The best vaporizers 2018 have continued to amaze and innovate, with new heating technologies, smaller, lighter models and overall better bangs-for-your buck.
RIP The Herbalizer
The makers of our favourite desktop vape, designed by former rocket scientists, suddenly shut down operations last June. One day they were there, the next, gone. No email, website offline – not even a note for the milkman.
Apparently there was a patent dispute with Storz & Bickel, makers of the rival and previous desktop champion the Volcano. Over something stupid like the vapor bag valve, but we guess it was too expensive to fight.
Hopefully they’re be back in 2019; the Herbie really was a high-tech joy (even if they never managed to make it usable outside the US due to its sensitivity to electric power frequency variations).
That said, here’s our pick for the best vaporizers 2018:
Best Tasting Vapor in a Portable.
Having fallen flat with its 2017 introduction, the Ghost MV1 was improved and successfully re-launched this year. Rookie manufacturers XXX delivered a bizarre-looking but powerful on-demand, true convection vapor. Beats the Firefly 2 thanks to the sheer size of its flavorsome hits. One for the vapor purists.
Best Low-priced Portable
The Linx Gaia is an attractive, dinky-but-sturdy new model that won’t break the bank. It pulled in a solid 9 from our reviewers; find out why here.
Best Vape for Smokers
Dr Dabber nipped in towards the end of the year with their technically remarkable Switch, a first herb vape from the established dab pen maker.
If using magnetic induction for rapid but economical heat and a native water cooled bong attachment were not enough, airless pyrolysis of weed gives the Switch the densest, dankest hits of any vape to date.
Producing not strictly vapor but not smoke either, it might just be the device to persuade the stubborn joint smoker in your life to make the, er, switch to vaping.
New Category: Best Vape for Hashish
The 800-degree self-cleaning cycle of the Dr Dabber Switch means it can not only vape concentrates very well, and weed questionably well, it handles hashish without irreparably gunking up its removable ceramic/metal cup. This vape makes it a delight for old school hash lovers.
Best E-Pen
With its glass mouthpiece and sturdy stainless steel body, the Linx Hypno was the tastiest and least wasteful of the dab pens we tried in 2018. If you’re a terp-loving dabber-on-the-go, this is your device.
Best E-Juice Pen
The super-slim, light and attractive RUBI from Kandipens. Although it’s wick’ed tank can only vape e-juice and cannabis oils, you can dissolve harder concentrates in some propylene glycol blend. But the fact that its tank is self-fillable means you’ll save a packet over similar designs using proprietary canisters.
Most Stylish Portable
The Pax has kept its iconic shape and form through three iterations, packing more and more functionality in with successive model. Although the Pax 3 came out in 2017, there was nothing new in 2018 that beat its silky good looks.
Best Desktop Vape
With the Herbie gone, the title for best desktop remains split between the Arizer Extreme Q and the Volcano from S&B. Both produce forced air, quality vapor; one’s a big metal cone-and-bag, the other’s a smaller device that can handle bags or whips. It’s versatile, reliable and remote controlled. It’s also very affordable.
Honorary mention to
Lastly, the list of best vaporizers 2018 wouldn’t complete without the Verdamper, an all-glass, water-cooled vape from the vape Stone Age (i.e. the mid-1990s!). Designed by a mad Dutchman and hand-built by Czech glassblowers, despite it being expensive, it remains the vape of choice by all Amsterdam coffee shops for determining the quality of their supplies, even 20 years after its launch. Now that’s a classic!
