A vaporizer pen is the ultimate device for vaporizing enthusiasts that desire a compact, portable, and efficient system of vaporization.
Vape pens take the cake as far as discreetness goes, since they are easy to conceal and in most cities and can easily be passed off as a nicotine e-juice vaporizer before returning to your pocket.
Vaporizer pens are also typically the least expensive variety of vaporizer typically due to the fact that they offer the least amount of features because they serve a simple purpose: be small, be functional, and be able to last long enough while on the move.
Not all of these vape pens are made with the same level of craftsmanship and attention to what users want from their devices, some are even just made to look the part but do not actually deliver consistent results.
The biggest drawbacks with vaporizer pens tend to be a low battery life due to the devices ideally being quite small, leaving little room for a powerful battery to be attached. Some manufacturers have thought up inventive ways to mitigate the natural drawbacks of making of product of this size, and some just do their best with what they have.
Inconsistent batteries and pens that lose power as the battery gets lower in charge level have had me running for an outlet too many times. Over time, I’ve come to find which pens on the market are worth the price tag and which are not.
The first three pen vaporizers on this list are for concentrates only and the last two are dry herb only.
Here is a list of the top 5 pen vaporizers available to consumers in 2018.
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| - Reasonably priced
- Good vapor quality
- Long battery life
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| - Great vapor quality
- Good taste
- Solid battery life
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| - Solid flavor production
- Excellent vapor quality
- Long battery life
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| - Evenly vaporizes dry herbs
- Very long battery life
- Portable and durable
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| - Solid flavor
- Good vapor production
- Stays cool after usage
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At a price tag of $50, the Doctor Dabber Light is the least expensive vape pen on this list, but it is not to be underestimated.
It retails for such an affordable price because it is a very bare-bones concentrate vaporizer, striving to be the best choice for those who like the best mix of quality and price. About the size of an actual writing pen, the Doctor Dabber Light has only one heat setting but is sure to leave any doubters stoned out of their tree all day.
This is the pen vaporizer I would suggest for those unsure if vaporizer pens are their cup of tea. It was a surprisingly easy decision to come to, as I really cannot think of any attribute sought by most vape users that is not satisfied by this device. There’s only one button on the device, press it five times to turn it off or on and then press and hold the button to begin vaporizing.
I’d say it’s pretty easy to use, seeing as I just described everything you can do with it in about 25 words.
The Doctor Dabber Light is solely designed for concentrates, so if you're looking for a way to vape dry herbs you better keep scrolling. It's much too small for it to be worth it even if it was compatible with dry herbs.
The reliability of this device can't be understated. It is designed for simple one button push and then you receive a sharp lungful of very potent concentrate vapor. I can always rely on the Light when I'm out and I usually keep one somewhere in my kit as an emergency piece in case one of my bulkier models die or would be ill suited for where I'm headed out to. A full charge lasts about 100 draws and two draws will get me absolutely toasted while one just gives me enough to make grocery shopping a bit more fun. If it does die, it's just two hours of charging before I'm back at it again.
The only aspect of the Light where you have any choice is in the material that the atomizer/coil is made up of. There is the option for a pure titanium atomizer and coil or a ceramic wick with a titanium coil. The ceramic wick is more susceptible to getting gunked up but heats up much faster than it's pure titanium counterpart. The titanium atomizers take slightly longer to heat up but there is next to no risk of accidentally burning your product or losing any of the more nuanced tastes and smells of your concentrates. My Dr Dabber Light came with two pure titanium atomizers with the option of purchasing the ceramic ones separately, but different retailers differ in what atomizers come with the device, so make sure to read before you buy if atomizer construction really matters to you.
The battery life is stellar, I seldom had to charge it more than once daily to facilitate my 4-6 sessions a day, and the vapor quality is very passable. If you want to try vaporizer pens or want to use a wax pen that covers all bases adequately so you can see what you really want from a vape pen, the Dr Dabber Light is the best route to go.
We bring ourselves now to the vape pen that’s not only captivated my attention, but the attention of none other than Snoop Dogg himself.
The G Pen by Grenco Science is an excellent contender in portable vaporizer technology. Equipped with a dual quartz atomizer, smart mouthpiece with screen included, next-level chamber design, and powerful battery, the G Pen is for those who do not have time to mess about when vaporizing concentrates.
What I really love about the G-Pen is how it looks nearly identical to the extremely commonly sold $20 e-juice vaporizers sold by gas stations and junk merchants nation-wide, meaning I've been able to hit this vaporizer in plain sight at bus stops or just walking through town without anyone second guessing it because they think they've seen it hundreds of times before.
If I really wanted to keep my possession and use of this device a secret I easily could seeing how it's about the size of a marker, but I've always been partial to any device that allows me to hide in plain sight.
Coil design goes a long way in portable concentrate pens as a poorly designed coil can sink an otherwise solid design. An improperly designed coil can result in poor vapor production, poor vapor quality, and it can also put needless strain on the battery and reduce it's overall life. The G-Pen is equipped with a dual quartz coil, two quartz rods are placed side by side and individually wrapped in titanium wire. The benefits of dual coils is that the more coils there are, the higher the maximum attainable temperature. The benefits of the quartz construction is that quartz coils heat up extremely quickly so very little energy is used to heat the device compared to ceramic for instance, and quartz coils are some of the best in the business for vapor production.
The chamber is large enough to pack sizeable dabs that won't leave you wondering why you didn't just purchase something a bit bigger, while still keeping the device firmly in concealable territory.
