Like many of the makers of electronic cigarettes, BluCigs started out with exaggerated claims about their cartridge life, equating each cartridge with about 15 cigarettes. It turns out that the actual cartridge life is closer to the equivalent of six cigarettes. BluCigs must’ve got some complaints about this because they’ve recently adjusted those numbers to reflect the more accurate six cigarette per cartridge lifespan.

Still, with each cartridge equating to six cigarettes, the cost savings are dramatic over traditional tobacco cigarettes. I save roughly $600 in the first year as a pack a day smoker and I haven’t cut back at all.

Cartridge flavors

BluCigs offers five different flavors, each in four different strengths. They include Classic Tobacco, Magnificent Menthol, Java Jolt, Vivid Vanilla and Cherry Crush. The four different strengths are: Full Flavored, which contains 16 mg of nicotine; Light, with 12 mg nicotine; Ultra Light, with 8 mg nicotine, and Non-nicotine, with 0 mg nicotine.

Although the classic tobacco flavor was good, it certainly wasn’t the best tobacco flavored substitute solution that I’ve ever tasted. My own personal favorite of all the BluCigs flavors was magnificent menthol, which didn’t really taste at all like a menthol cigarette. Nonetheless, this is actually a good thing because I don’t like menthol cigarettes nor have I ever smoke them, so it really was kind of surprised that I like the menthol the best. I wasn’t too fond of the Java jolt, although I think my experience with the flavors was really quite a personal one because I had my wife try all of them as well in her favor actually was the Java jolt.

Cartridge refills

BluCigs offers refill cartridges at a very reasonable price. Not quite as cheap as manual refills, but then who wants to deal with the hassle anyway, and quite a bit cheaper than most of the other prefilled cartridges available.

If you decide you like electronic cigarettes and want to stick with BluCigs, I’d recommend purchasing your cartridges in bulk once you figure out which flavor you prefer. The reason being that you can save about $.20 per cartridge if you buy 100 cartridges vs. buying 25 cartridges. The 25 cartridge pack will set you back $25 and 100 cartridge back set you back $80, so obviously the more you buy at a time the more you’ll save.

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Electronic cigarettes use electricity, as their name implies, to vaporize a nicotine solution into water vapor that is then inhaled just like the smoke from a tobacco cigarette. The only difference is you’re not actually inhaling smoke, but water vapor mixed with nicotine and flavorings.

There are three Main parts to an electronic cigarette, the battery, the atomizer and the cartridge. Most batteries have a small LED at the tip that lights up when you take a drag very similar to the way the embers on a tobacco cigarette glow when you drag. This helps you know that you’re battery is charged and also stimulates a real cigarette in case you’re trying to smoke incognito.

The battery is the largest part of the device and goes where the tobacco is on a regular cigarette and is about the same size as that.

The next piece of the atomizer, which is the workhorse of the electronic cigarette and is responsible for vaporizing the nicotine solution. I’m not a scientist so the inner workings of the atomizer are beyond my knowledge, but I do know it’s powered by the battery and I believe it basically keeps up the nicotine solution until it evaporates into a vapor. Once I the atomizer has a small metal wick that absorbs the nicotine solution from the cartridge. The atomizer has threads like a screw and screws into the battery or vice versa.

The cartridge side of the atomizer is a bare metal sleeve over which the cartridge slides. The cartridge is about the size of the filter on a tobacco cigarette and is located in the same place. You simply slide the open end of the cartridge over the metal sleeve on the atomizer and, when screwed onto the battery, your device is completely assembled.

The small metal Wick on the atomizer sticks out a little bit into the cartridge and makes contact with a small fabric filler that holds the nicotine solution inside the cartridge. The nicotine solution works its way up the little metal Wick in the atomizer and when you take a drag a pressure switch turns on the battery, sending current to the atomizer. At that point the atomizer heats up and vaporizes the small amount of nicotine solution on the wick, which you then inhale.

When you exhale, a small amount of vapor comes out and completely dissipates in a few seconds. The vapor, before and after you inhale it, has very little smell to it at all, which is why you’re able to smoke indoors and, in fact right next to someone, without them even knowing. Also, because the vapor dissipates so quickly you don’t have to worry about living in a cloud of smoke like you do when smoking a tobacco cigarette indoors.

