Freemax Rexa Lite+ Review: A Budget Vape That Lasts

Design & Build Quality

The Freemax Rexa Lite+ follows the common pod vape form factor, being tall and slim, and wider than it is deep. At 120mm tall, 24mm wide, and 14mm deep, it is pretty much the archetype of this e-cigarette style. It weighs in at about 52g, which is not too far outside the average, but lighter than many similar devices.

I find that very light vapes can feel flimsy and low quality, but that is not really the case here. The brushed metal body certainly helps in this regard, giving this roughly $10-$15 vape a pleasantly premium feel, despite that lack of heft. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having never used a Freemax pod device in the past and not being wowed by the fairly non-premium packaging the Rexa+ comes in. But once it was in my hands, I was pleased to learn that it actually feels pretty solid.

The design is very simple, sleek, and free of adornment. None of your leather-like infills, funky patterns, or chrome highlighting here, no sir. The slightly squarer-than-most corners (although still rounded off) give it something of a serious and businesslike look. That will either appeal to you or it won’t, but I have to ask: when has the style or color of your vape ever improved or spoiled your vaping experience?

Speaking of colors, the Rexa+ is available in a small range of six, which contains nothing amazingly unique, but enough variety to ensure there will be something that appeals to most potential users. The six colors, again, all flat, solid colors, with no patterns, etching, or texture, are:

• Blue
• Orange
• Pink
• Black 
• Gunmetal
• Silver

Pods

You get a single 2ml Rexa pod with the Rexa+ kit. In my case, that was a 0.8Ω pod, but as there are five coil resistances available in the Rexa pod range, it is likely that you can find kits with one of the other resistances pre-fitted. Those five coil resistances are the fairly standard 0.4Ω, 0.6Ω, 0.8Ω, 1.0Ω, and 1.2Ω. The 0.4Ω and 0.6Ω are going to suit the RDL vapers, while the others are aimed at the MTL vapers out there.

Having read up a bit about Freemax and the Rexa range, I was slightly disappointed that the device didn’t come with their flagship Duomax pods. Duomax pods use a double mesh, tea-cotton wick coil for a bigger and more even heating area, and they also promise 3X flavor, 3X consistency, and 3X lifespan (up to 50 refills if using freebase liquid/30 refills if using nic salts). These come with the Rexa Pro, Smart, S2, and other devices in the range, but not with the Lite range.

I’m guessing it’s a cost issue, wanting to keep the price of the Rexa Lite+ kit low, because it isn’t a compatibility issue. The Duomax pods are entirely compatible with the Rexa Lite+, should you want to swap over and try the seemingly more impressive option.

To be completely fair, the standard Rexa pod that comes with the device is great, and not entirely free of clever or useful QoL features. They are top-fill (or top-side fill, as Freemax describes it, pleasing my finicky self who gets slightly annoyed when pods that fill at the side are described as being top-fill) and feature a food-grade nano coating inside. This is designed to prevent leaks for around 30 days by increasing surface tension, repelling oil, and making it more difficult for the liquid inside to sneak out through any gaps and seams.

Food-grade nano coatings are well outside my area of expertise, but it certainly seems to do the job it was intended to do. After well over two weeks of constant use, and easily 20 refills, the single pod I got with my kit is entirely leak-free and still tasting great. I have said it before, and I will say it again (now): advances in pod technology are the new frontline of the marketing war between competing vape brands. Without great pod tech, you might as well wave the white flag.

Features

The Rexa Lite+ is not packed with features. The “Lite” designation should tell you that from the outset, even if the addition of that plus (no pun intended) could cause some confusion. As far as I can tell, that “+” is really all about the battery. More on the battery in a moment, but for now, it is safe to say that the Rexa Lite+ is a no-frills device when it comes to user features.

Just as with the simple design and fairly basic color options, that simplicity will be a selling point for some and a sticking point for others. Call me a jaded vape reviewer, but at this point in my vaping life, simplicity in a device has significant appeal. It has an airflow slider, smart wattage that automatically changes power based on the pod being used, and an LED battery/usage indicator. For that low (around $10-$15) price, what more should we expect?

The airflow slider has a decent range, allowing for tight, mid, and fairly loose draws to be set as you require. It slides a little easier than I might have liked, and a few times got closed by accident in my pocket, but that shouldn’t be a huge issue. The lack of slider resistance could have something to do with the battery, but again, we’ll explore that in a moment.

The simple 4-LED indicator light on the front of the device is simple but effective. It not only shows battery level, but also flashes in certain ways to alert you to other issues. For example, if all four LEDs light up for two seconds, that indicates a short circuit, and if the two middle LEDs flash alternately for 10 seconds, that indicates overvoltage issues. All these warnings are, of course, helpfully explained in the user manual.

