The original high end bespoke stab wood Loch Ness Mod is a unicorn for many, easily fetching up to $5000 on the open market. Jacob Giverink and the Vape Envii team were smart to create a budget based version of the same basic design with a couple key differences that make it a rather decent product offering.
The overall aesthetic is very similar to the original with a little less elegance to the lines and overall finish. It’s larger but it accommodates dual 18650s so that is a fair trade. It utilizes a custom chipset that offers 150W and a slew of advanced features to keep anyone happy (a big difference over the original’s DNA40). So it’s a great idea, it’s less than $100 and feels great in the hand. Jacob has figured out a very ergonomic shape that fits very naturally in the average sized hand (maybe an issue for smaller hands). Where it falls down a little is in the fit, finish, and materials. Overall it feels cheap, the finish has serious issues, with light use the finish flakes off around the bottom edges of the mod and near and around the 510. Rubberized finishes always feel nice but rarely have good durability. The battery door leaves much to be desired, it opens sporadically and you find yourself not trusting it and checking it every time you pick it up. It lacks a click or friction stop, the design thinking is sound but it’s missing some real world usability. The 510 design is a thing of beauty, having the ability to swap for a flush or catch cup style 510 is awesome. The flush style is great for larger attys up to 25mm and the catch cup is great for your smaller to standard size attys (22mm). This really is a more powerful, more affordable Loch Ness.
The chipset is very good, it has all the temp and advanced features you could ever want. The interface is sound and easy to use (once you learn the button combos). The screen info design is great, we love the battery indicator (a solid single bar that splits to show individual battery levels), every piece of info is there. The curves and boost features work well and are becoming more and more of an industry standard in this years mod market.
It’s an efficient chipset, the battery life is great. Dual battery mods are always great, and you can expect a full day of vaping. The form factor of this mod does a great job of making it feel smaller than your average dual battery mod. That is the thing, the magic is the way this mod feels in the hand. So natural with great finger or thumb fire positions.
So…This is the first of a famous, sot after modder making a budget version of a very similar design/aesthetic to their high end work. We like the idea of it, the accessibility of it, but it feels like the bar was set a little too low on this one. We would happily pay $150-200 for better fit, finish, and materials. The good news is this fact doesn’t effect the success of this mod. Many will be happy to pay less than $100 and get a feel and sense of what it’s like to vape a unicorn, the Loch Ness.