HOPO Punch Bar Disposables Review: They Pack a Punch!

Design & Build Quality

HOPO’s Punch Bar is a pretty cool looking device. It really looks a lot like a pod vape and, with the features that it brings, it’s not too far off from one either. You can’t fill or refill the ejuice, sure, but in almost every other way the Punch Bar is more like a pod vape than a disposable vape. I’ll stick to the design and build quality for now though and get into the features a bit later.

Standing 90mm tall, 22mm wide, and 52mm deep, the Punch Bar feels good in the hand and qualifies as a mid-sized disposable. It’s not so large or heavy that it’s going to encumber you, but it’s also not so small and light as to be completely unnoticeable. It’s a good balance between offering a lot of puffs and still remaining portable.

Looking at it from the top down, it’s almost a triangular shape with rounded corners and a rounded back.  The display is located right at the top of the Punch bar, next to the mouthpiece. It’s small and displays your ejuice level first as a percentage, indicated by the green droplet icon that lights up. It then displays your battery life as a percentage, indicated by a small lightning bolt icon.

Even though it’s tiny, it does its job of keeping you in the loop about remaining ejuice and battery life so I think it’s a fine display. However, it’s so bright that it’s damn near blinding if you’re in a dark room. If you’re stranded and trying to send out an SOS signal then you’ll be glad to have the Punch Bar and its display with the brightness of a thousand suns, but otherwise it’s just going to blind you or attract the attention of everyone in the room.

All of the flavors have the same black plastic body with a differently colored metal panel that wraps around the back and sides. This panel has PUNCH BAR and the flavor printed onto it in raised lettering. The quality of both the plastic and panels seem to be good and I have not seen any chipping, flaking, or fading of either. The whole device also seems to be decently scratch-resistant and all of my test units are still looking close to new.

The wattage/airflow switch on the front of the Punch Bar works great and as expected. It’s easy to slide up or down and you get an audible click with each of the three settings. You also get visual feedback from a multi-color LED that sits just above the switch.

Features

The main feature of the Punch Bar is its “SYNC Tech” switch which simultaneously adjusts the draw and the wattage. There’s three settings for the switch and you can change between settings by sliding the switch up or down. These settings are:

• Red LED, Position 0 (all the way down): Child Lock; the device is locked and does not work.
• Blue LED, Position 1 (middle): Regular mode, 12W output, MTL draw
• Green LED, Position 2 (all the way up): Boost mode, 14W output, RDL draw

The child lock position was a good inclusion by HOPO as it’s a good way to lock the device when you’re not using it. The other modes work as stated, with regular mode providing a MTL draw and boost mode delivering a stronger, RDL draw.

Each Punch Bar comes filled with 18ml of ejuice in 50mg/ml nicotine strength. There’s a 600mAh battery in each one and the battery can be recharged with the Type-C charging port on the bottom of the device. Altogether, you’ll get around 10,000 puffs from each one of these.

The battery lasts me for about two days of heavy vaping when switching between Boost and Regular modes. You’ll get slightly shorter battery life if you use it exclusively in Boost mode and slightly longer battery life if you use it exclusively in Regular mode.

Charging time is longer than I would like. I timed a few charges on different devices and each time took about an hour and twenty minutes for a full charge. This is with using a 2A charger plugged into a wall outlet too, so there’s definitely room for improvement in the charge-speed department.

Flavors

HOPO offers ten flavors for the Punch Bar. Despite having so few flavors, there’s a nice choice of fruit, ice, candy, and even a tobacco flavor (VCT):

• Watermelon Ice
• VCT (Vanilla Custard Tobacco)
• Strawberry Watermelon
• Blue Razz Ice
• Cherry Lemon
• Grape Ice
• Spearmint
• Pink Burst
• Apple Gummies
• Strazz

Five or ten more flavors would have obviously been better but there’s probably at least one flavor that most vapers will like.

I’m going to describe how five 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.

Grape Ice

A strong and sweet grape flavor with just a touch of ice for the exhale. This flavors straddles the line between too sweet and sweet enough with natural notes and candy notes mixed together. Overall it’s a good grape flavor and one that I found myself looking for time and time again.

Apple Gummies

 I expected this flavor to be sweeter and have more gummy flavor due to the name but the green apple flavor is really strong while the gummy flavor isn’t very noticeable. It’s there but I can only taste it on the exhale and only as a brief note in the mostly apple flavor.

Cherry Lemon

This flavor is so good and definitely my favorite flavor that HOPO offers for the Punch Bar. The cherry and lemon are mixed but I can taste the cherry very strongly initially and then the lemon following shortly after. This flavor is a 6/10 in sweetness so it’s tasty and enjoyable but not going to be too sweet to vape on all day.

VCT

This isn’t a pure tobacco flavor but it’s nice that HOPO has one at all. There’s strong tobacco notes, along with a mild custard flavor and very light vanilla. The inclusion of custard and vanilla might lead you to believe that this flavor is sweet but it’s not, at least not enough to overpower or ruin the tobacco component. If you like tobacco flavors then you might still want to try this one out.

Strawberry Watermelon

This is the sweetest flavor that I tried and it’s a bit overwhelming. I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t good though. There’s almost a bubblegum taste to this flavor too which adds another dimension to the flavor. Strawberry is the first flavor that I taste on the inhale, followed by powerful watermelon notes. From here the two flavors mix and linger through and after the exhale. The sweetness is a bit much to vape on as an all day vape for me but this flavor definitely tastes good.

How do they vape?

Although I had never tried a vape from HOPO before this review, the Punch Bar has given me a good first impression of what they have to offer. These disposable are going to be especially good for vapers looking for a strong disposable that produces a lot of vapor and a strong nicotine hit. 

These are 50mg/ml strength like many other disposables but the RDL setting in particular (boost mode), which outputs 14W, has a real strong kick to the draw. I vaped on this setting sometimes but I mostly stuck to the ‘regular’ mode with its 12W output. I just couldn’t handle too many draw with the device in Boost mode. If you’re struggling to stick with disposables or find that other 50mg/ml devices just don’t give that strong draw that you’re after, you might find the Punch Bar to be the solution.

The RDL draw is good on the HOPO though. It’s right on the verge of being a loose MTL so it’s not too airy at all. The MTL draw is also really good and offers enough restriction without being difficult to activate or inhale.

Verdict

The Punch Bar by HOPO is definitely a device to look out for. It’s really simple to use due to the dual airflow and wattage adjustment so beginners can have some level of customizability while still maintaining the ease of use that is desired from a disposable. 

Vapers looking for a stronger draw than the typical 50mg/ml disposable will also like the “Boost mode” that the Punch Bar offers. However, be warned that it is a very strong draw and only those used to 50mg should use the Boost mode on a regular basis. For anyone else, regular mode is the mode to use as it is what you would expect from a 50mg/ml MTL disposable.

The one big issue that I have with the Punch Bar is the extremely bright LED display located on the top of the device. If this could just get toned down to like, half brightness, then my eyes would be thankful. This blinding brightness isn’t enough to prevent me from recommending the Punch Bar but it’s a factor to consider if you’re going to be using it in dark spaces.