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There are two different ways to refill your electronic cigarette, depending on whether your brand and cartridges are manual refill or simply cartridge replacement types. My personal favorite brand of electronic cigarette, and I’ve tried quite a few, are BluCigs, and they only offer prefilled cartridges for sale. That said, you can refill those cartridges manually, and I do it all the time just to say a little bit of extra cash. But if you’re not the type that really feels like messing with the liquid and dropping small amounts into a cartridge yourself, buying prefilled cartridges is still significantly cheaper than tobacco cigarettes and is quite easy.

However, if you’re the type that wants to squeeze every last penny out of your savings on electronic cigarettes or wants to try some different types of liquids from different manufacturers you can manually refill your cartridges. All you have to do is find some eLiquid as they call it, and squirt a couple drops into your spent cartridge.

The eLiquid is fairly inexpensive; you can buy about 10 mL or right around $5-$10 from a number of different retailers online. The benefit of buying your own eLiquid to refill your cartridges is that you can sample different flavors and you’re not stuck with the few flavors offered by the company you bought your starter kit from.

Usually, eLiquid comes in a little eyedropper looking thing and all you have to do to refill your cartridge is slide the cartridge off the atomizer, just opposite of what you did when you first assembled it, and squirt just the few drops, maybe three or four, into the open end of the cartridge. If you haven’t seen inside the cartridge yet, most of them have a small fabric filler inside that acts like a sponge to hold the nicotine solution. When you refill your cartridge you have to be careful not to overfill it because this little sponge will become oversaturated and leak into your mouth when you take ahead. It’s not the end of the world if that happens, it just tastes a little nasty, so you want to be careful to only squirt three or four drops in there.

Once you’ve done that just slide the cartridge back on top of the atomizer, make sure your battery’s charged, and take a puff.

It’s really that easy, although sometimes it might take a little bit for the nicotine solution to work its way up into the atomizer after you refill it, so be patient the first few times and it may take you a little bit of practice to get down the process. But once you do, you can enjoy all kinds of different flavors by manually refilling your own electronic cigarette cartridges.

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Cartridge prices vary dramatically based on a number of factors. Obviously the brand and/or model electronic cigarette you purchase will determine the cost of new cartridges, but also, your cartridge replacement costs will depend on whether or not you use prefilled or manually filled cartridges.

Prefilled cartridges

Prefilled cartridges are offered by a number of companies at a wide range of prices. As an example, BluCigs offers replacement cartridges ranging from $.80 to $1 each; I’ve seen other brands sell cartridges as high as several dollars each, which in my opinion is far too expensive. As mentioned in another article, if you buy prefilled cartridges you don’t have to worry about wearing out your cartridge casings. However, if you manually refill your cartridges with the eLiquid you’ll eventually wear out the casings and need to purchase more.

Manually refilling cartridges

Generally, you can save a little bit of money by refilling your cartridges manually, you have to be willing to get down and dirty with the eLiquid and not mind running the risk of overfilling and sucking a bit of the fluid into your mouth, which is not a very pleasant experience. Nonetheless, once you get the hang of it, manually refilling your electronic cigarette cartridges isn’t all that tough. The cost of manually refilling your cartridges will totally depend on the eLiquid you decide to purchase as a refill. I’ve seen 10 mL bottles range anywhere from five dollars on up to $25, so that should give you some idea of what you’re looking at.

Whatever you decide to do you should find out a little bit of information about the cartridge life of your electronic cigarette because the amount of fluid your particular brand goes through will also be a factor in how much you spend overall on replacement cartridges or eLiquid. For example, one brand might go through 1 mL fluid every hour or so, whereas with another brand that might last a bit longer. Try to find an electronic cigarette review website that covers the approximate lifespan of those cartridges or talk to someone you know who has experience with a particular brand you’re considering purchasing.

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This is part 2 in a 2-part series on what to consider when purchasing electronic cigarettes. In part 1 we covered the price and ease of use considerations, delving into the cost of most electronic cigarette starter kits as well as battery issues and cartridge replacement. In this article, I’m going to cover warranty, durability, cartridge prices, size & color, and accessories.

Warranty

Warranties vary dramatically by brand. Many of the older brands generally offer pretty limited warranties, on the order of a few days to a few weeks. Some of the modern brands, like NJOY and BluCigs offer 1 year warranties and 30-day money-back guarantees, which is really what any person buying electronics should expect.

Durability

Another question to ask is, how long are these things going to last? Well, I’ve never had any troubles with the products I’ve tried, so I can’t speak personally on broken products and whatnot. However, I’ve heard the m402 is a pretty reliable model, and I’ve also heard people have had some issues with NJOY’s products, although those issues seem to have all been taken care of as I haven’t heard any complaints about NJOY recently. Nonetheless, the m402 and NJOY’s stuff are all very high quality electronic cigarettes, so when compared to other models out there, they both offer excellent durability.

