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Biansi Imist Review
Posted by
daveinleics
,
20 January 2012
·
1,243 views
My first attempt at a blog, so be kind! I've only been vaping for 2/3 months and thought I'd have a go at a review and it turned out rather long, so thought this might be the best thing to do with it on here. Obviously these are the views of a relatively inexperienced vaper, but hope they might be of some interest.
Review of the Biansi Imist
I purchased this tank atomiser from Safercigs for £8.50. Soon afterwards my daughter in law found it irresistible and I found the lure of the matching batteries irresistible too so I bought the complete kit for £50.60 after discount – at least I will get the £8.50 back when she snaffles one of the new atomisers!
The kit comes with two 900mAh batteries, two atomisers complete with tanks, 5 extra tanks, a USB charger and a mains USB plug. I have not included any pictures as there are already plenty on the forums and the vendor’s website.
Look and feel
My first chrome PV! Everything else I have is black. Considering the whole assembly of battery and atomiser, it looks very good, with the rather fetching blue tank on top. You have to examine it very closely to see a few minute scratches, so for a mass produced item it is very nice and shiny. Of course chrome is a fingerprint magnet, so it does need the odd wipe over. It has a solid feel to it and a bit more weight than an Ego/Riva. The tanks are made from a solid hard plastic (delrin?) and taper to a thin whistle tip very similar to a cigarette holder or a pipe stem. Personally I really like this in comparison to the normal much thicker whistle drip tips.
In use
You can use the Imist with any manual 510 device, but if it is not of the Ego/Riva type you need a 510 – Ego converter (£2.50 from Safercigs) to accommodate the skirt.
The atomiser is in two metal parts. The battery end houses the coil, then there is a top cone with the wick assembly wedged in. Be careful when you first unscrew it though as on my first one the wick bit just fell out and I was scrabbling on the floor to retrieve it – in the others it was securely wedged in. Some people have found that the wick needs to be tweaked out a bit, but I believe Daz at Safercigs checks them all now. I certainly haven’t had any wicking problems. The atomisers are rated at 1.8 ohms – all three of mine came in at 2.0 ohms.
You fill the tank through the hole in the bottom of it – easiest with a spikey thing (my choice) or a needle tip. Of course if you are a numpty like me who has never used a tank system before and you try to fill it when assembled through the top you get everything covered in liquid coming out of the air holes on the side of the tank! When you do it properly, the tank holds just over 1ml. Connect the atomiser to your battery, line up the tank how you want it in relation to the switch button and push in – you feel a click as it snaps on.
Obviously I had already been impressed by my first Imist or I wouldn’t have bought the whole kit. To give it a more thorough check out I put my favourite juice (FV Cuban Supreme 24mg mainly PG) in a new Imist, topped up a new Boge LR cartomiser and put it on a Riva and set my Lavatube and RTA to about the same watts to add a completely unfair comparison!
It takes a couple of puffs to get it going from new and then I found it worked perfectly every time with no dry or burnt tastes at all. It gives a fairly tight draw, I guess because of the flat tip and small hole, but I quite like that. Starting from new I found it was very similar to the Boge on the Riva but some way short of the RTA. All were quite similar in producing good amounts of vapour and throathit. I decided to mainly use it all day so got through one tank, and re-filled. By this time I found that the Imist was giving me significantly more flavour than the Boge which seemed dryer in comparison and to be honest it was giving the RTA a good run for its money as well. To be super critical there was the merest hint of plastic in comparison, but of course you cannot put a Siam mods stainless steel drip tip on an Imist!
On to my third tank full it was still performing very well. Just for fun I used the adaptor and stuck if on a 5 volt box mod (it looked pretty silly!). It worked and gave a good hit but inevitably at the loss of some flavour. Taking several vapes in quick succession finally defeated the wick and I got a bit of a burnt taste – but this is obviously not a sensible thing to do with it.
