How to Choose The Best Vaporizer
If you would like to take the vaporizing experience outside, there are a some important things to take into consideration on how to choose the best vaporizer. Will it vape the correct type of material? Is it going to be durable enough to withstand your travels? How much vapor will it produce and is it discrete enough? How easy is it to operate? Will the vapor performance it produces satisfy your needs? How much will it cost? These are all things that will weigh in on your decision on how to choose the best vaporizer.
Usually, the best choice for a cannabis vaporizer will be a decision between a portable vaporizer, vape pen, and pre filled vaporizer. A Vaporizer is a general term used as an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of vaping devices. There are dry herb vaporizers, multi material vaporizers, and cannabis extract vaporizers for vaping cannabis. Concentrate vaporizers come in the form of wax pens, pre filled THC and CBD vaporizer pens, and enails.
In this article, we’ll touch on the features you should consider in a portable vaporizer, to help you decide which one’s right for you. If you have already taken the time to understand the various types of vaporizers and the things to consider when buying, you can start browsing devices by entering into one of the following:
Vaping Medium - How to choose the best vaporizer
The very first question to ask is if the vaporizer you are looking for will vape the right type of material. if you miss this step you could end up with a device that you cannot fill. You have 3 choices of material to vaporizer. There is 2 parent categories that each of these 3 choices fall under - THC dominant or CBD dominant cannabis. CBD means its not going to give you the psychoactive effects that you get with the THC dominant strains.
- dry herbs - these are the most popular type of portable vaporizer. Keep in mind however, that you will need to have a grinder to grind up your herb to work with your vaporizer. Dry herb is how cannabis naturally grows and does not require human alterations.
- waxes - wax vaporizers are usually less expensive, this is because they have less functionality most of the times and use smaller batteries.
- Oils and Liquids - these are convenient and easy to carry around. Many liquid oil pens can come pre filed which means you don't have to carry around material to fill it with. Atleast not as often, since oil is more potent then say dry herb.
Portable vaporizers can be designed for use with any or all of the above materials. Some you will need extra attachments for use with the mediums it does not come equipped to handle.
The Cost
Portable vaporizers can be purchased under any budget. The lowest priced vaporizers can be picked up for as little as $10. While the more expensive models can cost up to $400. The best device is not necessarily the most expensive and the worst is not necessarily the cheapest.
New vaporizers as they get released need to find where they fit in. As new models come out the older vaporizers will need to adjust in price to remain competitive. You should have a look at our vaporizer pricing charts and rankings for the different categories in which portable vaporizer fall under.
Device Build Quality
It’s important to look into the build quality of the devices components. Some companies buy from overseas and do not do their due diligence in safety specs. We have found many duplicate devices that use the same base models with different names slapped on them.
If you re prone to being clumsy, perhaps you should steer clear of devices that include glass components. Luckily one of the best vaporizers that uses a lot of glass in there design has recently started offering an acrylic version - check out the Hydrology 9.
Something to remember is that, while a vaporizer might look ok on the outside, but it’s what goes on under the hood that you need to consider when choosing the best vaporizer.
Vapor Production and Quality
This is the bread and butter of your device. Ultimately, it's the quality and flavor of the vapor that will make you love or toss aside a vaporizer.
Flavor is one of the more personal and subjective aspects to when it comes to vaping. But what creates good vapor flavor in combination with using good quality material, is the heating method, heating chamber, air pathway, and mouthpiece material and length. The temperature at which vapor reaches your mouth at can also weigh in here.
Glass is the best material to have in a vaporizer. Although it’s breakable, it won’t affect the flavor at all because of its smoothness and purity. However, because they’re more efficient at heating up and cooling off - and also because they are less fragile than glass - ceramic and stainless steel are also commonly used, especially within dry herb vaporizers. While they detract from flavor just a little (it’s hard to notice unless you’re a real connoisseur), either of these materials still produce excellent flavor. So don’t get too hung up about it.
Heating temperature also affects flavor. As a general rule, lower heating temperature produce a smoother taste but smaller clouds, while high temperature produce larger clouds but a harsher taste. Look for a vaporizer which has good and accurate temperature control, so you can experiment to get the vapor quality you prefer. Vaporizers that include a water attachment or that can be connected to a water piece give you the option to filter and cool down vapor for a fresher hit.
Convection vs Conduction Heat
Vaporizers heat in 2 general ways. Some heat your material by passing hot air through it (convection vaporizers) while others heat your material by direct contact with a hot surface (conduction vaporizers).
Convection vaporizers tend to be a little bit more expensive and a bit larger in size. This is because they are more complex and require more space for the design.
There are a few key reasons why people generally prefer a convection vaporizer over a conduction one. A convection vaporizer vaporizes your material more evenly and produces better flavor. Convection vaporizers also reduce the chance that your material will combust.
Portability, Ease of Use, Discretion
Ease of use
The 3 additional things to consider when choosing the best portable vaporizer to buy are its ease of use, discretion level and portability.
The ease of use is pretty standard with most portable vaporizers. The bulk of devices manufactured today use a 1 button operation setup. Usually how this works is that you are able to press the button 5 times to turn the vaporizer on, press it once or twice to change temperature and other settings. More advanced vaporizer have multiple buttons and even blue tooth app connectivity.
Discreteness
Vaporizers are not the most discrete product by nature. You inhale vapor and blow it out in the form of an obvious cloud. The vapor cloud can be minimized by the help of temperature control and quicker inhales. Convection vaporizers and water filtration also help to limit the amount of visible vapor.
Vapor clouds are one thing, the smell of cannabis is another. The smell of cannabis is hard to mask and your pretty much busted if your upwind of anyone who you may not want knowing that you are smoking cannabis. Again, temperature controls, water filtration, and micro hits are some thing that you can do to limit this.
Portability
Portability is all about the size of the device, durability and battery life. If you are looking for the most portable vaporizer these are the three things you need to consider.
Some vaporizers come with an internal battery while others use external batteries. External batteries are preferable in my opinion as they allow you to carry extras to prolong the vaporizers usage time in between charges.
Going Forward
When you have narrowed in one what it is you are looking for in a portable vaporizer - You can start browsing the industries top devices from one of the price or category filters below: