If you’ve decided to make the switch from smoking and buy a nicotine vape for yourself, you couldn’t have picked a better time or a better place. Here at VapeJuice.com, we carry the widest selection of vape kits and disposables anywhere along with the biggest range of vape juice brands at the best prices. The challenge isn’t finding the best place to buy vapes online because you’ve already found it. The real challenge is choosing the device that’s right for you, and that’s what we’re going to help you do in this article.
Mainly, shopping for nicotine vapes is a matter of breaking down your decision into a series of choices and analyzing the pros and cons of each choice. Once you’ve decided where you stand on a particular choice, you’ll eliminate the items that you don’t want, and that’ll leave you with a smaller pool of remaining possibilities. By the time you’ve reached the end of the list, the final pool should be small enough that your final choice should be easy to make.
So, how do you buy your first nicotine vape? These are the choices you’ll need to make.
Decide Whether You Want a Disposable or Refillable Vape
When you shop for nicotine vapes, the first thing you’ll need to do is decide whether you want a disposable vape or a refillable one. We’ll take you through the pros and cons of each choice.
Disposable Vapes
View Our List of the Best Disposable Vapes
What Is a Disposable Vape?
A disposable vape is a vaping device that’s fully charged and filled with e-liquid before you buy it. It’s ready to use immediately when you take it out of the box, and you can continue using it until it runs out of vape juice. Disposable vapes aren’t refillable, so they last only until they’re out of e-liquid. When that happens, it’s time to buy a new device. Although needing to buy an entirely new vape every few days might seem like a bit of an inconvenience, many people aren’t too bothered by it because many modern disposable vapes last thousands of puffs before they run out of vape juice. You could conceivably use the same device for a week or longer before replacing it becomes a concern.
Pros of Disposable Vapes
- A disposable vape doesn’t require any setup or configuration. As soon as you take it out of the box, it’s ready to use – just like the cigarettes you’re buying now. With other types of vapes, you’ll always need to go through a setup process before you can start vaping. You won’t find any nicotine vape that’s more convenient than a disposable vape.
- Disposable vapes are just as satisfying as conventional cigarettes. Although they’re often extremely small and portable, disposable vapes usually make up for their size by using very high-strength e-liquids. Puff for puff, a disposable vape delivers nicotine about as effectively as a cigarette.
- Disposable vapes are very affordable because of how long they last. The sky is really the limit here. There are vapes today with advertised capacities upwards of 20,000 puffs, and there’s no reason why the next wave of new vapes can’t last even longer than that. When you divide the cost of the device by the number of days that you use it, you may find that a disposable vape only costs a dollar or two per day to use.
- Buying a disposable vape is a perfect way to try vaping for the first time. The up-front cost is less than what you’d pay for a refillable vape and a bottle of e-liquid, and the experience will give you an idea of what vaping feels and tastes like. By the time you’re finished with your first device, you’ll know whether you want to continue using disposables or step up to a refillable nicotine vape.
Cons of Disposable Vapes
- Disposable vapes have more of a negative impact on the environment compared to refillable vapes since you need to dispose of the entire device when it runs out of vape juice. Some recycling services do accept nicotine vapes, but they’re not available in all communities. A refillable vape, on the other hand, typically lasts at least a year before the battery stops holding a charge.
- A disposable vape gives you little freedom to choose your nicotine strength. Although low-nicotine and nicotine-free disposable vapes do exist, they’re not common. A disposable vape typically has a nicotine strength of 50 mg/ml.
- You usually don’t have the same large flavor selection with disposable vapes that you do with bottled e-liquids. Some disposable vape brands do have dozens of flavors available. A refillable vape allows you to use any e-liquid on the market, though, and nothing can compare to that.
- Although modern disposable vapes have become very affordable thanks to their high capacities, a refillable vape can be even more affordable if you don’t use a large amount of e-liquid.
Pod Vapes
View Our List of the Best Pod Vapes
What Is a Pod Vape?
