
- Built-in dab tool — helps with loading dollops of wax (Yocan Magneto)
- Integrated grinder — great for cutting down herbs withou carrying an actual grinder (Yocan iShred Vaporizer)
- Bottom stash jar — perfect for storing ground herbs and keeping them fresh (Yocan iShred Herb Grinder)
- Banger with terp pearls — aids in evenly heating wax concentrates (Yocan Orbit Vaporizer Pen)
- Vortex mouthpiece — promotes better airflow and better cloud quality (Yocan Orbit Vaporizer Pen)
Having built-in tools or accessories is ideal for portable vaping since it reduces the amount of gear you have to carry.
Instead of having to bring along many items when you take a vacation or a trip out of town, you basically just need to carry your portable vape — making everything simpler and straightforward.
You don’t want to be lugging around a satchel dedicated just for your vaporizer and its accessories right?
Quick Comparison Chart
Here is an overview of the topics we have tackled in this article:
We will start with battery since we already covered the part for the heating element.
Featured Yocan Picks
Although we mentioned several Yocan vaporizers within the blog, here are some top-performing models made by the brand, which aligns with our topic today:
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