The juice I used for the comparison does not have a distinctly strong flavour, but I used my first one with another favourite of mine, Grizwald’s Apple Tabac and it brings out the apple bit of the flavour very well. With VE’s HS premium menthol it blew my socks off! My original Imist has now done around 5 tank fulls and is still going great guns. I have not had the slightest leak from either atomiser yet and the battery connection has remained bone dry. Apart from a quick mop with a tissue I have not cleaned it yet and have noticed no real drop in performance. According to Daz the best way to clean the coil is a vodka bath and leave it overnight…… in a dark place - he doesn’t know why either!
Safercigs will be stocking replacement coils and wick assemblies and time will tell how long they last. It is apparently quite easy to replace the wick yourself, but I will leave others to report on that. At least one person has already put a mesh wick in if you want to experiment!
Battery
The battery is rated at 900 mAh and is 850mm long, so quite compact. In comparison my Riva 1100 mAh battery is 900mm long and the Ego 1100mAh is 950mm long. They are all about the same diameter. The batteries arrived partly charged and took less than an hour to fully charge, at which point they both measured about 4.15 volts pretty much spot on for this type of battery. After vaping 1ml of liquid when I re-filled the tank the battery measured 3.9 volts. I vaped another 1ml and on the second refill it measured 3.8 volts, so still plenty of life left. After another 1ml it was still going strong and measured 3.7 volts. I put it on charge at this point as I prefer not to let these types of batteries drain right down and it took 3 hours to charge up again. You can certainly vape 3+ ml on one charge so the battery would comfortably last a day or more for most people; more or less the same performance I get from the 1100 mAh Riva.
Conclusion
This is simple to use and takes seconds to fill, so even easier than a cartomiser and with a 1ml capacity it lasts me for a good 3 or 4 hours with no need to top up. I find 2ohms on about 4 volts gives me the hit I want most of the time and vapour production is fine on PG liquid. I’ve got through at least 8 tank fulls of liquid on two of the atomisers and found them totally reliable with a good vape every time. For me it took about half a tank to properly bed in from new but after that I found the flavour better than my favourite cartomiser and getting close to the consistently best I have found so far – the RTA.
If you are happy with standard resistance atomisers or cartomisers you might find this gives too strong a hit. Equally if you want a really big belt it would struggle a bit. 100% VG liquids are harder to wick but apparently it works well with them as well, although they might need to be thinned down a little.
Overall then I would strongly recommend the Imist; in my opinion a fantastic bit of kit. With the availability of replacement wicks and coils it is also likely to be cost effective.
Review of the Biansi Imist
I purchased this tank atomiser from Safercigs for £8.50. Soon afterwards my daughter in law found it irresistible and I found the lure of the matching batteries irresistible too so I bought the complete kit for £50.60 after discount – at least I will get the £8.50 back when she snaffles one of the new atomisers!
The kit comes with two 900mAh batteries, two atomisers complete with tanks, 5 extra tanks, a USB charger and a mains USB plug. I have not included any pictures as there are already plenty on the forums and the vendor’s website.
Look and feel
My first chrome PV! Everything else I have is black. Considering the whole assembly of battery and atomiser, it looks very good, with the rather fetching blue tank on top. You have to examine it very closely to see a few minute scratches, so for a mass produced item it is very nice and shiny. Of course chrome is a fingerprint magnet, so it does need the odd wipe over. It has a solid feel to it and a bit more weight than an Ego/Riva. The tanks are made from a solid hard plastic (delrin?) and taper to a thin whistle tip very similar to a cigarette holder or a pipe stem. Personally I really like this in comparison to the normal much thicker whistle drip tips.
In use
You can use the Imist with any manual 510 device, but if it is not of the Ego/Riva type you need a 510 – Ego converter (£2.50 from Safercigs) to accommodate the skirt.
The atomiser is in two metal parts. The battery end houses the coil, then there is a top cone with the wick assembly wedged in. Be careful when you first unscrew it though as on my first one the wick bit just fell out and I was scrabbling on the floor to retrieve it – in the others it was securely wedged in. Some people have found that the wick needs to be tweaked out a bit, but I believe Daz at Safercigs checks them all now. I certainly haven’t had any wicking problems. The atomisers are rated at 1.8 ohms – all three of mine came in at 2.0 ohms.
