SMOK Species V2 Kit Review

By Michael DeCato

@madecat_vapes on Instagram

• Dimensions: 82.1mm x 49mm x 30.6mm
• Dual High-Amp 18650 Battery - Not Included
• Wattage Output Range: 1-230W
• Voltage Output Range: 0.5-8.2V
• Min Atomizer Resistance: 0.06ohm
• Temperature Range: 200-600F
• Supports Ni200 Nickel, Titanium, and Stainless Steel Heating Elements
• Preheat Functionality - Soft, Normal, Hard, Max
• Temperature Coefficient of Resistance (TCR) Adjustments
• Zinc Alloy Construction
• Full-Color 1.45" OLED Touch Screen - New Interface
• Screen-Lock Button - Simplify Operation
• Firing Bar Mechanism
• Bottom-Loaded Hinged Battery Door
• Intelligent Atomizer Recognition
• Puff Monitoring System
• 10 Seconds Cut-Off/Short Circuit Protection/Over Heating Protection/Over Discharge Protection
• MicroUSB Port - 1.8A Charging Current
• 510 Connection

TFV8 Baby V2 Specs

• 25.4mm Base Diameter
• 30mm At Widest Point
• 5mL Maximum Juice Capacity - Convex Glass Extension
• Superior Stainless Steel Construction
• Top-Fill Rotary Design - Lock Button Mechanism
• Triple Adjustable Airflow
• 810 Cobra Resin Ultra-Wide Drip Tip
• Performance-Grade Baby V2 Coil System
  • 0.17ohm Baby V2 A1 Single Coil - rated for 90-140W
  • 0.2ohm Baby V2 A2 Dual Coil - rated for 50-80W
• Antibacterial Medical Cotton
• 16mm Wide Delrin Widebore Drip Tip
• Gold-Plated 510 Connection

Contents

• Species 230W Box Mod
• TFV8 Baby V2 Tank
• 0.17ohm Baby V2 A1 Single Coil
• 0.2ohm Baby V2 A2 Dual Coil
• Spare glass
• Extra o-rings
• MicroUSB Cable
• Instructional Manual
• Battery Warning card
• QA Certificate

Operation

• 5 click firebar on
• 5 click firebar and press Yes to turn off
• 3 click firebar lock buttons
• Hold Screen Lock button to Lock/Unlock screen
• Press Screen Lock button to Enter/Exit Stealth mode
• Touch-Screen controls to adjust Mode Settings/Puff Settings/Device Settings/Screen Settings

Species V2 Mod

Another device from the manufacturer that many love to hate, the Species V2 is here to scoop up some of the popularity gained by it's older brother. I know many people had issues with the first Alien, and there seemed to be some issues with QC for that device, but you can't deny that it was probably the most popular vaping device to date. While it slightly resembles the Alien, the Species V2 has a style all it's own and the performance to match it's new look. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's jump off this review and start at the best place possible: the top.

Top/510: The top of the Species V2, to me, resembles the shoulder line of a person, that's about the best way I think I can describe it. Where the neck would be is the centered 510. Around the 510 is a rectangular box with rounded corners that sticks out slightly from the contours of the chest line and shoulders. This give the Species V2 a nice platform to fit up to 30mm atomizers without any overhang. The 510 plate is a small, circular disk that's flush with the body of the device and houses a spring-loaded, gold-plated 510 pin.

Buttons: There are really only 2 buttons to speak of with this device: the fire bar and the screen lock button. The fire bar rests on one side of the device, the side where grip activation is better suited for right-handed vapers. Lefties are going to half to palm the screen if they want that same grip fire experience. I much prefer to grip-fire my devices that are designed as such without having to palm the screen, but I've gotten used to thumb-firing them, so it's not that horrible. Fire bar activation, while better towards the top of the bar, can be done a bit more than halfway down the button.

The clickyness of it is fairly nice without being squishy and the resistance is nice and stiff, enough so to seemingly avoid accidental pocket firing. One slight issue is since both sides feel the same, it can be hard to distinguish which side the fire bar is located on if you're not familiar with the device.

The screen lock button is located on the front of the device directly under the screen. It is dual purpose, acting to send the device into/out of stealth mode with one press and locking/unlocking the screen with a long press. Clickyness is there and it activate very nicely.

Screen/Menu: The screen on the Species V2 is a colorful 1.45" touch display. Colors can be changed to suit your preference and most functions are handled via the screen, except locking/unlocking the fire bar, which can be achieved by pressing the fire bar 3 times. To access the device menu you must unlock the screen and hit the menu button located in the top left corner of the screen. This opens up your settings menu and gives you control over your firing modes and parameters, your puffs settings, screen adjustments, and a generic settings menu where you can adjust your ohms, factory reset your device, and turn it off. The menu is quite easy to operate and very intuitive.

My complaint here is that some of the options are quite small and the people with fat fingers like myself might have some issues pressing the desired options. While this did not plague me often, it happened enough to be slightly annoying. I also noticed that the touch screen does not do well with any sort of slight condensation or dirt on it and will start adjusting itself depending on where the dirt is located. The best option is to be sure your screen is free of any debris before trying to adjust things. Unlike some device screens, the one on the Species V2 seems quite resillient to scratches, which is great since you're going to be wiping it off often.

