3_5stars

Digiflavor Lynx RDA Review

The Digiflavor Lynx is a 25mm RDA featuring beefy Goon-style clamp posts as well as both bottom and side airflow for intense flavor and monster vapor clouds. These features alone, without even mentioning the huge build deck and Kennedy-style airflow slots, hint at a very good RDA, but in this review we’ll see if the whole is just as good as the sum of its parts.

This was my second experience of with a Digiflavor device, after reviewing the Siren GTA 25. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this brand, it is actually an offshoot of Chinese company Geek Vape, one of the biggest names in the vaping industry right now. So while the Digiflavor brand may be relatively unknown right now, the people behind it are veterans with a number of best-selling devices under their belts.

A Look at the Contents

The Digiflavor Lynx RDA comes in the same red-and-white cardboard box as the Siren GTA, with a life-size picture of the atomizer on the front and a short description as well as a list of the kit contents on the back. Inside, we have the RDA itself sitting in a foam holder, and underneath that we will find a bag of spare o-rings and Philips head screws, as well as 3-head screwdriver. This is pretty much your standard RDA kit.

Design and Functionality

Despite its classic conical shape, the Lynx has a very interesting design. For starters, it doesn’t seem to have any airflow right out of the box, let alone both bottom and side airflow. It’s obvious however that it’s made up of two parts, and if you start to screw off the top cap, two huge side airflow slots will soon be revealed. Keep unscrewing it and it will eventually come off, giving you a good view of the 25mm build deck. The first time you unscrew the top cap, it’s going to be a little squeaky, but lubricating the threads with a drop of e-liquid will take care of that problem. I for one would rather do that than have to clean them of nasty machining oil.

The build deck of the Digiflavor Lynx looks very impressive. First of all, it’s huge, giving you the impression that you could mount any type of coils on it without worrying about space. The stainless steel Goon-like clamp posts are one of the main features of this atomizer. They are both spring-loaded, so the clamps open automatically whenever you unscrew the vertical Phillips screws on top, and lock the wire in place when you screw them back in. You don’t have to worry about the size of the holes, because it has no holes, just these big gaps that will easily accommodate even the thickest Alien wire. The only gripe I have with these clamp posts is that you really have to tighten the screws really hard to fasten the wire, and that takes quite a bit of strength. It’s a small price to pay, though, when you consider the available space and how is it is to mount the coils on this deck.

As I mentioned, the Lynx features huge side airflow slots that you can open or close by screwing or unscrewing the top cap of the atomizer. But the deck also features two Kennedy-style bottom airflow slots positioned under the coils, for maximum flavor intensity. That’s great, but where does the air come from, right? This is probably the most ingenious feature of the Digiflavor Lynx RDA, and I for one congratulate the designers for coming up with it.

There are no visible bottom airflow slots on this atomizer, which I feel really improves the look of the device. You can only see them after removing the lower part of the RDA cover, to work on the deck. The slots are located opposite the two Kennedy shafts, with air coming in through the slots, going underneath the deck and coming out through the shafts to hit the coil. But the really interesting thing is how the air reaches those slots in the first place. If you look closely at the build deck, you’ll notice that the two sections where the bottom airflow slots are located have been shaved off on the outer wall to create tight but wide shafts. So when you put the RDA cover back on and vape on the Lynx, air comes in through the crack between the top and lower parts of the cover, travels underneath the cover to hit those bottom airflow slots. It’s a really, really clever design that works great and also prevents leaking, thanks, in part, to two massive o-rings on the outside of the build deck.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention one of the coolest things about the Lynx, the juice catcher. The shaft where the Delrin drip tip of the RDA connects to the stainless steel cover protrudes on the inside by about one centimeter, so instead of leaking into the drip tip and eventually into your mouth, any condensation and juice droplets shot from the coils simply drip back onto the deck. It’s a really simple yet effective solution that prevent e-liquid from finding its way into your mouth.

So far, so good, but unfortunately, this is where the positive section of this review and ends, and the negative one begins. I hate to say it, but the Digiflavor Lynx has some pretty serious problems, that I for one just couldn’t ignore.

I’ll start with taking the RDA apart and putting it back together. The first time I tried to pull the cover off this thing I really thought I was going to break it or just rip the 510 connection right off my SMOK Alien mod. It was so damn tight, and putting it back together after getting the coils mounted on the deck was even tougher. You can’t just put the cover back on over the deck any way you please. For some reason, Digiflavor opted for a notch system that requires you to align two female notches on the deck with two male notches on the inside of the cover. But the frustrating thing is that even when you think you have them properly lined up, the damn cover won’t go all the way down. It’s incredibly frustrating and damn right unnecessary, if you ask me.

The saddest part is that even after two weeks of regular use, I still haven’t figured out how to properly remove and put back the cover on the Lynx RDA without jerking it like crazy. I tried lubricating the two o-rings on the deck, but that didn’t hep very much. I think it’s something about those notches, because, sometimes, very rarely, the cover slides over the deck with minimal effort, but then the side air-slots don’t align with the coils.

Another big issue for me is the design of this dual-airflow system. Having both side and bottom airflow sounds great, but only if you can use them alternatively. On the Digiflavor Lynx, you can block the side slots by screwing the top cap over them, but there’s no way of closing the bottom slots. So you can use bottom airflow only, but not side airflow only. Digiflavor claims that using both airflow systems simultaneously provides great flavor and monster clouds, but in my experience it’s just too airy a vape. Basically you get more air than vapor, and that only dilutes both the flavor and the vapor. I recommend using the bottom airflow only for the best possible vaping experience with this RDA.

Speaking of bottom airflow, I love Kennedy-style shafts, but in this particular case, they’re not as great as they could have been. The problem is that they are positioned to close to the edge of the deck, and mounting the coils to sit directly over these shafts means there is a big chance of them touching the RDA cover and causing a short. And even if they don’t make contact, they will be so incredibly close to the stainless steel cover that it will heat up unnecessarily. I’m using a low resistance build (0.16Ω) and after just a few puffs, the RDA gets really hot to the touch.

Lastly, and this is not as serious as the issues described above, being 25mm in diameter, the Digiflavor Lynx tends to overhang just a little bit even on big box mods like the new SMOK G-Priv. So if you’re looking for a perfect match, I suggest using it on the real big boys, like the iJoy MAXO or the Limitless Lux.

How it Vapes

On paper, the Digiflavor Lynx is a beast of a tank. The massive deck, the Goon-style posts, and the innovative airflow system seem like they guarantee an excellent vape. And to be honest, the Lynx vapes pretty well, but the frustrating design flaws really overshadow its qualities.

The flavor I got from this RDA was above average, but I reckon it could have been stellar if I actually managed to align my coils right over the Kennedy-style air shafts. They had so much space to work with on this massive deck, so I just can’t understand why they didn’t position the shafts a bit more inwards. I think it would have made a huge difference. Nevertheless, I’m not going to complain about the flavor too much, because, as I said, it is above average for an RDA.

Vapor production is not bad either, when using only the bottom airflow system. Opening up the side slots, even just a little bit, makes the vape too airy for my taste, which affects both the intensity of the flavor and the density of the vapor. Being able to use just the side air slots would have definitely increased vapor production, but that’s just not possible with this RDA.

Conclusion

The Digiflavor Lynx is a good RDA, but it could have been great. As it stands, all its innovative features and quality machining are overshadowed by a plethora of flaws that could have easily been avoided.

But this is Digiflavor’s first RDA, so I am confident that they will do a much better job on the next one. All they have to do it pay attention to the feedback from the community, keep all the good stuff and just tweak their design a little. I expect great things from them in the future.