Aspire Nautilus

Video Transcript: The Aspire Nautilus Mini by RiP Trippers

Nautilus Mini time. Okay, so, Aspire. Aspire is the company that makes this Nautilus Mini. They also make the regular Nautilus. The Nautilus tank; that's a 5 milliliters. Now, I did a review on that bad boy a few months back, maybe four or five months back, and I raved about it. Because it was the first tank, the first clearomizer tank, that had adjustable airflow. That was awesome. You had different options. You had four different airflow options. You could vape wide open, for your lung hitters. Or you could vape closed off for your mouth to lungers, or you could vape in the middle, for those guys who like just a little bit of airiness, not too much, not too little. It just had more options than anything out on the market at the time. Now, this bad boy. This is just a smaller version. It's the mini-me version of the regular Nautilus tank. But yeah, there are a few differences between this mini, and the original Nautilus. One being its size. This is 18.5 millimeters in width versus the 22 millimeters size of the original Nautilus. This tank holds 2 mls of e-liquid versus the 5 mls in the original. While the adjustable airflow, the adjustable airflow ring, everything, the functionality of it, is pretty much the same. Aesthetically, it looks different. And I'll show you guys all of this in the close-ups.

Just like the original, you got four airflow options and every time you twist that ring and set it into a new airflow setting, it clicks. And it clicks and stays in the place just like the original. Looks pretty much the same, but smaller. But what's totally different about this versus the original Nautilus, is the coil design and the wicking material used. This, right here, this coil design, is an evolved mini carto tank. And cartomizers were huge back in the day. When I mean back in the day, I mean two years ago, a year and a half ago. I used cartomizers for a long time. And what a cartomizer is, if you're watching this and you don't know what a cartomizer is, Google it.

Little history lesson on the cartomizer. So a cartomizer is like a tube. It's like a metal tube. And inside that metal tube, you've got your poly-fill, and that's wrapped around your coil. And back then, cartomizers were the bee's knees. You had single coil cartomizers or dual coil cartomizers. Vapers would saturate that poly-fill in that cartomizer completely, pop it on a mod, vape, vape, vape, vape, vape. It would dry out or lose flavor. They'd repeat the process until that thing died. Throw it out. They'd buy a new one. And that's how it was. A freaking cartomizer was like a buck 50, back in the day. Cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. And it'd last you for at least two weeks. But then it got even more evolved and cartomizer tanks started to come out. What people were doing was they would punch holes in those cartomizers. Two, thee, four, depending on the viscosity of the juice they were using. Pop it in that cartomizer tank, fill that sucker up with their e-juice, vape, vape, vape and the juice from the tank would go into the cartomizer, saturating the poly-fill, and it just made it more convenient.

I used one of those bad boys for a year and a half and loved it. Super consistent. Super cheap. And it was just enjoyable. The flavor was great. The vapor was okay. It was nothing like a rebuildable. Throat hit was good. It was just a nice, wet, saturated flavor. And this is basically the same thing as a cartomizer tank, except it's way more evolved. It's way more convenient to fill this sucker up than it was to fill up a cartomizer tank and a coil head. The mini cartomizer, you don't have to saturate that wicking material because it's so small. You just fill it up, you set the airflow to its smallest, take some primer puffs, get the juice to flow into that mini cartomizer and you're good to go.

And in my opinion, I think that this is the right direction. I think we should have taken this direction a year, a year and a half ago, instead of going with the bottom coil system, where you had the wick sitting outside into the juice, like the Kanger products. Like those products where you have just the wick in the coil, the silicon wick in the coil, that's crap. Throw that out. Or like these systems where you have the wick sitting up top into the tank. You're either gonna get a burnt hit or a gurgle hit. You gotta tilt it. All that crap. Throw it out. This is the direction we should have gone, the cartomizer. Cartomizer's always been true. It's always been consistent and I feel they've gone back to this, except, they've changed one thing, the wicking material.

