RTA Review: Zeus X

I've been a fan of the Zeus series since I started investigating RTAs, and there are several slightly different knockoff available with seemingly only slight cosmetic variations.However, there are a few things to be aware of.

• A dual coil deck, airflow and coils are best suited to Direct To Lung style. This tank doesn't perform well for Dimitri with finer MTL Coils, and slower tokes. When used like this, a high proportion of the intake air seems to pass directly through to the mouthpiece without mixing properly with the vapour from the coil.  In fairness it wasn't designed for this mode of operation anyway.

• As is usual with the rainbow-coloured clones, there is a fair amount of rainbow paint on the 510 connector which will ideally need polishing off. It's not a major issue.

• On the underside it says "designed by Geokvape" (sic) haha. Is this a deliberate mis-spelling of Geekvape to pay lip service to the copyright laws? Both of my Aliexpress Zeus X models have no writing on the base at all, they're totally blank.

• Overall, a good option if you're looking to try out RTA vaping and are OK with the considerable juice holding capacity (see pics), and the limitations on the airflow settings as described above.

Pros

• High quality, bulletproof, delivers a credible Direct to Lung experience.  A dual coil setup used in single-coil mode gives 2 sets of terminals that can be used if the originals wear out.

• Unusually, spare O ring sets widely and cheaply available for this and its Xmesh cousin 

• Spare build decks available for this RTA and it's cousin the "Zeus X Mesh" (now called the Zeus ZX2, or ZX ll), which are, or at least should be compatible with each other (i.e. if you have a "Zeus X", the "Zeus X Mesh" deck will fit it)

• Nice simple conventional design, with (unlike the Kylin Mini V2 and Dead Rabbit V1) a non-rotating build deck, which I personally prefer

Cons

• A higher capacity than I'd ideally prefer for dimitri juice, can easily hold 5ml (inc coil-resident juice) even with the straight glass fitted

• The airflow doesn't seem to work well for more restricted settings of the airflow ring (say 5mm open or less) and slower tokes  - it's as if the vapour from the coil fails to mix properly intake ambient air, almost leaving the coil vapour partially isolated with the coil stewing beneath.

• This particular clone Included only 2 spare O-rings (a complete set has 7), which is truly lacklustre. However, as mentioned, unlike many other atomisers spare sets are cheaply available on Aliexpress (see pic below)

• Large juice wells not ideally suited to single coil operation, but no problem if wicked correctly

• The cap design makes it difficult to get a good grip, so can be tricky to remove (it's common to the earlier Zeus X mesh but the later ZX2 mesh RTA has a re-designed cap which is much easier to grip)

Conclusion

Although this tank has limitations, the simplicity of the design, profuse availability of spares, and the general effectiveness of operation make this a solid long term RTA option. The juice capacity is far more than I'd ideally prefer and I'll just have to live with that awkward-to-grip top cap, and make sure to use sufficient airflow.