The Smok Nord was sent to me for review from VapeSourcing.com. This is a really cool looking pod device from Smok that you would think is designed for tight-draw vaping, but it isn’t!
Specs:
- 1100mAh battery
- 3ml capacity
- Wattage: 10-15 watts
- Size: 94mm tall, 30mm wide, 18.8mm thick, 80grams in weight
- 13 colors
- $26.90
In The Box:
- Nord device w/pod
- 0.6 ohm mesh coil
- 1.4 ohm regular coil
- USB cable
- User manual
Design
Smok always does a really good job with their designs. There have been some bad ones here and there, but for the most part, I think their products look really good. And the Nord looks nice and modern to me. You can get the Nord in just about any color you’d like. They have seven versions of the resin design and six versions of the solid colored snakeskin pattern.
And this little thing has some heft to it. I wasn’t expecting it to be as heavy as it is. It’s not so heavy that it’s bad or anything like that. It actually makes the Nord feel durable and higher quality.
Mouthpiece
The mouthpiece has a duck-bill design, which is comfortable to use. And the airflow hole in the mouthpiece is fairly big, so you can get plenty of airflow through here.
Button-Activated
Some people like draw-activated and some like button-activated. I like both and I think there are pros and cons to both. But this one is button-activated for you button lovers out there.
Five clicks turns it on and five clicks turns it off. So that’s a nice feature for anyone who likes to make sure their devices are off before throwing them in a bag or something.
The button has a nice sharp click to it. Just hold it down to take a hit.
Pod
Instead of the pod being one single piece that you use and throw away, you reuse the pod but replace the coils that go inside of it. So technically I guess this isn’t a pod system. It’s a tank system that looks like a pod system. But I’m still gonna call it a pod system 😉
So you get one pod in the kit and two replacement coils. I really like that Smok designed the pod this way. It’s much less waste and it makes buying coils more affordable.
There are two sizes of pods available depending on where you live. For people in the EU dealing with TPD restrictions, there’s a 2ml pod and for everyone else, there’s a 3ml pod. For a device of this size, a 3ml tank seems perfect just to keep the overall size to a minimum, but if you’re vaping the mesh coils with low-nicotine, you can get through 3ml’s pretty quick.
To fill it up, there’s a little rubber plug on the side. Pop it out and fill it up. Make sure the plug is in tight and then drop it into the device. On a new coil, you’ll want to wait a few minutes to let the liquid soak in before taking a hit.
There’s also this e-liquid window so that you can see how much liquid is in the tank.
The little window is okay, but I think they should have put a little more thought into it. You can only see the liquid when it’s all the way full. Yeah, you can tilt it on its side or upside down, but it’s still a little hard to tell how much liquid is in there. It’s not a big deal because you can pull the pod out if you really want to see inside, but I think if they’re going to include a liquid window, it should be more useful.
I have noticed that there’s a little bit of leaking with the pod. After finishing up a tank, I’ll pull the pod out and find e-juice all over the inside of the device. It’s not pouring out or anything, but you will want to wipe it down.
Coil Heads
Smok makes four different coil heads for the Nord.
One is the Nord Mesh, which is a 0.6-ohm mesh coil. This coil comes with the kit. This one is designed for big hits and flavor, so you won’t be using high-nicotine e-liquid with this one. That mesh also makes it fire fast. It’s perfect for sub-ohm vaping. This coil head has a max wattage of 25 watts, but the device can only push a max of 15 watts, so that’s what you’ll get. But man, you can get some clouds through this coil head. It’s almost like using a high-wattage device. It’s crazy. And the flavor is very good out of this coil head.
The other coil that comes with the kit is the Nord regular coil, which is a 1.4-ohm coil head with a maximum wattage of 12 watts. This one decreases the wattage and reduces the airflow. So this one is for people looking for a tighter draw or for people using high levels of nicotine, although I don’t think the draw is tight enough for mouth-to-lung hits. It’s more of a restricted lung hit. The flavor also isn’t all that great. It’s okay, but nothing compared to the 0.6-ohm mesh coil.
And there are two other coil heads that you can buy that don’t come in the kit. One is a 0.8-ohm mesh coil. So this one is somewhere in the middle of the other two coils. It’s designed for bigger Mouth To Lung hits and for more flavor than the regular coil. The max wattage of that coil head is 16 watts, so you’ll be getting the max power that the Nord can give you, which is 15 watts.
The other optional coil is the 1.4-ohm ceramic coil. I didn’t get one to try, so I can’t say much about it, but it probably has better flavor than the regular coil, but not as good of flavor as the mesh coil. And it probably lasts longer than the regular coil too. Since it’s a 1.4-ohm coil head, basic ohms law tells us that is also has a max wattage of 12 watts.
The coils need to go in a certain way, which is easy to figure out. The flat sides match up to the flat sides on the pod. It’s press-fit, so you just push it in and you’re good to go.
Battery
The Nord has an internal 1100mAh battery installed, which is a pretty big battery for a pod device. Battery life will depend on what you’re running through it, of course. If you’re running high-nicotine and vaping less throughout the day, you could probably go a few days without charging it. If you vape low nicotine or zero nicotine and you’re just taking hit after hit, you might have to charge it after 1-2 days. But either way, that’s a big battery for a pod device.
To charge it, you plug the micro USB cable into the bottom of the device and you can vape the Nord while it’s charging, which is always nice.
The LED light on the device also indicates battery life; red is less than 30% battery life, orange is between 30-70%, and green is between 70-100% charge. You can do two clicks on the button to quickly see what the battery charge is.
Safety Protections
- Short circuit
- 8 second cutoff
- Low voltage protection
Airflow, Performance, and Flavor
The airflow depends on the pod that you use, but even with the 1.4-ohm coil head, it’s a loose draw. So if you like really tight draws, you can’t get that here. I personally like really tight draw on pod style devices, so in my opinion, I don’t think this will satisfy vapers who like mouth To lung hits.
With the 0.6 ohm coil, you get a big loose and flavorful lung hit. This almost works like a box mod but packed into the small size of a pod device. This is where this device really shines. So if you like loose airflow, big clouds, and lots of flavor, this is the coil you’ll want.
Final Thoughts
So that’s it for the Smok Nord. This isn’t a tight draw device like you’d think just by looking at it. This is designed for big clouds and big flavor, in a tiny setup. The flavor is great on the mesh coils, it’s nice and small, and it’s easy to use. I really like this thing.
I got this from VapeSourcing.com, so if the Nord sounds like something you’re interested in, you can get it from them for $26.90 (affiliate).