The wicking material used in this, and I can't believe no one else has talked about this. I don't know if people are just skipping over it. But the reason why the flavor is so good in this, is not only because of the mini cartomizer design, but the wicking material they're using is ceramic. It's a ceramic cloth-type wicking material and I believe that's why the flavor is so good off this tank. But that being said, I do have to state this, I've never used anything like this ceramic cloth before. The closest thing that I've used to this, that is ceramic, is the porous ceramic. Now, even though the porous ceramic was a little brittle, it was solid. With this stuff, you take it out dry and it basically crumbles in your hand. It crumbles in your fingers. It's real gritty. It's like sandpaper. And with this design, there is a stainless steel screen that sits at the top of the cup over that ceramic cloth, and that acts like a filter. Again, this may be completely safe. I don't know. It may not. But I need to let you guys know. I do have doubts about it. The way that it felt, the way that it crumbled in my fingers, gritty, sandpaper. I just don't want people to be inhaling that stuff. If it stays saturated, you probably won't have an issue, but I wanna state that, again, it may be completely safe, but it may not. And there's my doubt.

Now, onto the performance. I've got this arrow set to middle. It's middle of the road. It's not completely wide open. It's not completely closed or at the smallest setting, but it's right in the middle. I've got about half a tank left. This holds 2 mls of e-liquid. And I've got her vaping at 14 watts. Here we go. In this thing, I've been doing mouth to lung inhales. I know I'm a lung inhaler. I gotta love my lung inhales. But with this device, I really prefer the mouth to lung over the lung. Even though the air holes are pretty much the same size as on this device as they are on the regular Nautilus, the air draw is closed off more because of the way that this mini cartomizer is set up versus that coil head in the regular Nautilus. It's not as open in this as it is in the Nautilus and that's why your airflow, your draw, is gonna be slightly tighter. So when I go wide open, I'm still able to do lung inhales but it doesn't feel as open as a regular Nautilus. The flavor to me is better off this device than the Nautilus.

I really don't get that many dry hits. Every now and again, I will. But I'm using a juice that's really thick, it's an 80 VG blend. With this juice, it's vaping great. I really can't go over 14 and a half watts with this type of juice without getting a dry, slightly burnt hit. But with a 50/50 blend, something that's got more than 30% PG, it's fantastic. I could go up to 18 watts, 19 watts, almost 20 watts without getting a dry hit. And the flavor is great. Now, flavor compared to something like the Kayfun, the Typhoon systems, all those rebuildable tank atomizers, it's not quite there but it's great for any newbie out there that just wants to fill and go and vape, it's great.

Another thing, I really like the size of this device, the mini. I mean, it looks great on this Vapor Shark DNA 30. And I'll tell you what, if you're the type of vaper, like I said, it only holds 2 mls and you could run through this juice so fast. But if you're the type of vaper, you want something larger, go with the Nautilus. And the great thing is, is you can use the heads for the mini and they're compatible with the Nautilus.

You know what? Just for shits and giggles, I'm gonna go ahead, take it up to above 15 watts. Even with this thick VG juice, I'm gonna do it just for you, 17.5. Full on flavor. Still, full on flavor. Little dry, little dry. I got back off. About the fourth hit, with something like an 80% VG, 85% VG, you're gonna get a little bit of a dry hit. What I like to do is vape this thing between 13.5 and 14.5 watts, and I'm good to go. But if I'm using a thinner viscosity juice, it can handle 17.5 watts. Yeah, so I'm pretty much enjoying everything about this device. There's two things, two things that bother me. Okay, one of them's not that serious but the other one, is a concern, it's a concern. And that concern is, is the wicking material. Now, while it performs fantastic, I get full on flavor, really do. Okay, even with my higher VG-based juices, I get great flavor. But I just don't know how safe the wicking material is. It's ceramic cloth. Don't know, I never dealt with anything like it. And I feel like I owe it to you guys to mention that. The other thing is, is I can't fill this thing up all the way. There's some empty space. Now, not much, it's not crazy, it's tiny. But that may be a con to some of you guys out there.

Alrighty, so I think it's about that time we dive down. I'm gonna show you guys the parts, how everything goes together, how to fill this sucker up, the coil head, the ceramic cloth in there, the vertical coil. You guys ready? Let's go. Alright, so the Nautilus Mini comes in this box.

Inside the box, you got this instructional manual, comes with the tank, an extra head and a beauty ring. An up-close look at the Nautilus Mini, it is a mini-me version of the regular Nautilus tank, the 5 ml tank. I could tell you right now, this thing holds only 2 mls of e-liquid versus the 5 mls in the regular Nautilus. It is 18.5 millimeters in diameter. As you guys can see, stainless steel construction, comes with this stainless steel drip tip, nice little drip tip. You've got your adjustable airflow, very similar to the regular Nautilus. Looks a little different but operates the same. You got a small, a medium, a large and a wide open or extra large air hole. And each time you turn it, you're gonna see a dot and it clicks into place. As you guys can hear this. Hear that click? Really like that feature. It clicks into place, it's not going anywhere. 510 threads. Smooth, smooth, smooth. Has been compatible on all my devices. Variable voltage, variable wattage, mechanical, etcetera. 510 pin, disassemble it.