Generally, you can’t go wrong with some of the top brands. A good website to check for high quality electronic cigarette brands is ElectronicCigaretteWeb.com. They only review the top brands. I’ve sampled all of those and they are all very durable and reliable.

Occasionally, no matter what brand you go with, you’ll have an atomizer crap out on you or a battery go south. That’s to be expected and you can buy replacement atomizers and batteries for around $5 and $10 respectively, depending on the brand.

Just be wary of buying anything that doesn’t have a good reputation. I won’t buy anything they don’t review on ElectronicCigaretteWeb.com, but I’ve also found good information over at E-Cigartte-Forum.com.

Cartridge Prices

Cartridge prices vary depending on the type of cartridge (manual refill vs prefilled) as well as the brand. BluCigs sells their cartridges prefilled at about $1 each if you buy 25, and about $0.80 each if you buy 100. On the other hand, the m402, a pretty solid manual refill e-cig doesn’t offer cartridges, only manual refill, which is usually a bit cheaper, but you have to be willing to get your hands dirty.

Wherever you go, just browse around the site and see what they have to offer, and keep in mind, they all exaggerate their cartridge life, so check out electronic cigarette reviews to make sure you know what you’re getting.

Size & Color

Size is really a personal preference when it comes to electronic cigarettes, although, I suspect, most people would think smaller is better. I’ve personally stayed away from the large models, simply because there’s no way I’m going to smoke some 6 inch tube in public. Plus, the larger brands tend to be geared more toward people looking to be serious e-cig “vapers” and not just people looking to find a cigarette alternative.

That said, even the small brands vary a bit in size. The m402 is about as thick as a Camel Wide and about as long as a 100. The BluCig is a bit smaller, only slightly thicker and barely longer than a standard cigarette. The NJOY NPRO is about the same size as the m402.

Most companies will have information on the size of their products on their website, and if not, you can always call or shoot them an email and ask; I’ve found most companies to be pretty quick to respond to questions and very helpful.

The color of the different brands varies a bit. More and more companies are realizing smokers want something that looks as close to a tobacco cigarette as possible, so brands like BluCigs and NJOY are offering models with white batteries and tan cartridges to mimic the appearance of a real smoke. Other brands are still offering all black, or stainless steel, or some other combination.

Accessories

Accessories are things like battery chargers, carrying cases, and cartridges included with the starter packs. An absolute must-have accessory for me is a charge-on-the-go carrying case so I can charge my batteries when I’m out without having to plug into an outlet.

I’ve never seen a starter kit without a standard wall charger, but some also include USB chargers, car chargers, and even USB pass-throughs  (something that allows you to smoke while plugged into a USB port so you don’t drain the battery). These are all things to consider when purchasing an electronic cigarette starter kit.

Also, some brands come with many more cartridges than others in the starter kit. This isn’t a big thing…you can always buy more cartridges, but it’s a nice addition to get a few extra cartridges with your order.

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If you’re considering purchasing your first electronic cigarette, it can be hard to decide which brand to go with because there are quite a few out there and so many options available.

Consider some of these things before you decide to purchase electronic cigarettes:

Price

Price is always one of the biggest concerns for everyone. The good news is that nearly every brand of electronic cigarette offers savings over traditional tobacco cigarettes. Since you’re already spending a good chunk of change on tobacco cigarettes, and you’ll save a significant amount of money switching to nearly any brand of e-cig, I usually recommend purchasing whatever brand is easiest to use and that you’re most likely to stick with and not go back to smoking real cigarettes.

That said, the first thing you’ll need to purchase is a starter kit. Most starter kits range from $40 – $80, although some are still charging over $100. I haven’t tried any brands that I’d recommend over $100…to me, they’re all just overpriced versions of what you can get at $70, and in most cases, the brands charging over $100 for a starter kit are just relying on huge distribution channels to drive their sales and actually have a worse product than the less expensive brands sold exclusively online.

It takes a lot of math to figure out which brand will be the most cost-effective over time, but you can read this article where I reviewed the cost of BluCigs over 1 year in comparison to tobacco cigarettes. In that article, BluCigs ended up coming in about $400 cheaper than traditional smokes.

In summary, price is a bit subjective, because you’ll save a significant amount of money with almost any brand, so it’s perhaps better to pick a brand that you’ll be more likely to stick with, which leads us to our next point.

