Hey Matty, welcome to the forum.
There are so many different vapes out there that I'd probably need a bit more info on what you want from a vape before I could recommend one. Every vape has it's good and bad points so the more you can tell us about how you'd like to use it the better. I'd also advise that if you find a vape you like the look of then ask a few members who own one what they think of it in the appropriate thread, this forum has a thread for almost any of the major vapourisers you can find. I've tried to give a few different suggestions as a starting point so you can begin your search to find the right vape for you.
The volcano is a solid vape for sure and if you like the idea of bags then it would probably be a good choice, from what I've heard they are very sturdy and reliable which I believe is why a lot of the coffee shops in Amsterdam use them as table units. The bags are also a good option if you have clumsy friend because you can just hand them a filled bag and not have to worry about them damaging your vape. The major disadvantage however is you only really have the option of using bags, although is does bags very well.
A good alternative would be the Extreme Q from Arizer which I've heard good things about and I believe it is a fair bit less expensive than the volcano. It also has the added bonus of flexibility as you can use it with a whip, a waterpipe or bags. The Extreme Q costs around £150 in the UK.
Personally I use an LSV so I can tell you a bit more about it than I can other vapourisers which is why I always suggest asking owners about vapes. Firstly I have to say I'm really happy with it, it's a heavy hitting plugin vape that can produce thick vapour. It comes with a wand which works very similarly to a whip but what it's really designed for is to be used with a waterpipe and for me that's perfect because it's my preferred method of vaping. Being over in the UK I also wanted something that's tough and simple enough that if anything does go wrong it can be fixed fairly easily by an electrician friend. Of course the major downside of it's simplicity is the fact that it doesn't have the sort of fine temperature control you get with other vapes. However after a few uses I was able to milk up my waterpipe and get the vaped flower to a consistently brown colour with a little stirring between hits. To me it seems like I'm getting most of the "actives" out. I got mine directly from the manufacturer 7th Floor and it cost ~£165 with a water pipe adapter and couple of spare heater covers (the most likely part to break if I drop it on a hard surface). However with import VAT it came to £200.
A vapouriser that comes highly recommended on the forums is the VapeXhale Cloud which has a newer model "Cloud EVO" coming out on retail in a couple of months time but you can preorder now if you wish. These are very much the Rolls Royce of vapourisers as they are heavy hitting with fine temperature control and can be purchased with a range of
hydratubes(think mini waterpipes that stand on top of the vapouriser) .
I know the Cloud had a fair amount of "teething issues" and a lot of people had to send them back for replacements but VapeXhale were really good with the warranty. They are now manufacturing the EVO in house rather than getting the parts made in China which I believe was the case with the Cloud(don't quote me on this as I am far from 100% sure), hopefully this should lead to a more reliable unit. I also have no idea how the warranty works in the UK so I'd recommend asking someone with a bit more knowledge about this unit than me before purchasing one. The Chief Vapor Officer at VapeXhale
stonemonkey55 is a member on this forum so it might be worth asking him how the warranty would work in the UK if you are interested. The website says the price is $400 but I remember during the prefunding campaign they were charging an extra $50 for international shipping. So assuming that is still the case(please correct me if I'm wrong) with import VAT that will come to about $540(£330) or $720(£450) with a hydratube.
If you want a portable then I'd be tempted to suggest an Arizer Solo, I have a friend who's got one of these and he seems pretty happy with it. It has preset temperature levels and has lights to let you know when it's at the temperature you've chosen. Although being a portable it doesn't quite have the power of a plugin vape but if you are planning on using it out and about then it may be a good choice. It will cost you around £150 in the UK. If you are interested in using this with a waterpipe then I'd highly recommend getting the PVHE GonG which costs around £20 with postage from planetvape when you use the fclove10 code.
A cheap option could be to use a vapouriser that uses a butane torch like the Lotus vapouriser, I've never used one so I couldn't tell you how effective they are. It can be used as a pipe or with a water pipe if you get the correct size downstem to work with it.
GSH, a fellow Brit on this forum, has both a Solo, a Volcano and a Lotus so he might be a good person to ask some questions to about those vapes. He also has a preorder for an EVO so he may be able to answer some of the questions you might have about that.
I understand that this is has turned out to be a much longer post than I anticipated but I hope you made it all the way to the end and some of this has been useful to you.
Let hope we've seen the back of that shite ay!
, that between us can usually get good (most of the time) grade for 140-150/oz, or 20/25 an eighth, 3.5g eighth aswell. Is when I have to trek outside of that circle that I realise how lucky I am.