You fill the tank through the hole in the bottom of it – easiest with a spikey thing (my choice) or a needle tip. Of course if you are a numpty like me who has never used a tank system before and you try to fill it when assembled through the top you get everything covered in liquid coming out of the air holes on the side of the tank! When you do it properly, the tank holds just over 1ml. Connect the atomiser to your battery, line up the tank how you want it in relation to the switch button and push in – you feel a click as it snaps on.
Obviously I had already been impressed by my first Imist or I wouldn’t have bought the whole kit. To give it a more thorough check out I put my favourite juice (FV Cuban Supreme 24mg mainly PG) in a new Imist, topped up a new Boge LR cartomiser and put it on a Riva and set my Lavatube and RTA to about the same watts to add a completely unfair comparison!
It takes a couple of puffs to get it going from new and then I found it worked perfectly every time with no dry or burnt tastes at all. It gives a fairly tight draw, I guess because of the flat tip and small hole, but I quite like that. Starting from new I found it was very similar to the Boge on the Riva but some way short of the RTA. All were quite similar in producing good amounts of vapour and throathit. I decided to mainly use it all day so got through one tank, and re-filled. By this time I found that the Imist was giving me significantly more flavour than the Boge which seemed dryer in comparison and to be honest it was giving the RTA a good run for its money as well. To be super critical there was the merest hint of plastic in comparison, but of course you cannot put a Siam mods stainless steel drip tip on an Imist!
On to my third tank full it was still performing very well. Just for fun I used the adaptor and stuck if on a 5 volt box mod (it looked pretty silly!). It worked and gave a good hit but inevitably at the loss of some flavour. Taking several vapes in quick succession finally defeated the wick and I got a bit of a burnt taste – but this is obviously not a sensible thing to do with it.
The juice I used for the comparison does not have a distinctly strong flavour, but I used my first one with another favourite of mine, Grizwald’s Apple Tabac and it brings out the apple bit of the flavour very well. With VE’s HS premium menthol it blew my socks off! My original Imist has now done around 5 tank fulls and is still going great guns. I have not had the slightest leak from either atomiser yet and the battery connection has remained bone dry. Apart from a quick mop with a tissue I have not cleaned it yet and have noticed no real drop in performance. According to Daz the best way to clean the coil is a vodka bath and leave it overnight…… in a dark place - he doesn’t know why either!
Safercigs will be stocking replacement coils and wick assemblies and time will tell how long they last. It is apparently quite easy to replace the wick yourself, but I will leave others to report on that. At least one person has already put a mesh wick in if you want to experiment!
Battery
The battery is rated at 900 mAh and is 850mm long, so quite compact. In comparison my Riva 1100 mAh battery is 900mm long and the Ego 1100mAh is 950mm long. They are all about the same diameter. The batteries arrived partly charged and took less than an hour to fully charge, at which point they both measured about 4.15 volts pretty much spot on for this type of battery. After vaping 1ml of liquid when I re-filled the tank the battery measured 3.9 volts. I vaped another 1ml and on the second refill it measured 3.8 volts, so still plenty of life left. After another 1ml it was still going strong and measured 3.7 volts. I put it on charge at this point as I prefer not to let these types of batteries drain right down and it took 3 hours to charge up again. You can certainly vape 3+ ml on one charge so the battery would comfortably last a day or more for most people; more or less the same performance I get from the 1100 mAh Riva.
Conclusion
This is simple to use and takes seconds to fill, so even easier than a cartomiser and with a 1ml capacity it lasts me for a good 3 or 4 hours with no need to top up. I find 2ohms on about 4 volts gives me the hit I want most of the time and vapour production is fine on PG liquid. I’ve got through at least 8 tank fulls of liquid on two of the atomisers and found them totally reliable with a good vape every time. For me it took about half a tank to properly bed in from new but after that I found the flavour better than my favourite cartomiser and getting close to the consistently best I have found so far – the RTA.
If you are happy with standard resistance atomisers or cartomisers you might find this gives too strong a hit. Equally if you want a really big belt it would struggle a bit. 100% VG liquids are harder to wick but apparently it works well with them as well, although they might need to be thinned down a little.
Overall then I would strongly recommend the Imist; in my opinion a fantastic bit of kit. With the availability of replacement wicks and coils it is also likely to be cost effective.