Ease of use

One of the biggest issues with electronic cigarettes is that they require batteries to operate. At first glance, this isn’t a big deal…a lot of us have an iPod and that requires batteries and it works just fine. True, and while the battery-powered mobility of electronic cigarettes are exactly why they’re such a great smoking alternative, the batteries can also be sticking point and something you should consider when buying your first e-cig.

What most people don’t consider is what happens when you get stuck outside of the house or office and your batteries run out? Well, for me it meant I was going to bum a traditional smoke from a friend, or perhaps several until I could get back to base and recharge my e-cig batteries. What I found out was that 2 batteries (which is what most e-cig starter kits come with) won’t last an entire day of heavy smoking, so you either need extra batteries, a charger for your car, or some way to charge those batteries on the go.

And this brings us to the reason I ended up choosing BluCigs as my brand of choice. Unlike every other e-cig brand I’ve tried, BluCigs comes with a carrying case, built like a pack of smokes, that will actually charge your batteries on the go up to 6 full charges. That means no matter how forgetful I was in charging my batteries the night before I almost always have enough charge in my “pack” to last me the rest of the day. Running out of batteries is a major issue…the last thing you need when you’re trying to satisfy your nicotine habit is anything that will get in the way, and dead batteries for most people means they’re going to smoke a tobacco cig. So, BluCigs made an excellent decision in offering the carrying case that also functions as a battery charger.

The other factor to consider is how easy your electronic cigarette will be to smoke and how easy the cartridges are to refill. There are two aspects of this to consider.

E-Cig Batteries

First, there are two battery types out there…automatic and manual. Manual batteries require you press a button while inhaling in order to smoke. Automatic batteries on the other hand are designed to sense small pressure changes and activate the device automatically when you inhale, so no button to press. I went into automatic vs manual electronic cigarette batteries in the past, so I won’t go into that in detail here, but I will say that the vast majority of people are going to be better off with automatic batteries.

E-Cig Cartridges

Second, you have to ask, how easy is it to replace cartridges when they run dry? Most cartridges are pretty much the same, the only real difference is that some are sold prefilled and some are sold empty and meant to be refilled manually by you. The thing is though, since cartridges are all pretty much the same, you can manually refill even the prefilled cartridges when they run dry. So, that said, for your first foray into electronic cigarettes I’d recommend a brand that offers prefilled cartridges just because you can refill them manually if you decide that’s something you want to do. Otherwise, you can just reorder prefilled cartridges if you don’t want to bother with the hassle of squirting the nicotine solution into the empty cartridges yourself. If, on the other hand, you order a brand that only offers manual refill cartridges and you decide later you don’t want to deal with the hassle of manual refills, you’re out of luck.

That’s about it for this article, I’ll follow this one up with a few more considerations for your e-cig buyers out there.

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After you’ve had some experience with electronic cicgarettes, you may be ready to purchase some nicotine solution separately in order to try manually refilling your own cartridges. If you’re not interested in doing this, most brands have prefilled cartridges you can purchase that are still significantly cheaper than traditional cigarettes, so it’s really up to you. If you don’t mind doing it manually, here’s a little how-to that will walk you through the process.

First you have to remove the existing cartridge from your electronic cigarette. You probably assembled the thing when you first got it, so just slide the cartridge off the device just the same as you slid it on.

Inside the cartridge you’ll notice some sort of fabric filler, this stuff acts like a sponge to keep the liquid inside the cartridge as well as a bit of a wick to deliver the liquid to the atomizer. When you remove the cartridge, make sure you don’t lose that little filler material as it sometimes has a tendency to fall out.

Once you’ve removed the cartridge, take your e-liquid dropper and drop four to five drops inside of the open end of the cartridge and onto the fabric filler. I’ve found four to five drops to work best, any more than that and the filler tends to get over saturated and you end up sucking liquid through on your next drag. Not a pleasant taste, but it won’t hurt you.

If you don’t have any e-liquid to refill the cartridges with, you can purchase the stuff from any number of different retailers. Some reputable companies I’ve purchased from that offer excellent liquids are PureSmoker, TrueVapor, and LiteCigUSA. I’m partial to the menthol liquid from LiteCigUSA; in fact, although I never smoked menthol cigarettes, I found menthol to be the best flavor from just about any retailer, so I highly recommend giving it a try.

After you’ve filled the cartridge, just slide the thing back onto the e-cig and take a drag. You should get pretty good vapor production quickly, however it sometimes takes a few drags to get the liquid pulled into the atomizer properly.