A pod vape is a refillable vaping device that stores its vape juice in a refillable and removable plastic pod. Pod vapes are the most popular types of refillable vapes among new vapers for many reasons. They’re sleek and highly pocketable, so people like the way they look. They’re also usually designed to provide a great experience with high-strength nicotine salt e-liquids, which is exactly what you’re looking for if you’re new to vaping and haven’t made the switch from conventional cigarettes yet.
Note that there are also pod vapes with pre-filled pods that aren’t refillable. These are the types of vapes that you’ll normally find in supermarkets and convenience stores. Pre-filled pod vapes are proprietary devices with extremely limited flavor selections, and we don’t recommend buying them.
Pros of Pod Vapes
- A pod vape gives you the ability to use any e-liquid on the market, which means that you can use any of the many hundreds of flavors that we carry here at VapeJuice.com. No pre-filled vaping device allows you to enjoy such a wide flavor selection.
- A pod vape gives you a much higher level of freedom when it comes to choosing the nicotine strength of your e-liquid. Most brands of disposable vapes are only available in a strength of 50 mg/ml. That’s too high for some people. Also, having only one nicotine strength available means that you don’t have the ability to reduce your nicotine intake by buying a lower strength.
- A refillable vaping device typically lasts upwards of a year or even longer before the battery stops holding a charge. Even the highest-capacity disposable vapes, on the other hand, don’t last longer than a handful of days. If you don’t have a vape recycling service available in your area, using a refillable device will have a much lower environmental impact.
- A refillable device may offer advanced features that aren’t available in most disposable vapes, such as adjustable airflow, variable wattage and multiple coil or pod options.
Cons of Pod Vapes
- When you use a pod vape, you need to charge and fill the device before you can use it. You’ll also need to refill the pod when it’s empty and replace the pod or coil when the flavor quality is no longer acceptable. Disposable vapes, on the other hand, are much more convenient because they require almost no maintenance. The only thing you’ll ever have to do with a disposable vape is recharge it when the battery dies.
- Pod vapes may not be as enjoyable as disposables for people who love variety and want to have a completely different experience each time they stock up on vape gear.
Choose Your Nicotine Strength
Naked 100 is one of the most popular nicotine vape juice brands on the market.
As you’ve probably surmised from reading this guide so far, choosing the device that you want to buy is the most difficult aspect of buying your first nicotine vape. Once you’ve done that, the rest of the process is fairly simple. In fact, the next step – choosing your nicotine strength – is already done for you if you buy a disposable vape because most disposables are only available in one strength.
If you buy a refillable vape, though, you’ll also need to buy bottled e-liquid – and in this case, you’ll need to choose your nicotine strength. The first part of this process involves making the choice between freebase nicotine and nicotine salt e-liquid. You can use a pod system with whatever type of e-liquid you like. Because most small pod vapes are optimized for the best performance with high-strength vape juice, though, we recommend starting with nicotine salt.
Nicotine salt is usually available in two strengths, which are typically in the range of about 25 mg/ml and 50 mg/ml. Here’s how to choose between them.
- If you smoke somewhere in the range of a pack of cigarettes per day, we suggest starting with the higher strength. If you experience throat irritation or think that you’re consuming more nicotine than you need, switch to the lower strength.
- If you smoke somewhere in the range of 10 or fewer cigarettes per day, we suggest starting with the lower strength. If you feel unsatisfied and still want to smoke cigarettes, switch to the higher strength.
Choose Your Flavor
Once you’ve selected your device and nicotine strength, the final step in the process of buying your first nicotine vape is selecting the flavor. Here are a few pointers that may help with this process.
- Tobacco e-liquids don’t really taste like tobacco cigarettes because they contain no actual tobacco. You might enjoy a tobacco vape juice anyway, though, if you want a vape that’s not sweet.
- Menthol e-liquids can be very much like menthol cigarettes. Although they contain no tobacco, the menthol is the same and will still provide the cooling sensation that you enjoy.
- Most vapers like fruit flavors the best, so we suggest trying at least one fruit flavor when you buy your first nicotine vape.
- If you have the budget, we suggest trying at least a few different flavors when you buy nicotine vapes for the first time. Taste is subjective, and there’s no way to tell what your favorite flavors are until you’ve experienced some of them.