What Are the Different Types of Vapes?

There are so many different types of vapes on the market today that it can make your head spin. You’ve got ultra-convenient disposable vapes on one end of the spectrum, and high-end vape mods are there to tempt you on the other end. To make matters even more confusing, you’re likely to see a totally different selection of vapes at a gas station or convenience store than what you’ll find at a vape shop. What’s the best vape to buy if you’re beginner? In this guide, we’ll break down the different types of vapes and explain their pros and cons.

Types of Vapes: Quick Reference

Don’t have time to read? Use this quick reference table to get an overview of the different types of vapes. Click a type to proceed directly to that section of the guide.

Disposable Vapes

Are disposable vapes appropriate for beginners? Yes

Read our blog about the best disposable vapes now

What is a Disposable Vape?

A disposable vape is the only type of vape that’s ready to use right away when you take it out of the pack. It’s already charged and already filled with e-liquid. Even with other vapes that have pre-filled pods or cartridges, you still have to charge the device before using it for the first time. Not so with a disposable vape – you can remove the device from the box and puff on it immediately. Disposable vapes, however, aren’t refillable. When the device is out of vape juice, you need to replace it.

What Are the Benefits of Disposable Vapes?

• Easy to use: Just puff and enjoy.
• Good flavor selection: Some brands offer dozens of flavors. There are 160 Geek Bar flavors, for example, and that's just one brand.
• Satisfying: Most common nicotine strength is 50 mg/ml.

Disposable vapes are the easiest vapes to use. They're even easier than cigarettes in a way since there’s no need to use a match or lighter. Just puff on the device’s mouthpiece, and you’re vaping. That’s it. The simplicity of disposable vapes has helped to make them the most popular types of vapes for beginners. Thanks to the extremely high popularity of the devices, all of the world’s top vaping manufacturers are getting in on the action – and that means there’s an enormous selection of different flavors. In the past, using a non-refillable vape always meant that you’d have a very limited flavor selection. That’s not the case with disposables, though, because there are so many different products on the market. It’s hard to come up with a vape juice flavor or flavor profile that you can’t find in disposable form.

The other major benefit of disposable vapes is that they’re surprisingly inexpensive to use because today’s devices last so long. With the most popular disposable vapes now delivering many thousands of puffs before they run out of e-liquid, you can easily use a device for well over a week before replacing it. In that way, using disposables can actually be the cheapest way to vape.

What Are the Drawbacks of Disposable Vapes?

• Less economical: No way to refill the device once it’s empty.
• Hard on the environment: Difficult to dispose of the device responsibly because recycling services can be difficult to find.

The only real drawback of disposable vapes is that when a device runs out of vape juice, you have to find a safe way to dispose of it. Because disposable vapes contain lithium-ion batteries and other hazardous materials, you can’t just throw them away in your regular trash. If you have a local recycling service that accepts used vaping products, you can simply bring your disposable vapes to that company. Many people, though, have difficulty figuring out what to do with disposable vapes when they’re finished with them.

Two-Part Disposable Vapes

Are two-part disposable vapes appropriate for new vapers? Yes

What Is a Two-Part Disposable Vape?

A two-part disposable vape is like a cross between a disposable vape and a pre-filled pod vape, and it has many of the benefits of both types of vapes. When you buy a two-part vape like the Foger Switch Pro or the Off Stamp X-Cube, you get a pre-filled disposable pod and a battery charging dock that you can keep and use with other pods.

The key difference between a two-part disposable vape and a traditional pre-filled pod system is that the pod has a battery of its own and works even when it’s not attached to the dock. That means you can use the device in two different ways: with or without the dock.

What Are the Benefits of Two-Part Disposable Vapes?

• Economical: Once you have the dock, you don’t need to buy it again. Instead, you can buy the less expensive refill pods.
• Flexible: You can enjoy the pod as a mini-vape on its own, or you can use it with the dock for greatly increased battery life.
• More Environmentally Friendly: Most of the battery capacity and expensive electronics are in the dock, which isn’t disposable.

Two-part disposable vapes have become incredibly popular over the last couple of years and now have almost as many users as traditional one-part disposables. People really appreciate the flexibility of being able to leave the dock at home and carry just the tiny pod on short trips out of the house.

Two-part vapes can also cost less than traditional disposables over the long run. That’s because most of the battery capacity and electronics are in the non-disposable dock, whereas the refill pods cost significantly less.

What Are the Drawbacks of Two-Part Disposable Vapes?

