Vaporesso Target 100 Kit
6.6
PROS
- Small and compact size
- Comfortable to hold
- Nice finish
- Top filling
- Leak-resistant
- Quick to change coils
- Simple user interface
- Good capacity (5ml)
- Easy charging
CONS
- Limited functionality
- Muted flavor with 0.4ohm coils
- Awkward filling port
- Difficult to clean tank
- Design issues with thread direction and other features
- The battery door can be annoying
Vaporesso has long since established itself as one of the ‘big players’ in producing affordable vaping devices that have an air of ‘premium’ about them. According to Vaporesso, the Axon chip, which features in the Vaporesso Target 100 kit, is made with components that ‘do more’ for its users.
The Vaporesso Target 100 kit comes with absolutely everything you need to start vaping in an affordable package. The mod, the tank, and the coils all come included as part of the deal.
Vaporesso makes several lofty claims when it comes to the Axon chipset within the Target 100 mod. They say that it will deliver extra battery time, better heat control, and the best performance.
Is this true? When paired with the Vaporesso iTank, does the Axon chip deliver ‘the perfectly balanced taste consistently’? It looks like a good kit, but how does it perform?
Well, read on, because you are about to find out…
Box Contents
- Vaporesso Target 100 MOD
- Vaporesso iTank (5ml)
- 0.2ohm GTi Mesh Coil
- 0.4ohm Gti Mesh Coil
- Spare Glass Tube
- Battery Adapter
- Spare O rings
- Type-C USB Charging Cable
- User Manual
- Warranty and Authenticity Card
Specifications
- Size: 140mm x 28.6mm x 35.1mm
- Battery: single 21700/18650 battery compatible
- Capacity: 5ml
- Power Range: 5 – 100w
- Modes: F(t), Pulse, Wattage, DIY, Bypass
Design and Build Quality: Vaporesso Target 100 Mod
When I opened the box, I was quite pleasantly surprised by the look and feel of this device. The mod fuses a sleek alloy body with a lightly padded fabric section. It is also worth noting that this fabric section should make the mod splash resistant and ideally suited to taking outdoors.
It looks quite classy, and the size of the mod, combined with an ever so slight padded feel, makes it one of the most comfortable mods I have encountered.
Considering that it can house a 21700 sized battery, this mod is pretty much as compact as you will get without going down the tube route. You can even install a smaller 18650 battery using the supplied adaptor tube too.
The mod features a small raised ‘plinth’ on which your tank will sit. For users with tanks that are 24.5mm or below, this will give your set up a really neat look. However, if you have anything bigger, there will be an overhang. The plinth runs right to the edge of the mod, so there is practically zero slack to play with.
I didn’t like that this raises the overall height of any tank by around 2mm. Presumably, this was to allow more room inside for the mod’s inner workings. When dealing with mods as compact as this, when you borrow from one area, you have to pay back with another.
The battery door is an area that I need to talk about. It’s good in that changing the battery is as easy as it gets. Push it back, flip it open and slide your battery in.
Easy right?
I found that there is a tendency to inadvertently slide the battery door backward if you grab it in just the wrong way. Granted, this is a rarity, but the fact that it happened more than once is a negative in my book.
Overall, I did like the look and feel of the mod.
One downside which became apparent after a few days of use is that a thread or two, making up the weave of the braided section, had begun to look a little frayed.
While designed for outdoor use, I don’t feel like this mod would keep its stunning good looks long if kept in a pocket with keys or other loose items.
Vaporesso iTank
When it comes to the iTank, I’m afraid to say that I have mixed feelings.
I think a few features are really quite clever, but I feel like they are a little let down by poor design, hence my lower score.
First, the good.
The tank is sleek and simple-looking, which works well with the mod. The drip tip looks and feels like an 810. However, it is actually mounted on a 510 sized post. This is good if you want to fit a different 510 drip tip but doesn’t make the tank ideal for those who want to use a regular 810.
I really like how easy this tank is to get set up. For a beginner, it would be absolutely ideal. Prime the coil with a few drops of ejuice and pop it into the aperture on the rear of the tank. That’s it.
