The Lowdown
At $269, the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is not inexpensive, but you do get an awful lot for the price. In addition to the wireless charging pad, Airvape includes a micro-dosing basket, a concentrate pad, extra screens, cleaning materials, and gaskets. You have everything you could possibly need — outside of the material to vape!
Overall
Pros
- Flavor is phenomenal
- Easy to load
- The stirring tool is built into the device
- Easy to replace screens and gaskets
- Wireless charging
- Heats up quickly
- The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer comes with extras of key items
Cons
- No water adapter included
- Battery compartment is tight
- The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is very heavy
Dry herb vaping is a fairly simple concept. Heat herbs, inhale the vapor, repeat as needed. But while it can be simple, there are many opportunities to blend technology into the process. AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer puts simplicity and technology together into a single solid and sleek package!
Just holding the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is a satisfying experience. It is incredibly well-built and solid feeling, and there is a mix of textures and materials on the outside. It has a faux-leather trim, canvas on one side, and a mix of canvas and smooth plastic on the other. The green color is especially attractive in my opinion!
There’s an air vent on the bottom, and the mouthpiece (fitted into a gasket with a screen) sits on the top. One side flips open to access the bowl for loading, and that same side also has a hidden compartment to access the 18650 (3,000mAh) removable and rechargeable battery, and there is a glass tube that makes up the bulk of the airpath.
One really nice touch is that the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer’s stirring tool slides right into a slot on the compartment, so you can easily flip it open to stir, tamp, or clear out the load. It also sports a USB Type-C port for charging, or you can hot-swap in a fully charged 18650 battery. Or … you can even use the included wireless charger to keep it topped off seated at your desk or on the go. Yes, it comes with a 5,000mAh battery pad that can charge the Legacy wirelessly. This is a truly excellent feature for both good and bad reasons, but more on that below.
The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer uses convection heating, and it can be used for sessions or on-demand. Convection heating is where the oven itself doesn’t get terribly warm, but instead, you’re pulling hot air through the herbs with your breath. Think of it as a tiny air fryer for your herbal vapor.
I found that the on-demand feature worked okay, but I found myself using the session setting more often. I found that it took around 30 extra seconds after the oven hit temperature to produce significant vapor, and it was easier to maintain that with the session setting.
It is easy to swap between the two settings by holding the power button and the up button simultaneously. Up/down also controls temperature, and you can adjust the temperature on the fly. I often started at a lower temperature with hemp flowers to get more flavor. So I would start it at something lower like 375º F before finishing the session at around 410º F.
It heats up incredibly fast, in about 15 seconds; no matter how you choose to use it, you won’t be waiting long for the ideal temperature.
Convection heating requires a bit more of a learning curve because you’re really controlling how fast or slow your herb gets cooked with your breath. A short, fast breath will produce less vapor than a long, slow one. How fast or slow you go is up to you, and you might vary it from session to session or even from hit to hit.
Once you get the technique dialed in, you can produce some incredibly flavorful vapor. I have tried several vapes, from Arizer to Dynavap to Boundless and Pax, and the Airvape Legacy by far produces the purest flavor of all of them.
I was also really impressed that even when a bowl was fully cooked, it was never scorched; I only had to stir it when I was lazy and shoved some hand-shredded herb in the bowl. A well-ground and well-packed bowl did not require stirring to get to an even brown at the end.
There is a lot to really love about the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer, but there are a few downsides to consider. It is very heavy for a portable vape, weighing in at 8.5 ounces on my kitchen scale. For reference, a Pax 3 weighs in at 3.3 ounces.
In addition, the mouthpiece is a flat bill, so while it’s great for inhaling, you do need an adapter if you want to run it through water or glass. Also, if you’re a neat freak, you’ll note that it’s easy for the gasket and bowl to get gunked up quickly with bits of material, so you’ll want to keep a small brush handy.
The biggest frustration I had by far, though, was accessing the battery. You need to use a ribbon to pop out the battery, and the ribbon runs behind the glass air tube and the battery, so both pop out at once. The tube is easy to reinsert between the gaskets, but you want to make sure it doesn’t get misplaced during a battery change.
More pressing is that the battery compartment is extremely tight. 18650 batteries are wrapped with plastic to insulate them from accidentally sparking, and any tears in the wraps mean you must stop using the battery immediately until you re-wrap it (or have your local vape shop re-wrap it). The Airvape Legacy compartment is so tight that it tore one of my battery wraps slightly, so after that, I made a point of only charging it with the USB Type-C or the included wireless pad.
Note that I used the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer repeatedly over several days and barely got the battery to halfway, so you won’t be rushing to charge it constantly.
At $269, the AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is not inexpensive, but you do get an awful lot for the price. In addition to the wireless charging pad, Airvape includes a micro-dosing basket, a concentrate pad, extra screens, cleaning materials, and gaskets. You have everything you could possibly need — outside of the material to vape! All this with a vape that offers an isolated glass airpath with a ceramic mouthpiece and amazing flavor. If you’re looking to hot-swap batteries, use a water pipe, and keep it in your pocket, you need to consider some tradeoffs. But if you’re looking for one vape to satisfy your needs in a rugged and attractive package, AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is a phenomenal device!
The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer retails for $269; it is available directly from the manufacturer.
Source: Manufacturer provided review sample
What I Liked: Flavor is phenomenal; Easy to load; The stirring tool is built into the device; Easy to replace screens and gaskets; Wireless charging; Heats up quickly; The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer comes with extras of key items
What Needs Improvement: No water adapter included; Battery compartment is tight; The AirVape Legacy SE Vaporizer is very heavy
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