Innokin Endura T18 II MTL Starter Kit

There is one button and that is it. You press it five times to turn the kit on, then hold it while you draw. No screen to read, no menus to scroll, nothing to set up wrong. For someone who just wants to put down cigarettes without learning a new hobby, that plainness is exactly right.

The one bit of choice is the power. A quick press cycles through three gentle levels, 10.5W, 12.0W and 13.5W, which nudge the draw from cooler and tighter to a touch warmer. It is far less than the fiddly wattage menus on the pod kits, and that is deliberate: three sensible settings, all you actually need. Pair that with the tank's adjustable airflow and you can dial in a draw that suits you in seconds.

This is where the Endura differs from a pod. On top sits the Prism T18 II tank, a small 2ml glass tank that fills from the top: you twist off the cap and pour your juice straight in, no fiddly pods to prise out. It has four-point adjustable airflow, so you can open it up a little or close it down for a tighter, more cigarette-like pull.

Inside the tank is a replaceable coil, a 1.5ohm Prism coil wrapped in organic cotton, which is what Innokin built the Endura's smooth, accurate flavour around. When the flavour fades after a week or two, you do not bin the tank or the device, you just screw in a fresh coil, which is the cheapest way to keep a vape running. Stock up with Prism T18 coils.

The pen holds a 1300mAh battery, which is plenty for a full day of steady MTL vaping at these gentle power levels. The low wattage is kind on the cell, so it lasts longer between charges than the numbers might suggest.

One honest note: it charges over micro-USB rather than the newer USB-C you get on most modern kits, so you will want to keep the right cable handy. A full charge takes a couple of hours. It is a small quirk on an otherwise faultlessly simple device.

A 1.5ohm coil at low power is made for a 50/50 e-liquid and a tight mouth-to-lung draw, so a nic salt is the natural choice. Salts stay smooth even at higher strength, which is what you want coming off cigarettes. Anything in our nic salt range suits it: Hayati Pro, IVG Intense, MaryLiq or ELFLIQ. A 50/50 freebase like IVG 50/50 works just as well, and you can mix a bigger bottle with nic shots.

Avoid thick high-VG sub-ohm juice: a 1.5ohm coil cannot wick it and it will taste burnt. Filling is the easy part, just twist off the top cap and pour.

The thing that keeps the Endura cheap to live with is that the consumable is a coil, not a whole pod. When the flavour fades after a week or two, you unscrew the spent 1.5ohm Prism coil from the base of the tank and screw a fresh one in, keeping the same tank. Coils come several to a pack and cost less per change than a pod does, so over a year the Endura is one of the cheapest devices to feed, which is a big part of why vape shops have handed it to beginners for so long.

Getting the most from a coil is the same drill as any vape: when you fit a new one, fill the tank, let it stand five minutes so the organic cotton soaks through, and take a few gentle priming pulls before the first proper vape. Keep the tank topped up rather than letting it run dry, and a Prism coil holds its taste right through its life. When it does start to taste muted or a touch burnt, that is your cue to change it rather than push on.

The Endura is built to be the cheapest, simplest way off cigarettes or disposables. The kit is £23.99 once, then your only spend is coils and e-liquid. A coil is pennies once you buy a multi-pack, and a 10ml bottle of salt or freebase is a pound or two that refills the 2ml tank several times over. Against a disposable habit, where each device is a few pounds and lasts a day or two, the Endura pays for itself within a couple of weeks and then costs a fraction of what bars do.

There is the waste saving as well. A disposable is a battery and a circuit board in the bin every couple of days; the Endura is one rechargeable device you keep for a long time, with only the small coil as a consumable. For a smoker taking their first step, the combination of a low price, a tank that holds a true cigarette-style draw and almost nothing to learn is exactly why this pen has lasted so long.

Both get you off cigarettes, they just go about it differently. The Endura is a tank with replaceable coils in a tube-pen shape: plain, sturdy, proven, and very cheap to run since coils cost less than pods. It has no screen and no clever modes, which is a feature, not a fault, if you want something foolproof.

A modern pod kit like the Wenax Q2, XROS 5 or Caliburn G4 Pro is smaller and slicker, often with a screen and adjustable power, and uses click-in pods instead of a tank. If you like a bit of tech and a pocket-friendly shape, go pod. If you want the simplest, toughest, most no-nonsense way in, the Endura is the old reliable. Both are a world cheaper than a disposable habit.