2stars

IQ 3SECS Pod Review

Chinese company Hangsen has been producing budget e-liquids for over a decade, but it recently decided to diversify its operations and is already on its way to becoming a major player in the lucrative vape pod market. Hangsen already has an impressive collection of pod system on offer, but for some reason it is selling them under the ‘IQ’ brand. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the IQ 3SECS, 3S, a slick device with a design that appears to have been inspired by a smartphone.

A Look at the Contents

The IQ 3SECS comes in a rectangular cardboard box featuring a picture of the device on the front, and a list of contents as well information about the manufacturer, on the back.

Inside the box, you have the sleek and very glossy 3SECS pod system sitting snug in a Styrofoam holder, and after you take that out, you’ll find a 2ml refillable pod, a micro-USB cable for charging, a user manual, and a 5ml needle-tip bottle for filling the pod. You’ll actually need that little bottle, or a similar one, because just like the pods for the IQ OVS, these pods have a very small fill port.

Sadly, the IQ 3SECS starter kit only includes one pod, which is a big con in my book.

Design and Build Quality

The IQ 3SECS measures 109mm x 36mm x 10mm, appears to be made primarily of aluminium and comes in black, white, red and black&gold. This pod is longer than most of the others I’ve tried so far, but it’s also considerably thinner and very comfortable to hold and carry around.

After taking this device out of the box for the first time and looking at it – without inserting the included pod – you can’t help but think that it looks like a miniature iPhone. It’s not just the general design of the device, or the glossy side panels that almost feel like glass screens, but also the tiny window for checking the e-liquid level which is positioned right where the phone camera should be, and also the venting holes on the bottom which look just like the iPhone’s speaker grill. It even features a small TFT color display which adds to the whole smartphone theme.

The 3SECS pod system has a metallic frame, but both sides of the device are covered with glossy plastic panels. They look good in the beginning, but as soon as you grab the device you realize that they are fingerprint magnets and no matter how often you wipe them clean, they will always have smudges on them. They tend to scratch easily too, so if you want to keep your vape pod in pristine condition, make sure you don’t keep it in the same pocket as your keys or any other hard objects.

The super-thin 2ml pods slide into the top of the IQ 3SECS and even though they don’t produce that satisfying click when they connect to the metal contacts on the battery, they are held in place by magnets and you can feel they’re secure. Mine was a bit wobbly at first, but I managed to fix that by taking it out and applying a bit of pressure to the top of the IQ pod system, to make the pod bay narrower. Now the pod only moves from side to side a little bit, but I’ve never had any issues with it not connecting to the battery properly.

All pods come with a protective silicone cover over the mouthpiece, for hygienic reasons, and need to be filled before you can vape on them. The fill port on the bottom of the pod is easily recognizable thanks to the bright orange silicone plug. As I mentioned in the beginning, the filling hole is tiny, so you’ll need to use either the provided needle-tip bottle or something similar in order to make sure that you don’t spill any juice. Once you’re done, let the pod sit for about 15 minutes before using it.

The IQ 3SECS features a small window for checking the e-liquid level, but it is utterly useless. First of all, the window is kind of long, but extremely narrow, so they’re no way you can see anything through it. And even if you have really good eyesight, the pods are tinted, and since the window is cut on just one side, you can’t see anything. It looks cool, especially if you’re into the miniature smartphone theme, but it’s not practical at all.

Finally, the little screen I mentioned only comes on when you insert the pod and then every time you draw on it. It only displays the battery life and the “Puffs”, only it’s not a puff counter, as I assumed, but merely a puff icon which fades in and out when the device is in use. So basically, it only shows you when the battery is activated, which seems kind of pointless, but this little feature actually helped me identify a problem with my device (more on that later).

All in all, the IQ 3SECS is a nice looking device that takes inspiration from the world’s most popular smartphone, the Apple iPhone. Build quality is not as good as that of the IQ OVS in my opinion, but it’s not too shabby.

Battery Life and Performance

The IQ 3SECS features a built-in 400mAh battery, which is pretty standard for most vape pods these days. That puts it on the same level with the Smoant S8 or the Suorin Air, two of the most popular pod systems on the market right now. However, if you’re looking for 50% extra battery life, go for the IQ OVS instead, because it comes with a 600 mAh battery.

Still, 400 mAh isn’t bad at all for a mouth-to-lung, low power vaping device. Plus, it also features passthrough technology, allowing you to vape while the device is charging, as well as fast charging (around 30 minutes).

Performance-wise, the IQ 3SECS didn’t really impress me. Unfortunately, the draw-activated switch on this device was one of the worst I have ever used. Basically, it made it almost impossible to use the vape pod in mouth-to-lung mode, because the power would cut-off mid-draw. At first, I thought the pod didn’t connect to the battery properly, with it being a little wobbly and the contacts on the pod being so small, but then I started doing direct lung hits, and it worked perfectly.

In mouth-to-lung mode, I started keeping an eye on that “Puff” indicator on the display and noticed that the fade-out animation would stop at one point and either start over or not start at all. In direct-lung mode, the animation would complete, then fade back in and out again, for as long as I drew. So that proved that the switch requires so much suction that it only keeps the battery active when drawing straight into my lungs.

I started checking out other reviews of the IQ 3SECS after identifying the problem with the automatic switch, but so far no one has mentioned it, so it could be just the sample I received for this review. Still, I had to mention it, because this has been my experience with the device; it worked for direct lung vaping, but mouth-to-lung was virtually impossible to do.

Conclusion

The IQ 3SECS is a sleek, cool-looking vape pod with some interesting features, like the color display and an adapter that makes it compatible with Hangsen pre-filled pods (the adapter has to be acquired separately), but for me its performance was a let-down. I enjoyed using it for direct lung vaping, but this sort of device is primarily aimed at ex-smokers, so the fact that the power cuts off while doing mouth-to-lung is a big con. Hopefully, this was just a faulty device, because I had become a fan of the company after reviewing the IQ OVS.