Reg man inhales the smooth, non-cancerous, taste of USB nicotine

Ego-T

Ease of Use – Good There are two ways to operate e-cigs: some demand that the user activates the heater with a button (three out of the four units I tested), while some self-activate when the user draws on it.

The Ego-T is a press-button unit. The first e-cig I bought, it taught me something that you won't notice with “ordinary” cigarettes: technique can matter – a lot.

If you suck too soon after hitting the button, there's not been much heat applied, and the initial vapour comes through thin, weak and flavourless. Heat the juice for too long, and the result is very like burning the coffee beans.

Once you get the technique right, the scorching stops – and you learn why vapers can become so dedicated to the flavour mix. There really is a lot of difference between different flavour mixes: vanilla (a favourite additive even in tobacco flavours), sugars, cloves – they're all there.

Filling is acceptable The Ego-T is a little fiddly to fill. You need to use a squeeze bottle with a syringe attachment at the top (sold with the starter kit) to push the juice past foam at the top of the tank.

However: it fills from the top, which means once you've got your technique down pat, you won't be spilling juice when you're trying to fill it.

Battery life and recharge time are good After its first full charge, the Ego-T battery easily lasts me more than a day, and has the fastest recharge of the four units I tested. From completely empty, the battery will recharge in 2.5 hours; after a normal day, it might only need 40 minutes.

Cleanability is low There are a host of videos on the Internet that will purport to demonstrate how to disassemble the tank and element to clean them. They make it look easy, but it's not: even with the right tools, you're quite likely to break the glass. The good news? Replacement tanks are cheap.

Build quality is disappointing It started well, but over time it's been a bit of a disappointment – in a way that also underscores a problem with reviews of nearly anything. Most reviewers don't have their hands on the product for long enough to turn up what should be warranty problems, I've had a couple of months with the Ego-T.

What's wrong with the build quality? Simply this: threads strip. The battery charger has had to be supplemented with a rubber band for more than a month now, to hold the battery in place. The thread that holds the tanks to the batteries is also poor quality (and this experience was repeated with the original tanks and the six-pack of replacements).

As a result, the contact between the heater and battery is unpredictable. Calls and emails to the retailer, Vaping Cobra, brought no response.

Ego-T cigarette style

This is the only “breath-activated” e-cig provided for test. Instead of hitting a button, you suck on the end that looks like a filter. When it's working, the LED at the end lights up and the smoke comes out.

Ease of use is acceptable While it's “discreet” – El Reg suspects the designers had some kind of preconceived “ladies' market” in mind when they created this e-cig – usability suffers in a few ways.

• Design – too cute: it puts the operating LED at the front of the product. Yes, it “looks” like a glowing cigarette end, in a bad light, if you use your imagination – but it means the user can't see whether it's lighting up (and whether the battery is charged) without a mirror.
• Operation – from cold, it takes a pretty strong suck to prime the heater. After that, it's very, very responsive, to the point that when your careless scribe dangled it on a lip to capture some deathless prose, mere breathing was enough to activate the heater. I wasn't, however, actively drawing on the e-cig just then. When I remembered and drew, what arrived was nasty and way too hot. That, however, is a mistake I only made once.

Filling is fiddly It's design again: the “filter-like” look of the tank means you can't see how much you've put in. Too much, and there's a difficult mess to clean; too little, and there isn't enough for (say) a day at the office.

Battery life and recharge time – Passable In the review unit, no amount of time on the charger convinced the battery it was full. An overnight top-up gives it just enough charge for a day, but to be fair, the battery is much smaller and the whole unit is very light.

You will need to buy a second battery if you adopt this vape.

Cleanability – None You'd have to be a brave soul indeed to disassemble the tank, so buy spares.

Build quality is good My only complaint is that the coloured coating representing the “filter” began to separate, by the end of a week's use.

Ego-510

The Ego-510 looks and behaves like a scaled-up version of the Ego-T – except that it didn't break.

Ease-of-Use – Good Whether it's the slightly larger tank, the battery or the element design, the Ego-510 behaved much more consistently than my Ego-T did, even when new. It heats quickly, but with a slightly bigger tank, it's hard to overheat the juice.

Filling is acceptable Filling is the same top-foam arrangement used in the Ego-T. Fiddly, but you can get the hang of it without too much trouble.

Battery life and recharge time are very good After the overnight initial charge, I could not empty the battery. Even a constant user would be hard put to empty the battery in a day. That means I haven't been able to test the Ego-510's charge time with an empty battery – but my refill charges in the morning are always finished within the hour.

Cleanability: Not tested Because this is a review unit, my prior experience with the Ego-T meant I didn't try pulling the tank apart, lest I destroy it.

Build quality – Good The build quality of the Ego-510 is far better than that of the Ego-T: more solid, and with a better thread on the battery collar.

Kanger Pro Tank

Someone made a present of this to me, not realising that I didn't have a suitable battery for it. For this reason, I don't know which retailer the Kanger tank came from. What I can tell you is that it's a good fit on the Ego-510 battery, with its adapter collar.

So quite by accident, I found myself at the edge of e-cig “mods”, buying a custom (and although I haven't tried, customisable, if the sales slip in the pack is anything to go by) tank.

The Kanger is more than a little bit intimidating: it's a considerable chunk larger than the Ego-510 tank, it utterly dwarfs the cigarette-style tank, it's heavy, and has a mouthpiece that looks like it could be attached to a bugle. Someone probably thinks it's beautiful, whereas I thought “solid” – not a bad thing after my first experience.

Ease-of-use is good This came as a surprise. The Kanger Tank is fairly heavy (as is the Ego-510's battery), which means there's no chance you'll casually dangle it between two fingers trying to look like Bogart.

What you get with that huge tank and more expensive heater setup is a noticeably different performance – it heats fast, but with a full tank, it doesn't burn.

Filling – Acceptable By now, you've noticed that I don't think anyone's got filling completely right. The Kanger has to be turned upside-down for filling, and it's all to easy to forget that when you're unscrewing the tank from the battery.

Battery – Same as for the Ego-510

Cleanability – Excellent The Kanger tank is designed to be disassembled easily. It's supplied with a spare element – so it's no surprise that I was able to pull it apart and reassemble it without trouble.

Build quality is good I said “solid”, didn't I? 'Nuff said.

Summary

Nearly everything in e-cigs is a trade-off: weight versus cost versus performance. However, it's pretty easy to rank the four devices I tested:

4. Ego-T

– unless you're sure someone will be around for warranty calls, don't bother.

3. Ego “cigarette” style

– the “cigarette-like” behaviour is nice, but the design flaws are irritating.

2. Ego-510

– a good package that I'd recommend as a starter kit.

1. Kanger Tank on Ego-510 battery

– my clear winner.