The OBS Crius RTA went through a couple iterations before they got it right. The latest version sports a velocity style build deck that makes building a piece of cake. We didn’t want to like this atty, frankly we find the aesthetic to be too futuristic and busy for our taste. We kept hearing good things so we finally broke down and grabbed one to check out. Well… we have a lot to say.
It looks more like it should shoot lasers rather than vapor. But after just a couple of days with it, we could care less about how it looks, it vapes friggin awesome! It’s easy to build, wicks like no other RTA we have seen, and the flavour is really damn good! It has a couple of little issues but nothing that should stop you grabbing one for yourself. Okay, lets get into it…
The Flavour is very good, the way we have it set up, it’s a warm luscious vape and every juice we put in it tastes great. We are just amazed at how well our setup has lasted. It’s been running for 4 days now and is just starting to show gunk build up on the coils and the wicks are still white, for the most part. And this is after we have vaped over 60mls of 3 different juices! It has to be because of how well this design wicks, it is hands down one of the best we have seen.
It’s not a super hard wick job, you just need to make sure you get the wick to sit just inside the channels. We found cutting the wicks on a bias so that they angle out from the deck (check out the pic in that gallery) and trimming them down in width a bit so they fit easily within the channel is all you need to do. There is something about having full circular juice holes that lead to the channels of the deck that make a perfect system. It’s a similar way of thinking as we see in Kayfuns, we hope to see more of this style hit the market. It has to effect the pressure of the internal vacuum (less distance to travel), the old way of having channels at the bottom of the chimney and expecting the juice to travel down and then up to the coils has to go.
Building is easy thanks to the velocity style deck. It’s a somewhat spacious deck, it’s easy to fit 3mm diameter coils and the post holes accommodate 24awg with ease. It may not suit all Clapton coils as they look to be 1-1.5mm holes. As always, we threw in a spaced/open coil dual build, using 24awg, 5 wraps, Ohming out at 0.23, and ran it at an even 60W. It’s a great vape, performs very consistently, all we have done for the past few days is refill with juice. It’s crazy, most of our experiences with RTAs have always included daily coil burn off and wick changes, but not with the Crius.
The Top Fill system actually works, thanks to a great juice flow control system and o-ring resistances that hold up, it works without any leaking really. Well there is a small con, after each fill, there is a tiny bit of sweating between the AFC and the Juice Control ring (a couple wipes with a cloth or your t-shirt, and it’s good). The Fill port fits most (if not all) dropper tips and as long as you hold it on a decent angle and take your time, you can fill it pretty quick.
The AFC is awesome, we love systems that have stops and decent o-ring resistance. A quarter turn to open or full close is all you need. OBS has fine tuned this airflow, you can feel noticeable results with even the finest adjustment. Fully open, it’s a Medium-Full Lung Hit, you can actually get a Mouth-Lung if you close it down to a quarter open. It’s versatile and like the juice flow, and top fill, the AFC works! Oh yeah and it’s silky smooth!
We are just down right surprised by the Crius. It’s not overly expensive, it looks over styled, but damn, it performs! The build quality is okay, there are sharp edges on the outer juice channels, the drip tip connection at the top of the tank is pretty shallow making it hard for most drip tips to sit flush- but who cares when it vapes the way it does. We review a lot of RTAs that are much more expensive and don’t perform as well. This is a must buy, OBS has done a fantastic job designing an RTA that takes a new approach to the flow of juice inside the tank that gives it some rather stellar performance. Go grab one.