Hi,
I’ve been a lurker here for a little while and felt compelled to post my impressions of the brand-spankin’-new Firefly I just received a few weeks ago for the holidays.
In a word, this thing is fantastic, far exceeding my expectations! The packaging, fit & finish, and most of all, the performance is all quite high-end, with a look and feel that would make it feel at home on a nicely appointed living room coffee table, for example. It has a very pleasing weight to it – a solid feeling in your hand that screams “quality.” I bought a silver version and the paintwork, chrome inlays, and mesh grill is very classy; in short, this is a device you will want to show off to people. It’s on the larger side as far as portability, which for me is not a problem, but if you are looking for small and discrete this is probably not for you: you hold it just like a bowl, and since the glass bowl and vents glow orange during heating, it kind of looks like a bowl too, albeit a very futuristic-looking one!
But now on to daily use & performance. To be honest, I had no problems whatsoever getting incredible, near-instant performance right out of the box. I didn’t follow all the advice floating around about preheating for a specified number of seconds or releasing the button at a specific point mid-hit, or whatever. For me, I simply put it to my lips and held the button down continuously while drawing on the mouthpiece in a smooth, long fashion until I could feel it in my lungs – this was usually enough to give me a fairly sizeable cloud even from the first hit. For the second hit, you can easily “feel” during your draw that the temp is already high and you can release the button sooner, it is very intuitive. In fact, I think it’s easier if you think of the button just like it was a “carb” on a traditional bowl – you hold it down and just let go once when your lungs are telling you that you got the hit / strength you were looking for. I don’t think about it at all, and I am consistently getting huge, hits with huge clouds.
And that’s where I am enjoying this the most: the size and strength of hits. For me, I’ve always felt that portable vapes just never provided the same “whallop” like you would get from a bong, for example (not that I want to be wasted after every single session, but I have times where I just want to let go and go for it). For example, the Pax is super discrete but the hits always felt “light” to me; my previous DaVinci was stronger than the Pax but much harsher, so I’d always be dialing the temp back. Not so the Firefly! If you want a bong-level rip, it can deliver; if you want something lighter, let the button go and cut your draw short. It’s so smooth that you’ll find you can hold bigger hits for longer….almost like driving a high-end german sedan where you suddenly wonder how the hell you ended up going so fast. I’ve found you can get more than you bargained for if you’re not careful with how big a hit you take; and I think this may be due to its high efficiency. I’m not sure about others’ experience, but I’m finding that nuggets go much further with this thing….which may save me money in the long run.
Comments on battery life: this has been more than acceptable for me. I am able to get 3 full sessions out of it per charge, with 5-6 big hits per session (7 or more if you’re diligent and “stir” between every few hits), so that would equate to approximately 15 – 21 hits per charge. But this is at fairly high temps trying to extract the biggest hits; if you are more subtle, it could well last much more. As such, it’s more of a “wireless home unit” that can be taken outside as needed, but it CAN work in those situations too, as long as you don’t need something so discrete – but you will definitely want to have an extra battery or two handy though.
All in all, I couldn’t be happier. It’s the perfect vape for my everyday use, and that is saying something! All my other devices are now starting to collect dust since the Firefly arrived….I think at some point I could also envision having a Pax around as well for those more discrete situations, but if you want a knock-out, full-blown vape session with a device that is powerful yet smooth, high performance yet wireless, and above all beautifully stylish, I can’t think of much else out right now that delivers more in all these areas.