At 5ml, this tank has enough capacity to last a long while too. From opening the box to getting vaping must have taken me less than a minute.
So, what’s the bad?
Well, we need to talk about the filling port and the design of the tank in general. As this is where the tank falls down
The filling port is top-mounted, which should make life relatively easy. It is accessed by swiveling the top cap of the tank counterclockwise to access a double-lipped rubberized ‘gasket’ underneath.
However, the top cap only just moves clear of the filling hole.
If you’ve got a skinny tipped bottle, this won’t be a problem, but anyone wanting to use a 100ml’ short fill’ bottle will be frustrated. I had to bend the nozzle of my bottle to get enough of an angle to insert it far enough to penetrate the two rubber seals surrounding the hole.
And it doesn’t end there.
Like I said, you swivel the cap counterclockwise to access the filling port, and as it swings out, it makes quite a large lever.
Do you know what else swivels counterclockwise?
The entire tank.
Practically every time I flipped it open to refill it, I managed to partially unscrew the tank.
Is this a deal-breaker? Not really. Is it frustrating? Absolutely.
There is a workaround, which is to unscrew the top cap completely. You can move the entire filling assembly further and gain better access, but this isn’t too convenient and makes the entire system little more than an over-engineered version of the usual top-fill systems you’ll see on most tanks.
Airflow
The tank also features a base-mounted airflow ring that has a mechanical stop. The ring moves pretty easily (perhaps a little too easily), and again, as a result, when selecting airflow, you can find that you are all of a sudden slightly unscrewing your tank.
Minor engineering gripes aside, the airflow ring has no play whatsoever. I was pleased that everything from fully open to almost completely closed produces no whistling whatsoever.
Vaporesso is proud of this airflow system. It has three inlets designed to circulate air and strike the coil from all sides, giving a smoother experience. This bottom-mounted triple inlet feature is also designed to minimize pools of condensation, effectively preventing the odd drop of e-juice from making its way out into your pocket.
It really works too! I had no drips or leaks at any point.
Coils
The Vaporesso Target 100 kit comes with two coils included. These are GTi mesh coils, provided in 0.2ohm (rated at 60 – 75 watts) and 0.4ohm (rated at 50 – 60 watts). They are both designed to be used for direct to lung (DTL) vaping. You can see what I thought of these coils’ performance below.
Vaporesso Target 100 Features
One of Vaporesso’s key selling points has always been how easy their mods are to use, and the Target 100 is no exception.
The menus are really easy to navigate, and the large screen gives you every piece of information that you would need to know. This includes wattage, the selected mode, puff time, and a counter telling you how many drags you have taken. The screen is color-coded to let you know which mode you are in:
- Yellow: F(t) mode
- Red: Pulse Mode
- Blue: Standard Wattage Mode
- Lighter Red: DIY mode (including bypass, voltage mode, and variable watt mode)
Overall, the menus are easy to navigate, and there are no ‘hidden’ sections that are hard to get to. There are a few shortcut button presses you can employ to switch modes as well as change them via the onboard menus.
One nicer feature I noticed when navigating the menus was a graph that displays your puff counts over 7 days, making it really easy to monitor your usage.
The standout feature, which Vaporesso seems to want to promote as the ‘future’ of vaping, is the new F(t) mode.
What does F(t) stand for?
Well, your guess is as good as mine. Having scoured the manual and Vaporesso’s website, I was none the wiser about what it actually was an abbreviation of. I suspect it means flavor multiplied by time. Naming ambiguity aside, what is this mode meant to achieve?
Well, according to Vaporesso, F(t) mode modifies the wattage and heating speed of the coil over time, offering optimized flavor. By applying different power at different stages of each puff, Vaporesso claims this will give you more flavorful clouds.
There are also other modes you can select. Aside from regular wattage mode, you’ll also find ‘pulse’ mode. This setting allows you to take longer pulls as the chip effectively turns the coil on and off rapidly to ensure it doesn’t overheat.