Battery Compartment: The vape battery compartment is located on the bottom of the device and is secured via a locking latch system. The latch release button has a very nice tolerance and the latch itself stays closed nice and securely. The latch is spring-loaded and is done so very well, with very minimal play. The battery compartment secures batteries in place very nicely without much wiggle room to cause any kind of battery rattle. It also has marked battery orientation located on inside of the latch door.

Size/Styling: Because of it's zinc alloy construction, the Species V2 comes with a bit of heft to it, especially after adding your dual 18650s to the device. It's not all bad though, as it really does feel like a solid device. The size is very nice for a dual 18650 device and I especially like the inward slant that it has as it moves towards the bottom. It's not the slimmest of devices either, but it's also far from being considered anywhere near large.

The styling of the device is quite to my liking, being comprised primarily the main color with an accent box that runs around the entire device, from front, over the shoulders, and down the back. The back of the device has a scale pattern on it (I guess to go with the whole Species moniker) and has SPECIES name written towards the bottom. I think it would've look a lot cleaner without the pattern, but apparently, scales and honeycomb are all the rage these days for whatever reason.

Performance: Probably coming as a surprise to most, but not to me, is that the performance of the Species is mostly great. I've only used a few Smok devices during my time vaping (Treebox Plus and Smok Mag Baby), but considering how much hate Smok gets, I've been very pleased with the device. Power mode works well. Power deliver feel a bit weaker than most of my preferred devices, even in Max mode. This would have to be my biggest complaint. Max really feels like Normal and all the other settings feel grossly under-powered. If you keep it on Max, though, you're good to go. Ramp-up time is really minimal and at this point pretty much all devices have got this nailed down. One great thing I want to mention here is a common issue that comes with quick firing devices. When you multi-click the fire bar/button to enter your settings or turn off your device, it ends up firing the device with each click. This is just a side effect of having a device that fires so quickly. The cool thing that Smok has seemingly done is to program the device to recognize when you are clicking it multiple times and reset your firing of the device with each click. How are we just getting into this? Most devices have this issue, so it's nice to see that Smok have handled this well.

Moving on to TC. I was able to get really good performance from TC after adjusting a few settings. TCR values feel a bit weak, but once I was able to dial it in, it performed really well. Power delivery was nice and even and it tapered off without any jarring cutoffs or pulsations. The Species also seems to have great dry-hit detection. I purposely vaped my RDA dry then took 10 long puffs without any sort of dry hit or burnt taste. Just great!

TFV8 Baby V2 Tank: Included in the Species V2 Kit is one of their latest tanks, the TFV8 Baby V2...wait, that can't be right. 4, 8, 12...8? Ohhh, V2. Gotcha, I guess. I'm not a naming expert and at this point the names of Smok tanks are starting to confuse me. Regardless, the Baby V2 is a top-filling adjustable airflow subohm tank that utilizes a new line of Smok mesh coils. Well, it seems like they have a few new lines of mesh coils. You got the Baby V2 and the Prince mesh coils. These coils are not compatible with one another's respective tanks and just really seem to add more confusion when it comes to identifying your appropriate coils. But I digress.

The Baby V2 has a fairly standard look to it when it comes to Smok tanks and utilizes pretty much what every Smok tank has over the past few iterations. Top fill with a swinging hinge latch and an unlock button, adjustable bottom airflow on a stopper, widebore drip tip. The driptip on the Baby V2 however is quite proprietary, sliding on to a double o-ring protrusion from the top of the tank. Not sure why they went this route instead of their typical dual o-ring 810 drip tip, but it definitely makes it harder to customize.

Performance of the coils is very nice. I primordially used the Baby V2 A1 single mesh coil and really enjoyed the flavor out of this thing. I actually liked it a bit better than the Freemax Mesh Pro single coil mesh, getting more flavor out of it and decent longevity. I put roughly 60ml of ejuice through the coil and when I decided to switch, it didn't look much worse for wear. At that point flavor was a bit reduced, but I probably could've put much more juice through it without it being gross. All in all, the performance was very good

Final Thoughts

Pros

• Fits 30mm attys without overhang
• Spring-loaded, gold-plated 510
• 510 threading is smooth
• Can activate fire bar for most of its length
• Fire bar clickiness
• Stiff resistance on fire bar
• Screen lock button is a great feature (although, really a must with a touchscreen device)
• Large, colorful display
• Menu is intuitive
• Touch screen is responsive
• Batter latch nice and secure
• No battery rattle
• Solid zinc alloy construction
• Feels solid
• Small size
• Style is mostly appealing
• Power Mode Performance (on Max)
• Multi fire bar press recognition
• TC performance
• Baby V2 flavor

Cons

• Can be initially hard to differentiate which side fire bar is on
• Lefties have to palm the screen to grip fire
• Some screen options to small for touch activation
• Screen has to be constantly cleaned so it doesn't adjust on its own
• A bit heavy
• Would've like a plain back instead of of the scale pattern
• Power mode settings very weak
• Baby V2 longevity could be better

Regardless of the history that Smok has, I have to say, the Species V2 is quite the great device. It checks off a lot of my boxes. Great size, great feel, nice screen, great power and TC performance. As long as Smok can keep their QC up throughout the life of this device's manufacturing, they're going to have, yet again, one of the most popular devices on the market.