UWELL Caliburn Review: The Ultimate Pod Vape System
The UWELL Caliburn is a vape pen. It’s designed to be slim and easy to use; to me, that’s part of its appeal. It easily fits just about anywhere and using the device is really quite simple – even for someone who has never vaped before.
The top piece where the mouthpiece (AKA the pod) sits comes off. Once you remove it, you slide out the mouthpiece (the black plastic mouthpiece) to reveal the fill ports. Then add your E Juice (I use Nic Salts E Juice in mine) and put it back together, wait five minutes, and you’re good to go.
The coil head inside the pod drains quickly. I always wait five minutes for the cotton to saturate with liquid, which ensures a nice vape full of flavors. You have a small round button on the front to fire the mod or alternatively you can just inhale and it will fire via its built in breath sensing technology.
I tend to prefer using the button, as breath detection can be a bit, well… glitchy – sometimes it fires, other times it doesn’t. For this reason, I almost always use the fire button. There’s a USB port at the bottom for charging and a little light under the fire button for battery life updates (green is good; red is bad).
The overall design language of the UWELL Caliburn is ALL about simplicity; it is made to be very easy to use, even for beginner vapers. There is literally no learning curve with this pod. Just add your juice and vape. It really is that simple.
The UWELL Caliburn is available in multiple colors; mine is red. All are the same price and offer great value. It is an elegant vape that will suit both male and female vapers. It fits anywhere and weighs next to nothing. Just like a pod vape should.
Specifications and Features
- Dimensions: 110mm x 21.2mm x 11.6mm
- Output power: 11w
- 520 mAh internal rechargeable battery
- Voltage output range: 3.2v-4.0v
- Resistance range: 1.2-1.5 ohm
- Aluminum alloy construction
Built-in protections: short circuit protection; 10 seconds cut-off protection; Low power alert
As you can see, you have plenty of built-in safety features that keep you safe from harm. This is a good thing. Beyond that, the only real party piece, however, is the fire draw feature, but as stated earlier, that feature isn’t very good.
Not that any of that matters; the Caliburn is still a brilliant performer. It delivers the goods where it matters most, and that’s what matters. You get an intense and bright flavor. Coil heads that last EONS. And its use is simple and intuitive. And that’s what everyone wants, right?
UWELL Caliburn Performance
When it comes to pod vapes, you will always lack performance compared to a vape tank and mod combo. It’s a completely different style of vaping, more closely related to smoking.
Out of the thirty or so pod mods I’ve tested, the UWELL Caliburn is easily in the top 30% of pod vapes. For flavor and coil performance, it is safe, surpassing the SMOK Nord and coming very close to the almighty Lost Vape Orion DNA Go .
That should really tell you everything you need to know about the UWELL Caliburn. It’s as good as people have said, although it’s still not perfect. For one thing, it sometimes doesn’t fire (or, worse, cuts out) when you press the fire key. This happens often is quite annoying, although I wouldn’t consider it a deal breaker. Not when everything else is as good as here.
For a pod mod, this is currently my preferred setup right now. It’s the one I always take with me whenever I go anywhere, and it hasn’t let me down yet. As long as you top up its charge every few hours or so, it’s generally good to go for the long haul – even with chain vaping.
Coil Performance
This for me is what really sets the UWELL Caliburn apart from the crowd. His reels are completely badass. I’m talking weeks and weeks of flavor between changes. In this regard, it is vastly superior to the SMOK Nord which still suffers from the occasional failed coil pack.
I always run my first pod in the UWELL Caliburn. How long has it been, you ask? Almost four weeks! I’ve been to a wedding with, driven about 15 hours on the highways and spent evenings with. And it’s still going strong.
Bottomline: If coil head performance is important to you, the UWELL Caliburn really takes a few hits in this context. It currently has some of the best coil heads (pods) in the business. Without exception.
UWELL Caliburn Battery Life
The only thing that doesn’t impress me too much here is the battery life. It’s good, but nothing special – several hours of chain vaping and you’ll have to recharge it. The SMOK Nord has better battery life, for example, thanks to its larger battery; the Caliburn uses an internal 580mAh cell.
I just wish UWELL had stuck to an 800mAh cell in this thing. If that had been done, this device would be perfect in every way. It’s still very, very good and the battery life is decent, provided you charge it regularly. But I can’t help but think how good this pod would be with a bigger cell.
I always put mine on charge when I’m not using it; The UWELL Caliburn runs on microUSB, so it’s pretty easy to charge anywhere. Ideally, if you’re at work and charge it for an hour halfway through the day, you can take it out with you after work and not have to worry about the battery dying.
Should You Buy This Pod Vape?
If you love pod mods and are looking for one with EPIC coil heads and monumental flavor, then the UWELL devices like UWELL Caliburn, UWELL Caliburn g, UWELL Caliburn GK2, UWELL Caliburn KOKO comes highly recommended. I really, really like this pod system. Especially for coil heads and flavor. But I also really like the design.
