I got my Terp Torch yesterday and I'm very happy with it. The performance of this vape is very impressive for the price you pay. The set up at the beginning is very easy, the biggest problem you'll have is if the C-clip fly away when you install it, good luck finding it. The torch itself is not too heavy and easy to manipulate, but when you put it on the pipe it's easy to press the button and change your setting by mistake. The cord is a little stiff and a pain to work with, I have a lot of stuff on my table and it keep getting stuck on things when moving around. If something bad happen with this vape it will be because of the cord, so be careful when moving the vape from the stand to the pipe. The stand is very heavy and the clip is holding the vape securely but it's not difficult to place or remove the vape on the stand. The little tool that comes with the vape is amazing, it has the perfect weight to pack the herb in the bowl, and having a place to put this tool on the stand is a nice touch. The bowl is not that great, the screen is crap, I'll talk about it later.
This vape can finish a bowl in two shot at level 7, it can produce a lot of vapor. Not a lot of vapes can do what this thing can do. Unfortunately it's not without some problems. Depending on the heat setting you use, a hot spot will appear very quickly. The C-clip might be the problem so what I did was to put the C-clip facing me when in the oven so I can see more easily if a hot spot is forming. I'm not sure if this is really the problem because I did this all night but at the end of the night the hot spot was at the opposite side of the C-clip. I left the Terp Torch on for the whole evening and I know that the ceramic rod wasn't perfectly centered when I've put the glass beads in so I think it's possible the heat accumulate on one side and created this new hot spot, it was bigger than the hot spot from the C-clip. The only thing that make me unsure is that this happened when I was using another bowl than the one it comes with. This is the kind of thing that need more testing to really understand what is going on. I used the titanium screen on my Terp Torch and didn't add beads in mine but I think I could fit a couple more. I have some 3mm boro beads that I want to try with this vape I'm curious if it will make a difference.
The bowl is the worst thing in this bundle, but it's far from useless. It works, but it's not good at it. First the bowl itself, the glass is not very thick but doesn't look fragile either, standard quality. The big problem is the screen, the holes are too big and a little bit of herb will fall thru it when you stir. Even if you use a drop down you'll still find some herb floating in your water. I used a Brillant Cut Grinder with the medium plate. You can put a regular screen on top of this one to stop the problem but it could move while you stir and will fall out when you dump the ABV after you are done. If you really want to use this bowl you will have to get creative with the screen but I suspect a lot of people will simply use another bowl. I used the bowl two times before I decided to switch to something else. I saw a couple of people used the ELEV8R bowl and I think it's a really good idea, you can even choose between a regular screen or a glass screen so it's a good option to try I think. Since other people already tried it I decided to go a different route. One thing I wanted to try but didn't was the Herborizer bowl. The Terp torch has the habit of getting stuck on the glass when you remove it from the bowl so I think the Herbo bowl with the little handle on the side will be perfect to help you hold the bowl while you remove the Terp Torch, I'm gonna try it tonight. I tried two other bowls last night got a hit and a miss. The first one I tried was the bowl from the DDave Mod for the Arizer Extreme Q. This bring the Terp Torch only 3/8 of an inch from the screen. I lowered my temperature to the 3rd and 4th setting for this one. I got some vapor but not what I was expecting, there's two reason for that I think, first I didn't put enough herb in it to cover the screen properly since the surface of the screen is a lot bigger than what I'm used to. Second is the shape of the bowl, you have the ridge at the middle of the bowl where the screen sit and you got some herb there that's not directly under the heat so it take a lot more stirring to extract everything. I'll need to come back to this idea later and play with it to be sure if it's a good idea or not. The second bowl I tried was more successful, I decided to stay with the Arizer theme and tried the Cyclone bowl for the Extreme Q. With this bowl the heater is further away but still closer than with the standard bowl. I got really good cloud with this set up but it's with this bowl that I got the other hot spot issue so I don't know if it's the bowl or the vape that is to blame. Like always more testing is needed but for the first night using it I slept like a rock so it's working very good. The vapor quality is good not too harsh on the throat and you will exhale a cloud way bigger than you thought you had in your lung. The taste is good but it's not the reason why people will use it, if you are after tasty vapor there's a lot of other vape that will satisfy you before this one. I think this release way too much vapor at the same time and at the end you have the hot spot that start to change the taste too much. Bottom line I didn't cough out a lung after using the Terp Torch and vaping 0.3g in two shot so it's a win in my book.
There's a lot of room for improvement. The cord is a problem but I don't think they can do a lot about it, like others have said the way the cords hangs from the vape is gonna be something to watch closely before it damage the connection. They need to find a way to better support the cable so it doesn't bend the way it does. They need to have a better indicator that the vape is on because the little blue light is flickering too fast and is difficult to see when you are away from the vape. The buttons are too easy to press by accident when you manipulate the vape. The stand should have more protection around the tip of the vape so you won't burn yourself by accident, a little cage around the top should be easy to do.
At the end of the day this vape does what only a couple of other vapes can do at a fraction of the price. This is not a fancy vape but it will kick your ass if that's what you are looking for. It's far from perfect but it work without being too complicated. It's not gonna make you stop using the other heavy hitter if you already got one of them but if you are looking for something that will introduce you to the next level in vapor potency this is the vape to do it. For the price you get a desktop unit that will help you get where you want to be. I'll see what I think of the vape after a couple of days with it but so far I'm liking it.