Battery Life & Charging

And so on to the most likely reason for the “+” in the Rexa Lite’s name: the battery. At a very generous 1800mAh, the battery in this device is by far the largest of any device in this particular Freemax vape family. Not just of the Lite models, but EVERY model. It’s bigger than the other Lite model (the C Lite) by 800mAh, and offers an impressive 500mAh more juice than even the flagship Rexa Smart and Rexa Pro models (both 1300mAh).

The battery, which is undeniably a plus point of the device, is also removable. But possibly not for the reason you are thinking, if you are assuming it means users can just take out the battery when it starts to fail and pop in a new one. This feature allows the device to conform to new European regulations that require any small electronic device to have a removable battery. This is for Lithium reclaiming and recycling purposes, rather than to give users the option to have multiple batteries for a single device. Freemax doesn’t even sell replacement batteries, as far as I can tell.

The battery in this device (it is not the first Freemax device with this feature, and this method is not the standard) is removed by unscrewing a tiny screw on the side, below the airflow slider, removing the airflow slider (hence my comment about the battery potentially affecting slider tightness), and pulling the battery out from the bottom. Depending on where you live, this process might not be something you will have to perform yourself, but in many places, batteries will need to be removed before the device can be recycled through municipal trash collections.

Battery life from that 1800mAh cell is great. I regularly went five days between charges when using the 0.8Ω pod, and while power usage will vary depending on the pods you use and how hard you vape, it is fairly safe to say that a full charge will always provide multiple days of use. Charging isn’t super fast, but at least the Rexa Lite+ has a 2A USB rather than the 1A that many “lite” versions of popular devices have. The average recharge time during my tests was around 55 minutes from dead, and as little as 10 minutes if I plugged it in as soon as the first LED went dark.

The LEDs don’t change color to denote charge remaining (e.g., green, blue, red), but rather stay white and simply shut off as the battery drains:

• 4 LEDs = 75-100%
• 3 LEDs = 50-75%
• 2 LEDs = 25-50%
• 1 LED = Under 25%

Performance

The Rexa Lite+ performs about as well as you might expect from a ten-dollar, barebones device, perhaps even slightly better than might be expected. It is perfectly capable of providing a decent MTL or RDL vaping experience, can handle both freebase and nic salts with ease, and the overall daily experience is good. Not amazing, or even excellent, but definitely good for the price.

This is a relatively low-power device, particularly if you are using it with the 0.8 pod or above. The max wattage is 28, and at 0.8Ω it will be limited to 15W. That sort of power is never going to produce huge clouds and rich, complex flavor. I tested it with several flavors, strengths, and PG/VG ratios, and the experience was always enjoyable. Bold, rich fruit flavors are probably best suited to this device, but the only tobacco-flavor juice I like also tasted pretty good in this simple little vape.

You can open the airflow enough to get a decent RDL draw with the 0.8Ω pod, but it’ll be much better with the 0.4Ω or 0.6Ω pods installed. The MTL experience isn’t the best I have ever had, with low airflow really seeming to hinder flavor, but it does the job. You might just need to open the slider a bit more than you normally would if your favorite juice tastes a bit weak. Vapor production is consistent, the coil fires efficiently, and I had no issues with popping, spit back, or dry hits.

The pods are easy to fill through the top-side fill port, and seem to last pretty well. As previously mentioned, I have been using the pod that came with my kit for more than two weeks, and while flavor has dropped off a little, it is still perfectly usable. As far as the promised leak-resistance goes, it’s a thumbs up to food-grade nano coatings from me, with zero leakage since day one.

Verdict

The Freemax Rexa Lite+ is a decent, well-constructed, barebones pod vape that really focuses on providing two things: ease-of-use and great battery life. The lite models in a vape range usually have smaller batteries than the flagship devices, so finding one that bucks this trend is pretty unique. Any vape that can consistently provide five days of use between charges will tick boxes for a lot of vapers.

The performance is nothing to write home about, but flavor and vapor production through the Rexa pods are good, and I have little doubt that both could be improved if the standard pods were substituted for the Duomax pods at the first opportunity. The device provides a surprisingly good RDL draw, and a MTL draw that will satisfy most fans of that vaping style. It isn’t the best RDL or MTL vape in the world, but it’s not bad by any means.

The pods are easy to fill, reliable, and seem to be very leak-resistant. They also sit deeply within the socket, held in place by strong magnets, which helps make the whole setup feel solid and secure. The airflow slider isn’t the best, but it does the job, and the simple-yet-functional LED status lights make keeping track of that long battery life easy. The ability to safely remove and dispose of the battery at the end of its life is a bonus, and perhaps even a selling point for some environmentally-conscious users.

The Freemax Rexa Lite+ should be looked at in context. For around fifteen dollars or less, you can get a fuss-free, metal-body, RDL/MTL pod vape, with decent performance, reliable pods, and a massive (comparatively) 1800mAh battery. In a world where everything seems to be getting more expensive, that sounds like a pretty good deal.