3_5stars

DOVPO VEE Box Mod Review

Before variable wattage became the standard for advanced vape mods, there was a time when variable voltage was about as complex as vaping devices got. That was a long time ago, though, so it was a bit surprising for me to see a company coming out with a variable voltage box mod, and a bare-bones one at that. Chinese manufacturer DOVPO definitely took a leap of faith with this dual-battery VEE mod, and it’ll be interesting to see if its bet pays off. For now, let’s see what this retro device has to offer.

A Look at the Contents

The DOVPO VEE VV mod comes in a rectangular cardboard box, with a picture of the device on the front, and some warnings and company information on the back. Inside the box, you’ll find the mod, a user manual and a small battery safety card. The first thing that caught my attention was the absence of a micro-USB cable, which is pretty much a standard accessory in advanced mod kits these days. But it’s not included in this one for a very simple reason – the mod doesn’t feature a micro-USB port, which means not on-board battery charging or firmware upgrading. So if you’re interested in this device and don’t have an external battery charger, it’s time you got one.

That’s about all there is to say about the contents. The mod is very basic, and since it doesn’t come with a tank, DOVPO didn’t include any accessories.

Design and Build Quality

The DOVPO VEE VV box mod is made primarily of zinc alloy and measures 87 x 47.5 x 29.5 mm. It comes in 6 different colors and 2 types of paints (one matte, one glossy) depending on what color you go for. I received the black one, which has a matte finish

In terms of design, the DOVPO VEE VV is very similar to the Sigelei 213 or the Modefined Sirious. It has the same general shape, similar sty;e buttons and battery door, and even a very similar screen. It’s definitely not a copycat, as it does have a few elements that make it stand out, but it does share the same retro-futuristic theme.

On the top, we have a spring-laded 510 connection with a gold-plated pin. Although it’s not centered, like the connection on the Smoant Cylon, for example, it will fit 25 mm atomizers without any overhang. You can definitely get away with 26 mm as well, but anything over that will start to overhang in the front of the device.

The battery door on the bottom is hinged and very sturdy. It’s the same style of battery door we’ve seen countless times before. You just slide it outwards and lift it up to access the battery compartment and then push it back in and press it down to close. It has polarity indicators on the inside, and on the outside it says “1vp.me x DOVPO”. It turns out that 1vp.me is a Chinese vaping magazine, and I assume they were involved in the design of the VEE.

On one of the narrow sides of the device we have the large, rectangular and slightly curved fire button, with the VEE logo stamped on it. I can’t really tell if the button is made of plastic or metal, but if feels really solid and I for one have had no problems with it. There’s no rattling whatsoever, even when shaking the mod, and because it protrudes from the mod quite a bit, it’s really easy to find with your thumb. On the opposite side, we have a textured rubber section designed to improve your grip of the mod.

The display is really nothing to write home about. It’s really small, but, to be honest, it really only shows a couple of things – one at a time – so there was really no need for a larger screen. You’re only going to need the display when setting the voltage, or trying to read the resistance of the atomizer, which you can see on screen when pressing the fire button. That’s it.

The two voltage adjustment buttons are located right under the display, and don’t really require much explaining. One decreases the voltage all the way to 1V, while the other increases it to a maximum of 8V, in 0.10V increments. Finally, under these two buttons, you have a small plastic switch that urns the device on and off. That’s right, unlike other devices, where you have to press the fire button 3 o 5 times to turn the power on or off, here you have to flip that little switch. It was kind of hard to get used to, because I would always press the fire button repeatedly out of habit, but I eventually got the hang of it, and I actually think it’s a nice feature.

That’s pretty much all there is to say about the mod. It also has some cool-looking battery venting holes, but most people don’t really pay attention to these details, so I’m just going to wrap it up. Overall, I really like the design and build-quality of the DOVPO VEE. It’s bare-bones device, as you’re about to see, but it has the same look and feel as a high-quality, dual-battery advanced mod.

Menu System and Navigation (or lack there of)

As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, the DOVPO VEE is a really simple device. It doesn’t even do variable wattage, let alone temperature control, TCR or custom curves, and it doesn’t have a menu. All you have to work with is variable voltage, which you adjust via the two little buttons under the display.

The only other noteworthy feature is the resistance reading, which displays your atomizer resistance every time you press the fire button. It’s a nice thing to have on a variable voltage mod, since you really need to know both your voltage and resistance to figure out the wattage you’re getting, but for most people it isn’t going to be enough. If you’re not a fan of mechanical mods, and prefer feature rich mods with all kinds of bells and whistles, the DOVPO VEE is likely not what you’re looking for.

Battery Life and Performance

The battery life is going to depend a lot on how much power you draw from your batteries, what capacity batteries you are using and how much you vape. It’s virtually impossible to give you an estimate, but what I can say is that I personally have been very happy with the battery life of my batteries while testing the DOVPO VEE.

As for how you can tell how much power is left in your batteries, the VEE does have a battery indicator, but not the kind we’ve seen on advanced mods in recent years. Instead of a battery icon on the display, it uses a tiny colored LED indicator right above the screen. Every time you press the fire button, it’ll light up a certain color to give you an estimate of the battery life. When it’s green, the combined voltage of your batteries is above 7.4V, when it’s yellow, the voltage is between 6.9V and 7.4V, and red means the voltage is below 6.9V. When the combined voltage of the batteries drops to 6.4V, the red LED will start blinking signaling that the batteries need to be recharged. At that point, the mod will not fire anymore.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, the DOVPO VEE does not have on-board charging, so you’ll have to charge the batteries externally.

Performance-wise, the DOVPO VEE has actually been kind of impressive. First of all, this thing fires instantly. The moment you press that fire button, you can hear the juice on the coils of your atomizer start to sizzle. The power ramp-up is surprisingly fast as well, which, as far as I’m concerned is very important for a pleasurable vaping experience. Also, tech-savy reviewers like PBusardo and Daniel DJLSb Vapes have already confirmed that the DOVPO VEE is very stable and very accurate, outputting the exact voltage you see displayed on screen, which, sadly, can’t be said about many mods these days.

Another big plus is that the VEE can fire all the way down to 0.05 ohms resistance, which should make it appealing to extreme cloud-chasers. It also has an amp limit of 50A.

The DOVPO VEE may minimalist when it comes to features, but it does come wit a series of built-in protections to keep you safe in the event should something go wrong. It has short-circuit protection, as well as low voltage, reverse battery polarity, low resistance and overheating protection. The only problem is that the way different warning are indicated by the mod can be hard to spot. For example, when you have a short-circuit, the LED battery indicator will flash red five times, and the same happens when your resistance is below 0.05 ohms. When the device is overheating, the LED will flash yellow five time. The thing is that you have to know what these different warning signals mean in order to figure out what’s going on.

Conclusion

To me, the DOVPO VEE is a mixed bag. On one hand, I like the simplicity of it, the fact that you can just throw an atomizer on it, adjust the voltage and vape, without having to deal with a convoluted menu. I also like the look and feel of it, how fast it fires and the accuracy of the power output. On the other hand, I do wish it had a couple more basic features, like battery charging, and a clearer way of notifying the user about various errors.

There’s no way for me to compare the DOVPO VEE to other advanced devices I’ve tested, with the exception of the iJoy Zenith, which was very similar, because it just not that kind of mod. This is designed to appeal to a very specific niche of vapers, who care a lot more about firing and ramp-up speed than they do about advanced features like TCR, temperature control and that sort of stuff. If you’re part of the first category, definitely give the VEE a try, it might surprise you.