A typical problem with most concentrate pens is that they have a nasty habit making the material being vaped bubble up and get shot through the mouthpiece into the mouth of the user like some kind of super-heated Aunt Jemima's. This pen finally did something about that problem by adding a small screen to the bottom of the mouthpiece, effectively eliminating the problem very easily.
A small downsize of the G-Pen is that it is besides the coil and the mouthpiece a very bare bones vape pen with no sort of temperature control or any other sort of features besides: can vaporize concentrates really well. Besides that however, I'm more than satisfied with the G-Pen. If it's good enough for Snoop, it's good enough for me.
The Dr Dabber Ghost is actually the very first vape pen that I ever purchased, and it set the bar pretty high for every vaporizer I've bought since.
The Ghost is a concentrate vaporizer that delivers massive clouds of vapor.
It's a super simple vaporizer to use, and has a pretty solid battery life, especially for a vaporizer pen.
Out of all of the vaporizer pens in the list, the Ghost is definitely one of the most underrated.
The atomizer produces really nice tasting vapor, which is something that is rare for a vaporizer pen. This is most likely due to the fact that the atomizer is made from ceramic wrapped in titanium wire. Ceramic coils heat up more slowly than other materials which produces very smooth and tasty vapor, large amounts of vapor aren't produced until the end of the draw.
Being a size up from the Dr Dabber Light, the battery on this thing is about two to three times as powerful with about the same amount of charge time. That translates to about 200-300 draws from fully charged to dead per two hours charge time to get it back to being fully charged. What surprised me was that the last 100 draws were only slightly less powerful than the first 200, this is atypical for most pen style vaporizers as you usually know when your battery is at around 30% charge because it quickly becomes essentially useless, this is not the case with the Ghost.
The Ghost fits the bill in stellar fashion if you're in the market for beautifully tasting vapor in a package that can last you all day. Sometimes I forego bringing larger kits with me in favor of the Ghost and I'm never regretful of that choice.
Okay, so there have been a lot of concentrate vaporizer pens on this list, the market really tends towards concentrate only when it comes to vape pens because space is such an issue. Actual smaller vaporizers would only be able to hold minuscule amounts of flower, so most manufacturers don't see much point in even trying.
Kandypens sought to shelve the debate for good by releasing the Kandypens K Vape, a dry herb pen vaporizer that satisfies just as well as a larger vaporizer can. The pen has multiple heat settings ranging from 320°F to 420°F, so you actually have a fair bit of choice in what kind of high you'd like to enjoy.
The K-Vape is pushing the limits on what exactly can be considered a vaporizer "pen", as I would compare it's size to one of those extremely large black markers you'd find at a shipping warehouse. Without the added size you'd be vaping one-hitter sized bowls though which in my opinion would aggravate me into smoking a joint more than anything else. Does compromising on size mean quality didn't have to be compromised? In the case of the K-Vape, I'd like to argue yes.
For whatever reason, this vaporizer is the vaporizer of choice for knockoff manufacturers as I've seen it sold under a handful of different names by dozens of fly-by-night vape retailers throughout the years. I've tried the Randy Troo which is identical in look and function to the K-Vape but the K-Vape had a better taste and overall less shoddy construction than the Randy Troo. Unfortunately the Troo wasn't mine so I wasn't able to open them both up and see how they differ underneath the hood.
Portability wise it's a good vape to pack before you go on the move and then hit intermittently throughout the day, if I ration myself properly I can get about three solid sessions a day before I need to charge it again, so it's truly one of the greats as far as dry herb vaporizer pens go.
Vape pens earned their name because the earliest models were chambers or atomizers connected to a simple 510 battery and resembled your typical office pen at first glance.
The Atmos Boss is a dry herb vaporizer that looks like something R2D2 might pass you in a dimly lit cantina. It is one of the few dry herb vaporizer pens that are functional, affordable, and worthwhile all at once.
There are some drawbacks to this rudimentary system, however. Such a compact overall unit and battery have limitations pertaining to battery life, power capacity, and herb capacity. As time has gone on, vaporizer pens have increased in size to augment their capabilities.
The Atmos Boss is about one or two steps up from those original miniature pens size-wise but about five steps up quality wise. From 100% charge to dead, it can be expected to get two and a half hours of amazingly dense and flavorful vapor thanks to the stainless steel heating chamber.
That stainless steel heating chamber makes the Atmos Boss probably the tastiest vaporizer on this list, and I've yet to see another vaporizer try and do what Atmos has with stainless steel.
If you do get this vaporizer, one thing you may find yourself trying to navigate around is the auto-shut off feature. After 75 seconds the vaporizer will shut off, which isn't always enough time to vape through the chamber depending on what strain of cannabis you have, how it was dried, or dozens of other aspects that can affect how nicely your herbs vaporize. To mitigate this issue, you can immediately turn the device back on again. The light will be red indicating it is not ready to drawn from, but there is simply just a small lag time between the light updating to where it should be as the chamber is still more than hot enough for you to finalize your bowl full of dry herb.
The Atmos Boss is still small enough to be concealed in a user’s hand and heats up rapidly, meaning that sometimes all one needs is a quick run into a secluded spot to top up their buzz. I am a huge fan of the stainless steel heating chamber because this is the first herbal pen vaporizer I’ve used that actually heats herb evenly without me having to manually stir the herbs and I attribute this entirely to the expertly made heating chamber. I wholeheartedly recommend the Atmos Boss.
I hope this list gives some insight for those unsure of which vaporizer pen in the currently inundated market works best for them. Check back soon for our comprehensive list of the best portable & desktop vaporizers!
