BLVK Bar
4.5
Outstanding
PROS
- Nice design that isn't over-complicated nor too simple
- Soft-touch body feels great
- Three different output modes
- Offers up to 20,000 puffs ( if used exclusively in 'Low' mode)
- Dual mesh coils work together on Normal and Max modes for a stronger draw and better flavor
- Flavors that I tried were all very good
- LEDs and display are really cool and informative
- Adjustable airflow allows you to go from RDL to a tight MTL draw
- Even on low battery, the draw stays strong
- Great battery life; charges to 50% in only 30 minutes
CONS
- Plastic screen cover scratches and scuffs easily
- No non-ice flavors available
- Large and a bit heavy for a disposable
The bottom line
BLVK has really done a good job with their latest disposable, the BLVK Bar. It’s super adjustable, yet still simple to use. It delivers in all of the areas that you would want from a disposable, including good flavors, a nice and strong draw, good battery life, and a high puff count. Twenty-thousand puffs is a lot no matter how you look at it, but keep in mind that the BLVK Bar will only achieve this puff rating on the Low output mode.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to experiment with the output modes so you won’t solely be using just a single mode. Even if you end up finding an output mode that you like, you might want to switch it up from time-to-time. With that being said, set your expectations for the puff count based on which modes you use the most.
If you don’t mind a slightly larger device, the BLVK Bar offers a lot for the money. I’m seeing it being sold for $18.99 on a few websites and for that price, you really can’t go wrong. Highly recommended.
The BLVK Bar is BLVK’s latest disposable vape and it’s more fully featured than any of their previous devices. Their last disposable, the BLVK Ello Plus 6000, was really great but some vapers (myself included) wished that there was a bit more in terms of adjustability.
Well, ask and you shall receive! The BLVK Bar doesn’t leave much to be desired in terms of the specifications and features. Each one offers up to 20,000 puffs and comes with three different output modes, allowing you to adjust the strength of the draw to your liking. It also has an adjustable airflow dial and uses dual mesh coils.
The BLVK Bar is rechargeable with Type-C charging and packs an 800mAh battery that can be fast-charged from dead to 50% in only 25 minutes.
With one of the highest puff counts on the market, does the BLVK Bar offer good performance and value for the money?
These disposables were sent to me by BLVK for the purpose of this review. However, this does not in any way affect my opinions or ratings in this review.
- Size: 101mm x 50mm x 27mm
- Weight: 95g
- 800mAh rechargeable battery
- 50mg/ml nicotine strength
- Up to 20000 puffs
- Dual mesh coils
- RDL to MTL draw
- 15 Flavors
- Type-C charging
Design & Build Quality
The BLVK Bar is BLVK’s third disposable vape and, unlike their previous two, it’s quite a large device. This is no surprise though because the BlVK Bar holds a larger battery and much more ejuice in order to provide up to 20000 puffs. The size comes with the territory of offering a lot of puffs.
The 101mm height, 50mm width, and 27mm depth are noticeable instantly. This isn’t a disposable vape that I can hide away in my hand and, due to the 95g weight, it’s not one that I forget that I’m carrying around in my pocket either. The size and weight are more like a large pod vape than a disposable but if you’re looking to get the most puffs from a device then that’s the tradeoff.
Although it’s large, the BLVK Bar has a nice design and a nice shape. All of the sides and corners are rounded and the majority of the body is finished with a black soft-touch coating. It feels great in the hand and really gives off a vibe that says “well-built”.
The top of the device, which includes the mouthpiece, is made of a shiny plastic. The color of the plastic corresponds to the flavor with “American Tobacco Ice” being a brown caramelly color, Peach Gummy being a light pink color, etc… The flavor and logo that are printed on the soft-touch portion of the device are also the same color as the plastic mouthpiece and this gives the whole thing a cohesive and pleasing look. This pop of color saves the BLVK Bar from looking too plain while keeping it from standing out too much.
On the front of the BLVK Bar is a large, clear window with a display underneath. It’s not exactly a screen, more like a readout where the backlighting illuminates the parts that are needed. In any case, it’s a huge display and it looks really cool when it’s lit up. I’ll talk more about this display in the “Features” section of this review.
The clear window that sits on top of the display is made of plastic and unfortunately, it gets scuffed and scratched up very easily. This doesn’t affect the readability of the display but it made my BLVK Bar’s look worn out well before I was finished using them. The rest of the device, including the soft-touch body and plastic mouthpiece, are really durable in comparison and barely show any wear at all.
The airflow control dial and power button are located on the bottom of the BLVK Bar. The airflow dial functions on a stopper which stops the dial from rotating when it reaches fully open or fully closed. The dial feels great and has the perfect amount of resistance to it when being rotated. It stays nicely where it’s set and small, micro-adjustments of the airflow are possible.
The power button is really clicky and feels great to use. There’s an audible, loud click when the button is pressed and it feels really responsive and well-constructed.
Overall, the design and build quality of the BLVK Bar is solid. The only real downsides are the plastic screen cover which scratches very easily, and the large size. Otherwise, the BLVK Bar gets high ratings from me in these categories.
Features
If you’re looking at the BLVK Bar, chances are that the high puff count is a reason why. Twenty-thousand puffs is a lot of vaping and this is one of the highest puff-count devices on the market, so it’s an impressive number. But in order to reach those twenty-thousand puffs, there’s a catch.
The BLVK Bar has three output modes: low, normal, and high. There are also two mesh coils inside of the BLVK Bar. Low mode only uses a single coil and outputs 15W. In order to reach that twenty-thousand puff mark, you’ll have to use the BLVK Bar exclusively on Low mode.
Normal mode, like Low mode, also outputs 15W but uses both mesh coils instead of just one. This uses up more of the ejuice inside and offers a stronger draw with more vapor. Using the BLVK Bar exclusively in normal mode will get you fifteen-thousand puffs.
