Crafty vs Utillian 721 – Heavy Weight Rumble

The Crafty delivers some of the best, if not the best vapor on the portable market. No matter the temperature draws are smooth, consistent, and full of flavor. It achieves this excellent vapor quality through convection heating and it’s unique cooling system that is built into the mouthpiece of the unit. You can read about the benefits of convection heating in our article here. The ‘cooling unit’ built into the mouthpiece of the crafty causes the vapor to diffuse and cool as it is pulled through the air intake. Hot draws are virtually non-existent on the crafty because of this unique design.

The Utillian 722 also employs convection heating to cook it’s herbs and the results are excellent. Like the Crafty, the convection of the 721 provides satisfying, flavorful draws at almost any temperature. Unfortunately the 721 does not share the same “cooling system” design, and rather the air pathway goes directly from the heating chamber to the mouthpiece. On the highest temperature, the 721 draws are a bit to harsh for the average user, though cloud production is abundant. However, on all other temperature settings we found the vapor from the Utillian 721 to be quite comfortable, definitely not as smooth as the Crafty but pretty close for the $200 difference.

The Crafty wins this round, though the Utillian 721 put up a good fight especially for the difference in price, but there is no competing with the quality of vapor Storz & Bickel have come to be famous for.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the Crafty is the plastic exterior, many critics scoffed at a $400 vaporizer that incorporated this much plastic and for good reason. We have seen a number of units that have seen defects arise with the plastic shell, most notably is the plastic breaking where your mouthpiece locks into the unit. If the plastic cracks or breaks where the mouthpiece is locked onto the unit it can effectively render your $400 vaporizer useless, which is a fact that is hard to swallow.

The Utillian 721 on the other hand features an anodized aluminum shell with a rubberized finish. This shell is much more durable than plastic and can withstand normal bumps that a portable unit is expected to take. Between the 2 we would feel much more comfortable with the 721 falling out of our bag onto the ground than the Crafty. The 721 also does not have the design flaw the crafty does with the mouthpiece. The 721’s mouthpiece locks on magnetically and would simply pop off if it ever dropped.

Vaporizers are investments and you want to make sure yours will last the daily grind and the test of time; when considering the price difference, it is hard not to give the Utillian 721 the edge in manufacturing quality. The 721 is far more rugged than the Crafty for less overall cost, if the worst should happen and you ever drop your unit the 721 is far more likely to survive over the Crafty. And if it doesn’t you can buy almost two 721’s for the price of one crafty.

Both units operate with only one button making either one quite simple to use. The Crafty’s button can be used to turn the device on and off, and toggle between normal and boost temperature settings. Changing the normal and boost temperature ranges on the Crafty require the use of the Crafty app, which requires you to connect to your vaporizer with your phone via Bluetooth. For those who don’t get along with technology this will be an immediate turn off. And even for those tech savvy folks out there, after a while it becomes more of a nuisance than a cool feature and you will find yourself simply setting the normal and boost temperature and never using the app again.

The Utillian 721 is more straight forward with a traditional pre-set temperature control. You can easily set the unit between 170 – 210 degrees Celsius by double clicking the power button to set it to the temperature level you want, indicated by the color of the LED at the top of the unit. And the “enhanced mode” feature allows you to boost each temperature range by 5 degrees, making it really easy to access a whole range of temperatures for customized sessions. It is far easier to vapor step with the 721, starting from the lowest temperature and working your way to the highest, a process that you can read more about here.

While the crafty has the “wow” factor of the phone app to control temperature, this ultimately costs it the round when it comes to “ease of use”. Having to pull your phone out every time and connect to your crafty to change temperatures becomes inconvenient quickly and most users will just opt to using just the 2 temperature settings. It doesn’t happen often, but this is one instance where legacy technology is actually more efficient than new technology which benefits the Utillian 721 to provide a more welcoming and user friendly experience.

The Crafty and 721 are very close in size, there is only about 1 cm difference in height and width, but not enough to make a clear difference. Both units easily fit in a pocket for transportation and both units have their unique concerns with transporting.