If you take a drag and end up with some of the liquid in your mouth, it’s not the end of the world, although it tastes pretty bad. If that happens, just pull the cartridge off and stick a piece of paper towel down in there to sop up some of the excess liquid. Then replace the cartridge and try it again.

A few tips that I’ve learned from experience:

First, only drop four to five drops into the cartridge when refilling; if you still can’t get decent vapor production, then, and only then, should you add another drop or two. Repeat that process until you’re getting good vapor production. Once you’ve done this enough you’ll know how much liquid you can drop into the cartridges on your particular model electronic cigarette without overfilling.

Second, when you take the first hit after refilling, hold the cigarette vertically, facing down, so gravity helps you not to suck in a bunch of liquid. If you overfilled the cartridge, this will help you from getting too much of it on your lips/in your mouth.

Third, take a relatively light first few hits; again this will help avoid a bunch of liquid in your mouth if you overfilled the cartridge.

Fourth, if you overfill the cartridge and get some in your mouth, just pull the cartridge apart and stick a piece of paper towel into the end to soak up the excess liquid and try again.

That should do it. Manually refilling cartridges can save you a bit of money over purchasing prefilled cartridges and will also give you a bit more freedom when it comes to what type of liquid to use.

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If you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing electronic cigarettes as a smoking alternative, you may be to the point where you want to experiment with different flavor nicotine solutions. Some brands’ cartridges are specifically meant to be refilled manually, while other brands’ cartridges, like those from BluCigs, are meant to be ordered prefilled. Although you can refill BluCigs cartridges manually, I’ve been told that it voids the product warranty, although, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how anyone would ever know you manually refilled cartridges should you need to get the product replaced under warranty. Anyway, here’s a little how to for those looking to save a little extra cash by manually refilling their electronic cigarette cartridges.

Buy Some Nicotine Liquid

The first thing you’ll need to do is purchase some nicotine solution, also known as “e-liquid,” from any number of different retailers online. If you’re looking for something with the strongest “throat hit” – that bite you feel in your throat when you hit a real cigarette – look at Totally Wicked. They ship from the UK, but are a very reputable retailer with a high quality liquid with a strong throat hit.

Some other brands you may want to look at purchasing, all of which I’ve sampled and all are reputable retailers of e-liquid, are PureSmoker, TrueVapor, and LiteCigUSA. My own personal favorite is the Menthol flavor from LiteCigUSA.

E-Liquid is most commonly sold in small eye-dropper bottles of 10ml each, but you can also buy bottles of 50ml or more if you really want to. Stick with the 10ml until you find something  you like, each 10ml bottle seems to last the equivalent of around a couple cartons-worth of smoking, so it’s plenty to start with.

Remove the old cartridge

Once you have a liquid, it’s time to remove the cartridge from the electronic cigarette. Most brands are pretty easy, and you probably assembled it when you first got the e-cig, so just slide the cartridge off the device, making sure not to lose the filler material inside the cartridge (usually a cotton swab looking material). That little fabric filler is what holds the e-liquid in the cartridge in contact with the atomizer wick.

Once you’ve removed the cartridge, simply drop four to five drops of e-liquid inside of the large opening of the cartridge so that it falls onto the fabric inside. Anymore than four to five drops and you may suck some liquid into your mouth the next time to hit the cigarette. If you find that four or five drops isn’t enough, repeat this process, adding one or two drops more each time until you get solid vapor production when taking a drag.

If you happen to drop too much liquid into the cartridge and end up sucking some through when taking a drag, just pull the cartridge off and stick a piece of paper towel down into the cartridge to suck up some of the excess liquid.

Replace the newly filled cartridge

Now go ahead and replace the cartridge the same way you took it off, make sure your battery is charged, and take a drag. Start with a really light drag at first to make sure you don’t suck any liquid through as a result of overfilling. Once you’re comfortable that you didn’t overfill the cartridge, enjoy your newly-refreshed electronic cigarette cartridge like normal.

I’ve found manually refilling cartridges to be fairly simple and a bit cheaper than purchasing prefilled cartridges, however, prefilled is the easiest way to go if you don’t want to mess with the manual refill process. The one thing you need to watch out for is dropping too much liquid into the cartridge, as this will end up being sucked through the tip the next time to take a drag. It’s not the end of the world if this happens, it just tastes bad. That’s all there is to manually refilling electronic cigarette cartridges.

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