Last is Max mode. This mode uses both mesh coils and outputs 20W for a very strong and dense draw. Using the BLVK Bar exclusively in Max mode will bring down the puff count of the device to ten-thousand puffs.
The button on the bottom of the BLVK Bar can be pressed five times to turn it on or off. If you press the button three times, the output mode will change.
The display on the BLVK Bar is really awesome and it’s one of my favorite features of the device. The screen displays a BLVK Bar logo at the top, the three output modes, your ejuice level, and the battery level. Each output mode highlights the mode in a different color, as well as lights up the outer LED ring in a different color, making it easy to tell at a glance which output mode you’re vaping in. Low is green, Normal is blue, and Max is red.
When you first turn on the device, the different parts of the screen start lighting up in a cascade from top to bottom. It’s like a little light show. The reverse happens when you turn the device off, with the different parts of the screen turning off from bottom to top. It’s a small detail but it tells me that BLVK really put a lot of thought into this device.
Something else that I noticed when I first started using the BLVK Bar is that the ejuice level was reading as “FL” and the battery level was reading as “FP”. These stand for “Full Liquid” and “Full Power”, meaning that the ejuice and battery are both full. Once you start using the BLVK Bar, these readings will change to percentage numbers so don’t be worried or confused!
Last but not least is the airflow control. The dial allows you to fine-tune the draw from a restricted direct lung draw down to a tight MTL draw, and anywhere in between. The airflow options are really great with this dial. I found the airflow to be more than adequate for vaping on the normal and max modes where I was wanting a bit more airflow to offset the extra power and heat.
Flavors
At launch there are fifteen flavors available for the BLVK Bar. As you might expect, there are a lot of fruit flavors but there’s also a tobacco flavor too, which is nice to see. Something noteworthy about the flavors is that they are all labeled as “Ice” and there are no non-ice flavors available. The full list of available flavors is:
- American Tobacco Ice
- Apple Grape Ice
- Blue Raspberry Ice
- Double Spearmint Ice
- Grape Soda Ice
- Grapefruit Blueberry Ice
- Juicy Mango Ice
- Kiwi Dragon Fruit Ice
- Orange Kiwi Ice
- Passion Peach Ice
- Peach Gummy Ice
- Peach Mango Lychee Ice
- Strawberry Cream Ice
- Sour Apple Ice
- Watermelon Gummy Ice
Due to the limited samples available for the BLVK Bar at launch, I was only sent three flavors for this review. I’m going to describe how each of these flavors taste to me and what I think of them. However, keep in mind that just because I like a flavor that does not mean that you will like it. Similarly, if I don’t like a flavor this does not mean that you will not like it. This is solely my subjective opinion.
American Tobacco Ice
This tobacco flavor is really bold and rich with a cigar-esque flavor and a light touch of sweetness. I get a bit of coolness too on the exhale which feels just right with the flavor and accentuates the tobacco taste.
Juicy Mango Ice
This one is so good. The mango taste is sweet and juicy, really blasting my mouth with flavor all throughout the vape. There’s a decent amount of icy coolness here too, much more so than American Tobacco Ice. Really delicious and tropical.
Peach Gummy Ice
If you’re looking for a natural tasting peach flavor then this isn’t the one but if you like peach-ring candies then you’ll be just as smitten as I am with the taste. The candy, gummy flavor is just as strong as it needs to be and the candied peach flavor is sweet and wet. This flavor has the most cooling out of the three that I tried so be prepared for a mouth and throat chilling experience.
How do they vape?
The BLVK Bar is super versatile because it can be used for RDL vaping or MTL vaping and it can deliver a more mellow draw or a really strong one depending on how you adjust it.
I experimented and tried all different airflow settings and all three output modes and what I settled on, for me personally, was the normal mode with the airflow halfway open. This middle-of-the-road setting isn’t too daring in any direction but it felt just right for the best balance of flavor, draw strength, vapor, and puff count.
The low setting felt a bit underpowered for me unless I really restricted down the draw. On the other hand, the max power setting felt too powerful unless I opened the airflow all the way. I prefer my draw to be a medium-MTL draw so setting the output mode to normal with the airflow midway open is where I got the perfect experience.
All this isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy the other power settings, I just didn’t enjoy them as much. And remember, this is my personal opinion based on my personal preferences; you might love the low or max power settings.
Something that I really like about the BLVK Bar is that the draw doesn’t get much weaker at all when the battery is nearing dead. Even under 5%, the draw stays pretty strong and doesn’t feel underpowered. This is a device that I used all the way until completely dead, at which point I simply charged it up.
Speaking of charging, that’s another feature that sets the BLVK Bar apart from its competitors. It can recharge to 50% battery in only 30 minutes which is great when you’re strapped for time and have to leave the house. A full charge takes around an hour and ten minutes. Not super quick for a full charge but 50% battery will get you a long way for only 30 minutes of charging.
Verdict
BLVK has really done a good job with their latest disposable, the BLVK Bar. It’s super adjustable, yet still simple to use. It delivers in all of the areas that you would want from a disposable, including good flavors, a nice and strong draw, good battery life, and a high puff count. Twenty-thousand puffs is a lot no matter how you look at it, but keep in mind that the BLVK Bar will only achieve this puff rating on the Low output mode.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to experiment with the output modes so you won’t solely be using just a single mode. Even if you end up finding an output mode that you like, you might want to switch it up from time-to-time. With that being said, set your expectations for the puff count based on which modes you use the most.
If you don’t mind a slightly larger device, the BLVK Bar offers a lot for the money. I’m seeing it being sold for $18.99 on a few websites and for that price, you really can’t go wrong. Highly recommended.
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