• Extra Charging Requirement: In a two-part vape, the pod doesn’t have a USB port and requires the dock in order to charge.

The potential drawback of two-part disposable vapes is the fact that they charge differently compared to traditional disposables. You charge the dock with a USB power source, and the pod charges through the dock because it doesn’t have a USB port. The pod doesn’t work if its battery is dead, and you can’t charge it if you lose the dock.

Cigalikes

Are cigalikes appropriate for new vapers? Yes, with reservations

What Is a Cigalike?

A cigalike is a vaping device that’s small and cylindrical like a tobacco cigarette. When manufacturers began to build and sell the first e-cigarettes, they felt that it was important to provide smokers a visual cue indicating that those devices related to smoking. Since cigalikes looked like tobacco cigarettes, smokers could see those devices on shelves and would immediately know that they were nicotine products. Although cigalikes aren’t as common today as they were when vaping first began, you can still find them on the shelves of traditional tobacco retailers.

What Are the Benefits of Cigalikes?

• Realistic: No vaping device looks more like a cigarette.
• Easy to use: Just twist on a cartridge to refill the device.

The biggest benefit of cigalikes is that they’re very simple to use. You don’t have to think about anything when using a cigalike except keeping the battery charged and replacing the twist-on cartridge when the flavor begins to fade. When you want to vape, all that you have to do is puff. Those aspects of cigalikes make them great for new vapers. We do not sell cigalikes here at VapeJuice.com, though, and that’s because they have one major drawback that prevents them from being the best vaping devices for newbies.

What Are the Drawbacks of Cigalikes?

• Poor flavor selection: Most devices only offer tobacco and menthol cartridges.

The major drawback of cigalikes is that their refill cartridges are typically only available in two flavors: tobacco and menthol. Refillable vaping devices, on the other hand, use bottled e juice, which is available in a virtually endless variety of flavors.

Pod Vapes

Are pod vapes appropriate for new vapers? Yes

Read our blog about the best pod vapes now

What Is a Pod Vape?

A pod vape is any vaping device that stores its e-liquid in a removable plastic pod rather than a twist-on plastic cartridge (like a cigalike) or a glass tank (like a vape pen or vape mod). Most pod systems are barely larger than cigalikes, although there are also some pod vapes that are a bit larger and more powerful. Those are called pod mods, and they're described below.

What Are the Benefits of Pod Vapes?

• Sleek: Pod systems are some of the smallest refillable vapes on the market.
• Satisfying: They’re usually optimized for high-strength e-liquids.
• Good flavor selection: A refillable pod system works with any bottled e-liquid.

Pod vapes offer the best possible combination of satisfaction and ease of use. They’re designed specifically for use with nicotine salts, which is perfect because higher-nicotine e-liquid is usually precisely what people require when they’re trying to make the switch from smoking to vaping. In terms of the maintenance tasks that you need to perform, the only difference between a pod vape and a cigalike is that, with a pod system, you need to refill the pod occasionally. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of keeping the battery charged and puffing on the device when you want to vape. Although pod systems require a tiny bit more maintenance than cigalikes, the extra effort is worth it because of the vastly increased flavor selection.

What Are the Drawbacks of Pod Vapes?

• No significant drawbacks: A refillable pod system is usually a great choice for a new vaper.

Pod systems have no real drawbacks aside from the fact that they aren’t quite as simple and convenient as disposables. 

Vape Pens

Are vape pens appropriate for new vapers? Sometimes

Read our blog about the best vape pens now

What Is a Vape Pen?

A vape pen is a specific type of vape starter kit in which the device is long and cylindrical, like a thick pen. While a pod system stores its e-liquid in a plastic pod, a vape pen usually has a glass tank with a replaceable atomizer coil. When the vape pen’s flavor begins to change, you’ll need to disassemble the tank and replace the atomizer coil.

What Are the Benefits of Vape Pens?

• Realistic: Cylindrical shape looks and feels a bit like a cigar.
• Better battery life: Vape pens tend to have slightly larger batteries than pod vapes.
• Better flavor: Vape pens often have larger coils and glass tanks, giving them better flavor quality than many pod vapes.

Vape pens are usually a bit larger than pod systems. The larger size allows a vape pen to hold a higher-capacity battery cell, and that means a vape pen typically produces bigger clouds and lasts longer on a battery charge than a pod system. That can potentially make a vape pen a better choice for you than a pod system if you’re a new vaper with very high nicotine needs. With the new generation of higher-performance pod mods, though, the difference in capabilities between pod systems and vape pens isn’t as distinct as it once was.