Our fear with the Crafty is the power button of the unit does not have a lock feature, meaning it can accidentally be turned on in your pocket if the button gets pressed by mistake. The Crafty is designed with an aggressive 1 minute auto shutoff if its not being drawn on, which means if it does get turned on in your pocket the unit will turn itself fairly quickly and should not waste too much botanical, but it’s worth noting as a design flaw.

The 721’s flaw is in the mouthpiece, because it is held on magnetically there is a small chance of the lid popping open when in your pocket or bag. This scenario never arose in our testing as we found the magnetic seal to be quite tight, but we definitely could see this happening if you tossed your unit in a full bag, it’s definitely possible the lid gets pushed out of position. Another tie for this round between the 2 units, they are both equally portable each with their own specific issues but the chances of either of these problems arising are quite low and should not be a final deciding factor.

As we touched on above, both units have a similar form factor. Both can be easily concealed in your hand or quickly pocketed to be kept out of sight. Vapor production from both units is similar and on lower heating settings vapor is thin, wispy, and will dissipate quickly.

The only knock against the Crafty’s discreetness is the need to interact with an app if you want to set your temperatures differently, but most will assume you are playing with your phone. As such this round is a tie, neither unit offers a feature that makes it less discreet than the other.

This is a category where the Crafty has received a lot of flak and rightly so. From our own experiences we know that the Crafty maxes out at about 45 minutes of battery life, which is around 3 sessions and that’s right at the beginning of the batteries life cycle.

By the time you put 40 hours on the unit you are lucky if you can get 2 full sessions or half an hour out of the unit. This is very frustrating for such an expensive device, especially for those who have to use their vaporizer multiple times during the day. If you vape more than 3 times a day you will definitely be charging the Crafty at some point during the day, which is a real bummer for such a great unit.

That is why we were thrilled when the Utillian 721 lasted 60 minutes of vaping on 1 charge. This is better than what can be achieved with the Crafty meaning you can confidently vape all day without having to hunt down an electrical socket midday. This also means you won’t be charging it as often as you would a Crafty and thus less strain will be put on the battery for the same amount of time the device is used. So this round goes to the 721, flawless victory.

The Crafty gives you the illusion of precise temperature control with the use of the Crafty app, which requires you to download an app from your phones app store, and sync your vaporizer to your phone via Bluetooth. While this feature is super cool when you first start using your device, it quickly diminishes because it is inconvenient to constantly pull out your phone when you want to vape. It is much easier to use this device without the application, but in doing so only limits you to 2 temperatures ranges that you set via the application. Thus making the crafty only have 2 heat settings when not using the Bluetooth app.

The Utillian 721 offers 4 base temperature ranges, 170, 180, 190, 210 and offers an enhancement mode that will increase each temperature range by 5 degrees celcius. This gives the Utillian 721 8 pre-set temperature settings in total, which is one of the most flexible pre-set units on the market. Though it does not have precise temperature control, it gives you a large enough range than all users should find a setting they are comfortable with.

We are going to chalk this round up as a tie as both units approach temperature control differently. Crafty technically has precise temperature control but requires an app, while the 721 gives users one of the widest range of pre-set temperatures available. Either way finding your preferred vaporizing temperature should be simple.

While the 721 does not necessarily dethrone the Crafty as the best convection vaporizer available, it definitely evens the playing field bringing amazing vapor quality at a fraction of the price. For this reason the judges have ruled the Utillian 721 the victor today. For nearly $200 less than the Crafty the Utillian 721 provides a comparable vapor experience to the Crafty while also offering better battery life and a more durable exterior. If you have the extra cash and want the crème de la crème by all means pick yourself up a Crafty.

It certainly will not disappoint and still touts the best vapor quality in a portable unit, but the extremely short battery and plastic exterior make it less than ideal for your daily portable. The Utillian 721 provides top-tier vaporization without the top tier price tag, bringing a high value unit to the consumers and that is something that is hard to ignore.