For those of you who prefer to build your own, there is also the option to switch the mod into bypass mode, where the clouds and flavor are dictated entirely by your coil makeup and resistance. All of the benefits of a mech mod, but with added safety and protection. Nice.
Vaporesso Target 100 Mod Button Combinations
- Turn the device off and on: Press the fire button 5 times
- Lock (+/-) selection buttons: Press the fire button 3 times
- Access main menu: Press the mode button 3 times.
- Reset puff counter: Press the mode button 3 times. Press ‘+’ 4 times to access system settings, select puff counter ‘reset’.
- Mode quick change: Hold the mode button and then use ‘-/+’ to select F(t), Wattage, or Pulse.
Performance
I really wanted to like this kit so much. As an early adopter of Vaporesso in the past, I used to be a huge fan, and there are things that it does exceptionally well.
I love the look and feel of the mod in general. It is compact, comfortable, and pretty elegant. I also love how easy it is to navigate the menus and select the modes you want to use without unnecessary complexity. It goes really well with Vaporesso iTank too.
But vaping isn’t just about looks. It’s about satisfaction.
Did I feel satisfied with this kit?
The real answer is, it depends, as I had two very different experiences.
First, I tried the 0.2ohm GTi coil. Of the two, this gave the better performance and flavor in the iTank. On installing the coil, it came out exactly on 0.2ohms. I started at the recommended 60W in F(t) mode. The flavor wasn’t stellar, but it did produce a pretty pleasing cloud with a nice smooth airflow free of turbulence. Whacking it up to 70W gave me a cloud thick enough to walk on and plenty of flavor.
Did the F(t) mode make a huge difference?
To my (albeit ‘unrefined’) taste, no, it did not.
To make it a fair test, I tried (using the quick mode change function) the same coil with the same power setting in simple wattage and pulse modes. I couldn’t find any discernable taste difference. Some have lauded F(t)mode as the ‘new temperature control’.
I’d be inclined to disagree.
I feel, I must add, the vape was pretty good. But I feel a little like it over-promised and under-delivered when viewed under the lens of the ‘revolutionary’ new F(t) mode. There’s nothing really new here.
When I installed the 0.4ohm GTi coil, my disappointment was tangible and a far cry from what I expected.
These coils are rated at 50 – 60W. However, based on my experience, I think this rating is optimistic. Going bang in the middle at 55W, I immediately noticed a marked cloud output and flavor reduction.
And there was something more.
I didn’t get a dry hit, but it was getting to the level where I felt it was becoming a distinct possibility.
Granted, I might have been unlucky with the coil. Still, after a solid performance with the 0.2ohm coil, the contrast was startling, regardless of the reasons. By turning it down to a lower power setting, I found it much more consistent, but this came at the cost of cloud size and flavor.
With the simple functionality and menus, some will see it as a good thing, some not so much.
If you are the kind of vaper who wants to easily bang in a coil, pick your favorite juice, make a setting and leave it alone, then the Vaporesso Target 100 kit could be for you. The menus are simple, no-nonsense, and really intuitive, producing a fairly consistent vape (provided you use the 0.2ohm coils).
If you are looking for a mod and tank where you have the ultimate flexibility to tinker and tweak your settings, you will probably be disappointed. Simplicity does come at the cost of increased functionality.
Verdict
Is the Vaporesso Target 100 kit any good? I’d say that it depends on what you are looking for. It is simple to set up and operate with a few options if you want a little variation. It is pretty nice looking and is also quite convenient and compact. It isn’t a world-beater in terms of flavor, but it does a pretty decent job.
The main downside was that the F(t) mode didn’t live up to expectations. It certainly doesn’t compete with temperature control. Considering that this is supposed to set Vaporesso mods apart, some may be a little disappointed.
All of the above said, for a first kit, or for those looking for a good-looking package without too much complexity, it should fit the bill nicely.
F(t) is just the mathematical way of writing “temp control”, where F stands for “function” and F(t) therefore is “a function of temperature”. The marketing blabla around temp control is pretty much the same as everyone else’s.