Sue from Healthcabin sent this over for me to review for them. I am not affiliated with Healthcabin, nor do I receive payment for any of my reviews.
Full disclosure, I’m a fanboy of the Gen range. I like the understated designs and the functionality. I coveted the original Gen from afar and got one of the Gen S mods when they came out, I still have it there. It was great as it had all the modes from the original and the new, at the time, Axon chip inside so there was so much to do with it. I also had, and still have, the Gen Nano, which was a cracking little internal battery mod that did a lot as well. I missed one or 2 later versions but came back to it with the Gen 200, which again was a great mod that added the F(t) mode, that I still use today, although a lot of the functionality had been removed. Now we have the Gen Max as the big mod in the range.
The Gen Max is a dual replaceable 18650 mod with a max wattage of 220w. It has a 0.96” TFT colour screen, which allows for animations and different themes. There’s a jog wheel for both firing and wattage adjustment/menu navigation and it works quite well. They’ve also added a lock switch, as seems to be customary on a lot of mods now and is something I’m very much on board with.
Style wise its boxy but with rounded edges. It makes it a little bit bigger than the compact Gen 200 but not by much and it’s still a nice size. The button placement is on the side, and this gives it a comfortable feel and firing position. As always with the Gen range, the design is reasonably minimal, there’s a big Vaporesso logo on the back, inscribed into the metal casing and the screen is big and round, with curved LED lights at each side. A good thing about the mod is that you can turn some of the bells and whistles off. You don’t need to have the LED lights on. The battery compartment is revealed by taking off the back cover. And it is held on by possibly the strongest magnets I’ve encountered on a battery cover. You don’t want a finger in the way of this or you’ll get a pinch of death.
Function wise you have the more pared down version of the Axon chip from their recent releases. Fans of TC aren’t catered to here, which is unfortunate as I always found the Gen TC to be pretty good for a more commercial mod. Three clicks will take you to the settings menu, which will let you choose from F(t) mode, eco mode, pulse mode or VV mode. There is also a menu for the themes, of which you can choose from general (a pulsing ring animation) football or UFO. I personally like the purple/blue UFO one. In the setting menu you can turn smart mode on or off, reset to default settings, Turn the LED lights on or off, change the brightness and reset the puff counter.
I still don’t really understand what pulse and F(t) modes do technically. Vaporesso say that the pulse mode gives a consistent draw from first to last puff in their marketing and the F(t) has always been more about auto adjusting the temperature. The marketing blurb says this “The F(t) mode aims to maximize the flavor of the e-liquid by intelligently controlling the temperature and heating rate of the coil” All I know is that F(t) is the first proprietary mode I’ve consistently used over several mods as I do honestly feel like it boosts things a wee bit.
In use I used my usual rebuildable mesh RTA first and it works so well on the Vaporesso mods with the F(t) enabled. I just like that I can set it a couple of watts less than I’d have to on other brands of mods and I can get a nice stable draw. The pulse mode works really well too, especially with the included tanks you get in kits from Vaporesso and I also used the iTank T I have there already and got some great results from it. Eco mode works well too, to give a decent draw and use less battery power. I think the days of the past couple of years when an eco-mode meant an insipid draw are gone for good as most of the kits I’ve tried recently from most manufacturers have cracking eco modes on them
Overall the Gen Max is yet another good offering from Vaporesso. The kit version will also give you an iTank T if you need one and I’d recommend them as the best stock coil tank for DTL out there at the moment.
The mod is well designed, up to date and comfortable. I do yearn for the days of the many menus from the Gen S but I realise that things have moved on and simplicity is the key to get new users on board these days. I like the gimmicky aspects of the animations and the LED lights. They’re subtle enough to not make too much difference and they still allow the whole package to be somewhat understated.
The one thing that might be an annoyance to some is the jog wheel button. It’s a lovely metallic orange colour and it sticks out well, but I do find I can accidently move the wattage by a watt or two on occasion while the screen is still active. The good thing is that it doesn’t register if the screen is off so you won’t be up to 200w by accident and the lock switch mitigates this a hell of a lot, but I have managed to accidently change things by one or 2 watts so it is there.
You can buy the Gen Max mod from Healthcabin and, as always, making an account makes things cheaper still.
This review was written by Gitchy-Stephen from POTV(Planet Of The Vapes), click to view original review.