So the head, this is the head right here that screws into the base. And you've got these threads, just like the regular Nautilus tank, and the threads at the top of the head screw into the threads in the shaft. Just like the regular Nautilus, you got this silicone piece and it seals in the e-liquid. Screw this in, it seals over that silicone piece and no juice is getting out. Leak free. Top caps unscrews, like that. There is your glass section or the tank. The threads are on the inside of this glass at the top, which makes it more durable. And there are the threads at the top which thread into the top of the glass tank. Again, this is where the drip tip goes, in the top. So every other drip tip that I own fits, is compatible with this top section.

The shaft is connected to the top cap. Here is the coil head, that unscrews from the base and unscrews just like that. And as you could see, 1.8 ohm coil head. So when you receive it, you're already going to have a coil head assembled in the unit and then you're gonna receive an extra. The extra is 1.8 ohm, as well. Looks very similar to a cartomizer. I'm gonna get into that in a little bit. We're gonna disassemble one of these heads to see exactly what's in there. But I can tell you right now, it is a single coil and it is a vertical coil, hence, BVC, Bottom Vertical Coil. Glass tank screws into the top of the top cap. Little squeaky, little squeaky there. Head screws into the shaft and that's how it holds together, and then it seals into this silicone ring down here. Drip tip pops in there. Now, before we fill this sucker up, I am going to take apart one of these heads and show you what's in it.

This thing is marketed to having a ceramic wick. Okay. It's obviously got a regular, vertical Kanthal coil but they say it's a ceramic wick. And I mean, it looks exactly like a mini Carto. Alrighty, so I actually had to cut this little barrel section just so I could get the wick and coil and the screen out. Now, here's the screen. Let me go ahead and take that, that's off the top. Yeah, it's like a, it is, it's a stainless steel-type screen. So here's the good stuff right here.

Here's your vertical coil. It's sandwiched within this material. It's gritty. It feels like sandpaper. It's soft, but it feels like, it's definitely some gritty-ness going on. The top lead is folding over one of these pieces of wick. But you see that? You see these particles? It's coming off of this fabric. Yeah, see. Very soft stuff, but gritty at the same time. That's the inside of this coil head. More like a Cartomizer than anything. But back to the remnants of this head, you've got four holes. One, two, three, and four. And that wicking material wraps around that vertical coil, which sits inside here. The juice flows through those holes, to the wick and then to the coil, and that's how it works. Okay, so you fill her up upside down, in between the shaft and the tank. I got my coil head, or mini Carto, screwed into the base. And now we're gonna do, turn this upside down, screw that sucker back in and we're gonna sit, let her soak, and vape on her. So that is the Aspire Nautilus Mini. Where did I get this? How much was it? And if that company hadn't sent it to me for review, would I have purchased it?

First of all, I received this from my boy, Mike over at Vape Happy. He's got an online shop out in Cali. Here's the link, vapehappy.com or thevapehappy.com. Again, link in the description. This thing is cheap, 24.99. Do I think it's worth it? The only doubts I have is the wicking material. That's the only doubt. And that's just because I never dealt or vaped on anything like it. And I believe, because of the material that's in here, that's why you're getting that extra oomph, that extra flavor. Okay. I believe that's why with a thinner viscosity juices, like 50/50 blends, 60/40 blends, you could vape at higher wattages. And it's not only that, but it's the vertical coil and the way it's designed. Like I said, it's a mini Carto. If you're newbie watching this, I think you should give it a shot. And for anybody that's into rebuildables, if you just don't wanna deal with rebuildables on the go, you're on vacation or you're going on vacation, I think you would enjoy it.

Now, question is, would I have purchased it? If Mike hadn't sent it to me, would I have purchased it? And the answer is probably. Because I know you guys wanna see me review it. Now, am I the type of vapor who's gonna be using this on the go? Probably not, because there's so many other options for me. I've got drippers now. Like the Veritas, I could carry outside, not have to worry about it leaking. As long as I have less than 10 drops in there, the vape quality I get is freaking five times better than this. So no, I don't need this on the go, but yes, I would have probably purchased it just for you guys to review it for you. This is RiP Trippers. And remember, smoking is dead, vaping is the future, and the future is now.