I purchased the Armour Ultra to investigate its modes such as 'Pulse', 'Boost', 'Smart' and 'Eco'. My scepticism in the marketing hype was well-placed & I found simple functions masked by fanciful & confusing names, with almost no supporting info in the user manual.
However, even though I deplore Vaporesso's marketing glorification (of course they're not unique in this), the Ultra can imo make a cost-effective & very respectable Dimitri mod, provided the user understands how to operate it correctly. Mercifully (unlike the Solo V3), most annoyances can be ignored or hidden by just selecting & leaving in the correct mode. If you purchase one of these and use it properly, it's hard to imagine you being disappointed.
I suggest leaving it in Eco mode with Smart disabled, when it'll perform identically to & every bit as well as an Aegis Solo V1 in power mode.
The Ultra has a pre-fitted non-replaceable battery which some will appreciate. The claimed 5500mAh appears exaggerated, I tested mine & found it nearer to 5000mAh. Still relatively good, but anyone regarding batteries as consumables will prefer a replaceable 18650 or 21700 of their own choice.
There's a slider control to lock/unlock all buttons (almost identical to the Geekvape A-Lock switch), but I found it too easy to toggle accidentally as very little pressure is required. Also, an identical lock function is achieved with 4 quick presses of the Fire button. In the longer term I'll probably glue it in the unlock position.
For me, the Ultra has 4 main advantages
Outstanding display brightness when set to max intensity. The only mod I've tested that I can read outdoors in direct sunlight
The Wattage display field is exceptionally large & much easier to read if your vision isn't perfect (sadly, other fields are tiny)
I paid around £40 inc shipping, which, of course, includes the internal battery, which would likely save maybe another £10 inc shipping. So not a bad price, considering.
It works very well in Power Mode although this does not appear in the setup menu. However, it can be achieved by selecting "Eco" with "Smart" disabled. Tests (at 30W 0.3Ω) reveal accuracy to within 0.4W of my Aegis Solo V1 & totally free from the SS firmware bug (for details, see the Mod Guide)
It's near impossible to find information on these. It was only from from bench testing that I was able to determine what the modes achieved and evaluate their usefulness - or otherwise.
There are 6 settable modes as follows:
Boost, Pulse, and Eco are all Power Modes but with slight variations. I assume the names are attempts to mislead uneducated users into believing they're some new type of innovation.
- Eco is a straight simple Power Mode, and what I suggest you use for Dimitri. Basically, the Wattage you set is what you get.
- Pulse is the same as Eco, but with ~10% extra Wattage. In other words, set 30W and you'll have ~33W at the coil, set 10 and get ~11W, etc. The extra is achieved by adding a slight 2Hz DC ripple onto the the output Voltage, which might explain the "pulse" name
- Boost is very similar, but with around 12-14% ish more wattage than dialled in. The DC ripple addition is still used but it's less obvious, looking more like random noise.
TC-SS, TC-NI and TC-TI are temperature control modes for stainless steel, Ni200 (almost pure Nickel), and Titanium. Unfortunately, no TCR values are supplied and since real-time information is not displayed during a fire cycle, it's impractical to perform basic confidence tests. Therefore even assuming good TC performance, it's only be of limited use. Since I no longer use TC, this isn't a big deal for me.
Functions within Modes
Smart is an option in Boost, Pulse and Eco modes. When enabled, if a new coil is detected which is outside the resistance range of the previous coil, the power is set to the middle range Wattage of the assumed (by its resistance) new coil. The auto-set Wattage appears on screen & the user is free to override it simply by setting any other. According to the manual, this resistance to Wattage correlation is valid only with Vaporesso GTI coils, although I've noticed one anomaly. I strongly suggest leaving Smart disabled to prevent accidental changes as the Wattages are intended for nicotine & would generally be far too high for Dimitri juice. A tiny 'S' icon is displayed when Smart is enabled, but more obvious indication would be preferable.
Watt Lock. When enabled, the up/down buttons are disabled which prevent Wattage changes when in Eco, Pulse and Boost mode, and also prevents changes to the temperature setting in all TC modes.
TCR Lock. I haven't yet been able to find out exactly how this operates.
🙁 User confusion Functions with vague misleading names. User manual practically useless. Almost impossible for the average user to obtain proper info on what functions actually achieve and whether they're of any use, or just gimmicks
🙂 Works very well in "power mode" Simple Wattage (Power) mode is actually "Eco" mode with "Smart" disabled. During 0.3Ω 30W load testing, Wattage delivered was within 0.4W of the Solo V1 standard and (surprisingly) it's unaffected by the SS firmware bug, handling stainless steel coils every bit as well as nichrome Ni80 or Kanthal Ka1.
🙂 "Time to Full Charge" shown on display during charging, which is imo handy
🙁 Claimed 5500mAh internal Battery Apparently an exaggeration, but still still compares very favourably with some other mods (for example, 3200mAh is claimed for the Geekvape Mini 5)
🙁 Locking slider operates with insufficient force, easy to switch over accidentally. Perhaps superfluous since 4 clicks on the fire button achieves exactly the same thing
🙁 Button design Not a showstopper but I keep wishing the up/down buttons were chunkier with a more definite touch (they're still miles better than the Solo V3). In a perfect world I'd also prefer a larger and more conventional shape for the fire button. But no big deal.
🙁 Display Layout During a fire cycle the only field updated is puff duration, all others are static. Also, there's no Voltage or Amps display - a slight disappointment for me at least.
🙂 Large Wattage field readout but resistance, puff counter, & TC Wattage fields needlessly microscopic
🙂 Unusually bright display when set to max intensity. Of benefit to outdoor trippers.
Locking slider switch is imo superfluous and too easy to operate.
Convenient USB-C location & even covered by a dust flap. Nice one Vaporesso!
4 screws on the 510 is more than any other mod I've hitherto encoutered.
Battery test from low battery cutoff to fully charged. The 3598mAh is for the 5V USB supply Voltage.This translates into 4997mAh at the battery Voltage of 3.6V, assuming 100% charger efficiency. Peak charge current was measured at around 1.65A.