Before you read any further, I'd like to get one thing out of the way. Even though these are called "Clearomizers," they are not CE2 clearomizers, just regular polyfilled cartomizers with a clear plastic tube rather than an opaque cover.
At the moment a pack of five of these cartos are $8.95, marked down from $10.95, which looks like it's a monthly special for July. If you can't or don't feel like doing the math, the normal price of these cartomizers is $2.19 a piece. Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, but with the sale they're $1.79 each- not too shabby. I do find the normal price a little steep, however, as Ikenvape sells theirs (my personal favorites) individually at $1.95. Obviously we're talking about cents of difference, but it all adds up if you order a lot and some of us are on budgets. Others have monthly budgets that we (I) have problems sticking to. Whoever said you save money by using e-cigs over analogs was full of it (though certainly worth every penny for a healthier life). Granted, it is indeed possible... but very, very difficult to use that kind of restraint. At least for me. I hear DIY juice is much cheaper once you get the hang of it. Can anyone confirm?
So what's the deal with these cartos? As stated above, despite what they're called, these are not CE2 Clearomizers, but rather normal, polyfilled cartomizers that just have a clear tube instead of a solid stainless or black cover. They're rated at 2.0 ohms, +/- .2 ohms, and that's the only ohm rating GotVapes carries, and perhaps the only rating they exist in. I've never seen these specific ones anywhere else. The one I have on my ProVari right now is reading 2.0 ohms, so right on the money. Here's what GotVapes has to say about these:
"GotVapes DIAMOND is a SMOKtech quality 2.0 ohm SINGLE COIL Clear Cartomizer. NO MORE GUESSING HOW DRY YOUR FILLER IS...WATCH YOUR FILLER SOAK AS YOU FILL.
• Nice absorbant filler will easily hold 20-25 drops. As with any fillered carto, to ease in filling and reduce leaks, it might be suggested to use a small plug to cover the center air intake (something such as the plug that goes into the butt end of our disposeable e-cigs) then tilt and drop 2-3 drops at a time on each side of the carto, let it absorb and fill completely before your first vape.
• You experiences will vary on certain PV's. You want a switch capable of handling 2 amps+ as with any LR device."
They each come with a whistle tip, which I was most certainly not a fan of. All it seemed to do was draw juice directly into my mouth, so my recommendation is to shuck 'em and go with your favorite 510 drip tip or put on an extra carto cap you may have lying around.
I'm not sure 100% why this is, but you should DEFINITELY heed GotVapes advice on using a small plug on the bottom. You don't really need to cover the air hole, necessarily, but if you have some rubber covers that most cartos initially come in that you haven't tossed, put one of those on the bottom. (These do not come with those rubber covers.) I've used two so far, and both times on the first fill they leaked like a sieve and required a little blowing out. Now, maybe I was being sloppy but I thought I was allowing ample time for everything to soak in nice and well.
Thought? Yeah. Even though these are clear, so far on both I have not seen my juice absorb evenly all the way to the bottom of the filler even though they were clearly full. I know that sounds contradictory, but my thought is that the juice begins to soak into the middle of the filler surrounding the air passage as it nears the bottom rather than evenly soaking all of it. Maybe now I'm the one who's full of it, but trying to top off after waiting about 20 minutes for it all to absorb just creates more gurgling and leaking. These hold about 35-40 drops if you allow enough time for the juice to soak in. 20-25 would be a definite under-fill.
I find the look of these cartos to be simultaneously neat and sort of hideous. For me, aesthetics is important and the black or stainless cartos look effin' sweet and sleek on my powder black ProVari. Because the juice doesn't seem to really absorb evenly in the bottom half of the cartomizer, it gives it a sort of patchy look that, while helpful to see as your juice runs dry just doesn't look very nice. If the juice absorbed better it might look a little nicer. Now, that's obviously just my opinion and the aesthetics of these things have nothing to do with how they work.
Aaaannnnddd how do they work? Despite my feelings on the overall look of them, they work like absolute champs. I've tried them on both my ProVari and my eGo, and they work perfectly wonderful on both. These cartos are SLIGHTLY wider than others, however, and if you have an eGo with a cone, the cone will most likely not fit. My eGo is an Inferno from Volcano, so if you have something else the cone MIGHT fit, but to the best of my knowledge pretty much all eGos are exact clones of one another. If I'm wrong about that, so be it- it's just the cone I'm talking about. They do perform fabulously on the eGo, especially if you have a passthrough. In terms of higher voltages, they work great at 3.7v and if you have a VV 4.0v seems to be a sweet spot. In my opinion, they seemed to be okay at around 4.3v but by 4.5v were going very, very dry and tasting pretty shitty. Keep in mind, these are rated at 2.0 ohm so they are on the higher side of LRs, but LRs nonetheless.
Flavor is excellent, and throat hit is great. I like a tingle in my throat but certainly don't want to choke, and these provide a very nice, very present throat hit without being overwhelming. The taste in these is as good as any carto I've used so far.
Now, these have plastic tubes instead of a more durable material, and cracking is a very real risk with these. I have not have a problem so far, but they're very new. My advice is to give ample time for them to cool off... don't let them run too hot. As long as you give them a minute or two break every 4-5 drags, they should be okay. These perform very well for a pretty long time before requiring a topping off.
And that's pretty much what I have to say about them. I'm not crazy about how they look, but the performance well makes up for it. They're not necessarily standouts compared to other cartomizers, but overall perform just as well as other premium brands. "Premium" is, of course, a relative term... but if you've tried out many cartos before, you know some just work better than others and these are certainly among the better ones I've tried. My personal favorites are Boges and the Ikenvapes, and I like these almost as well.
So, that's that. I hope you found this helpful and insightful. If you've got a few extra pennies hanging around and want to give them a shot, I definitely recommend these to any cartomizer fans. Some might definitely be drawn to the clear plastic cover and I do appreciate you can see as they run dry. Even though juice doesn't seem to absorb perfectly evenly, it does not impact performance and as you use them it's a definite plus that you can see the juice slowly being used up. I wish they were sold separately, but so far IKV is the only vendor I've seen doing that. I'm sure there are others, but I haven't found them.
Good job, GotVapes. You are a good company and carry great products.
Once again, hope you all found this helpful in some way or another. If you're going to pick some of these up, I think you'll enjoy them. Vape on!
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