What Are the Drawbacks of Vape Pens?

• Older technology: Many companies aren’t actively updating their vape pen designs because they’re focusing on pod systems instead.
• Different inhaling style: Some vape pens are designed for direct-to-lung inhaling, which may not be what you want.

For a new vaper, the one drawback of vape pens is that they aren’t all designed for the mouth-to-lung inhaling style that you’re likely to prefer. Some vape pens are designed for much greater cloud production, and they come with large tanks designed for direct-to-lung inhaling. If you look at the tank included with a particular vape pen and see that the mouthpiece is much wider than a cigarette filter, that may not be the best vape device for you.

Vape Mods

Are vape mods appropriate for new vapers? Usually not

What Is a Vape Mod?

Vape mods are the largest and most powerful types of vape devices. They’re usually shaped like small boxes, and they’re designed to hold one or more high-capacity battery cells. Vape mods can often deliver more than 200 watts of power – and when a vape mod comes in a package including a tank, it’ll almost always be a tank designed for direct-to-lung inhaling. Vape mods often have advanced features that other vaping devices lack, such as custom power curves and automatic temperature limiting. They are almost always the devices that experienced vapers use.

What Are the Benefits of Vape Mods?

• Powerful: Vape mods can often operate at power levels higher than 200 watts.
• Flexible: A good vape mod can work with whatever vape tank or rebuildable atomizer you want to use.
• Advanced: Vape mods often have advanced features that other types of vapes lack.

If you’re a long-term vaper, there’s a good chance that you have a very specific idea of what you want your vaping experience to be like. You probably have a favorite vape tank, and you’ve tested that tank enough to know that it performs best within a very specific wattage range. There’s also a good chance that, more than anything else, you want a vaping setup that gives you the biggest possible clouds and the boldest possible flavors. If those things are true, a vape mod is the only type of vaping device that makes sense for you. You want a device with batteries that last all day, and you want something that can deliver massive power without breaking a sweat. Only a vape mod can do those things.

What Are the Drawbacks of Vape Mods?

• Complicated: Vape mods require more extensive maintenance than other types of vapes.
• Large: Vape mods are larger and heavier than other vapes and aren’t as well suited to carrying in your pocket.

A vape mod usually isn’t the ideal device to choose if you’re new to vaping. That’s partially because the included tank won’t be compatible with the mouth-to-lung inhaling style you’ll almost certainly want to use. A vape mod always includes a tank designed for direct-to-lung inhaling, and that means it’ll work best with a low-nicotine e-liquid. It’ll give you huge clouds, but it won’t give you the throat hit that you want when you’re trying to switch to vaping. In addition, a vape mod doesn’t have the easy simplicity of a device like a pod system. Setting up a vape mod requires learning how to navigate a complicated menu system – and although experienced vapers often appreciate that level of complexity, new vapers usually don’t.

Pod Mods

Are pod mods appropriate for new vapers? Usually not

Read our blog about the best pod mods now

What Is a Pod Mod?

A pod mod is basically like a cross between a vape mod and a pod system. Like a pod system, a pod mod stores its vape juice in a drop-in plastic pod rather than a screw-in glass tank. The design of a pod mod allows it to provide many of the benefits of both vape mods and pod systems.

What Are the Benefits of Pod Mods?

• Balanced: Sleeker than a vape mod but more powerful than a traditional pod system.

You can think of a pod mod as a bit like the halfway point between a pod system and a vape mod in terms of power. A typical pod system operates in a power range of around 20-30 watts, and a vape mod often can often operate at over 200 watts. A pod mod, meanwhile, usually operates in a range of about 40-80 watts. Pod mods are also smaller, lighter and easier to carry in your pocket than vape mods. Although the power difference between a vape mod and a pod mod might seem significant, the fact is that a power range of around 40-80 watts is more than sufficient for driving today’s mesh coils. The vast majority of people who vape don't use their devices at anywhere near 200 watts.

What Are the Drawbacks of Pod Mods?

• Proprietary: Most pod mods aren’t compatible with third-party vape tanks.

All pod-based vaping devices are proprietary by design. Like a traditional pod system, a pod mod is only designed to work with the pods made for it. Many manufacturers give their pod mods a measure of flexibility by allowing them to work with several different coils, but a pod mod generally can’t work with a third-party tank in the way that a vape mod can.