Smok Species Review – Vaping Organism

While not as eye-catching as some of its older brethren, the aesthetics of the Smok Species does have the potential to turn heads with its aggressive yet sleek styling. Fronted with a large format OLED color display with touch capabilities, the screen offers a whole 1.45 inches of real estate enabling you to easily navigate the well-designed UI quickly and easily with just a simple touch.

A standard micro USB port can be found directly below the display for easy access to charging and potential firmware updates in the future, although we always advise caution when charging multi-battery setups such as the Smok Species via USB.

Available in 8 colorways, ranging from a standard black with red trim, all the way to Smok’s signature rainbow finish, the paint job on the Smok Species feels adequately robust and looks like it can take the everyday rigors of regular use without the paint chipping or flaking off.

The Prism Blue and Prism Chrome colorways are our favorite of the bunch as these add a bit of sparkle that is rarely found in other devices. The back panel features a honeycomb design which isn’t too groundbreaking in terms of design, but it does mesh well with the overall design of the device.

The top of the Smok Species uses a centered spring loaded 510 connection for easy compatibility and connectivity with a large selection of atomizers spanning up to a whopping 25.4mm in diameter. The bottom of the mod features the trapdoor mechanism for installing the dual 18650 batteries.

Polarity indicators for easy battery installation are clearly marked which should make things easier for when swapping or installing batteries in an area with less than ideal lighting.

What really piqued our curiosity with the Smok Species kit is the debut of a brand new coil system accompanying the bundled TFV8 Baby V2 tank. The kit comes with a 0.17 ohm Baby V2 A1 single coil rated at an impressive 90-140 watts as well as a 0.2 ohm Baby V2 A2 dual coil rated at 50-80 watts. As you can tell from the specs online, the Smok Species kit has been designed for some serious vaping.

While we had quality control issues with Smok coils in the past, this newly redesigned version played nicely throughout our testing outputting good amounts of flavour and vapor with satisfactory coil life that gives you around a week of optimum performance before the coils need replacing.

One potential issue we observed with this tank is that it doesn’t offer any backward compatibility with older Smok coils. So if you’ve got a good number of Smok coils stocked up from previous kits and devices, the chances that you’ll be able to use them on the TFV8 Baby V2 tank are slim.

In the near future though we predict that this won’t be a real issue as Smok shifts its coils to the newer much more improved standard, although early adopters might have to pay a small price when deciding to pick up this kit.

If you’ve been using big box mods with 510 carts it may be time to look for something smaller, most vapers tend to start with Tronian Nutron for their oil because it’s much more compact than a mod. 

Ease of Use

Thanks to the relatively large touchscreen display on the Smok Species, navigating the plethora of menus and various subsettings is easily done, even for the absolute beginner. The touchscreen is responsive to the touch and doesn’t produce any tangible delay when used.

The user interface is well thought of, with dual battery life indicators giving you a good approximation of each battery’s charge level. Other device info such as current temperature/power settings, current coil resistance, and amps drawn from the battery is neatly displayed on the screen.

The Smok Species also makes use of an oversized firing bar that covers an entire side of the device, making firing up the device feel easy and intuitive even for first-time users. There is a bit of resistance to the firing bar, but squeezing it with your entire hand doesn’t feel fatiguing at all, even with frequent use. The resistance on the firing bar also helps prevent accidental firing of the device which is a nice tough by Smok.

If you’re hankering for a new Smok device and are eager to give their new coils a shot, the Smok Species kit is a good platform to try them out on. The included TFV8 Baby V2 tank does a good job of bringing out the power of the mod as well as the coils that come with the kit.

The more serious vapers out there might be hesitant in picking up another Smok device due to their troubled past when it came to quality control issues, but the Smok Species gives us the impression that it’s moved past those issues thanks to its solid performance, reliability, and consistency.

If you are looking for the best pre-filled unit on the market we suggest checking out the Slice and if you are looking for the best mod-style unit we suggest checking out the Smok X-Priv.