Here's my second FM8 pre-review:
I received the second sample this morning before going to work. I was able to test it once briefly and this time it seems to be all good! I will need to use it more in order to issue my final verdict but so far I'm pleased overall.
First of all, right after unboxing I couldn't detect any bad smell, excepted the tobacco they used (I used to smoke cigs in the past, but oh man I don't know what they used, must be some brown pipe tobacco or something as it was really of the strong kind! I imagine you could get an instant nicotine overdose with that stuff!) The silicone smell was almost non existant and quite neutral, strictly no glue smell, no polymide smell either. The device felt so safe to use I didn't do any empty burn-in before testing it this time. As they promised this problem was solved, now let's see how they did it!
I opened the device and immediatly saw two important structural changes:
- There is no internal glass straw anymore, no telescoping stuff. The air tunnel is completely empty and wide open. I wasn't able to determine what material it is made of as I was in a hurry, but it looked shiny. This means no risk of breaking the glass and now it's quite easy to clean the device (up to the bowl junction that is, see below)
- The bottom screen (on the lid part) facing the bowl has been replaced with a metal one with a few holes, and I think there might be another screen below. It makes the draw noticeably more restrictive. It was not an issue during use but I can imagine that some users will want to drill it more or enlarge the holes (or remove it completely?) to improve air flow (as in the FM5 or Indica) I don't know yet if this screen can be removed or not.
I loaded the bowl with some low grade stuff and used the FM5 tamping tool to make a little compact puck. I started the device, and before I was able to set the temperature to 185°C it was hot and running already! Yes it's really that fast! It reaches set temp in a few seconds at most.
Afterwards I started taking hits in series without inhaling: took a hit, exhaled, took another hit immediatly, back to back, etc. I wasn't able to overwhelm the device. Every hit whatever the size produced plenty of vapor with zero wait/recover time. I can't do that with my Ascent. I'm really impressed!
I continued until depleted, raised to 195°C and continued until depleted, then raised to 222°C and to my surprise there was much much more vapor than what I can get with the FM5 and Ascent set to high temp. Usually when I do temperature levels with my other vapes, when I reach high temp there are only a few hits and they tend to be less dense. I was suprised to see that much vapor after having cashed the low temps so much beforehand.
Exactly like in my Ascent, vapor color turned whiter when I passed the 200°C mark and the ABV/popcorn taste started to appear. Note that I can't review the device taste for now as the tobacco taste was too much present and tainted the experience.
I tried taking hits with the lid closed and opened. It changed the draw resistance but as expected it didn't change the vapor/air ratio. You need to draw slightly harder with the lid closed but you get the same vapor density. Now it's too soon to tell if the path really allows for more convection or not, but it proved that you could very well remove the lid entirely and use any other kind of bowl cover and it would work perfectly.
So far most of my concerns have been addressed, the only problem left I could see is the junction after the bowl screen leading to the air tunnel. For some reason the vapor path is not straight. If you shine a flashlight from the top of the air tunnel or from the bowl, you can't see it from the other side. I don't know why they did this. Maybe it's just a remnant of the internal straw shape they planned to use initially, but I can't see no good reason to keep that.
Ideally you would want to see the rear of the bowl screen at the bottom of the air tunnel, this way you could clean both sides easily. This is my last concern with the device, but I must admit that at least the removal of the internal straw was a good move. Let's say 95% of the vapor path can now be cleaned easily, it's quite an improvement already.
I will do some extra runs to remove the tobacco smell completely, then I'll use the device for some days before issuing my final review.
