SMOK Resa Stick Review: A Vape Pen with Mech Mod Capabilities

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by Thanush Poulsen

Updated: December 17, 2020

smok resa stick desktop

Review Score: 90/100

Price Range:
$34.90-$49.99
Dimensions:
25mm (1 inch) x 83mm (3.3 inches)
Battery Capacity:
2000mAh
E-Juice Capacity:
2mL / 7.5mL
Works with:
  • Eliquids icon

Pros

  • Solidly built
  • Very easy-to-use
  • Mesh-style coils give off great flavor

Cons

  • A little heavy to carry around
  • No adjustable features

Starting Price: $ 39.99

The new SMOK Resa Stick kit features the Resa vape pen with its 2000mAh capacity and the Resa Baby tank. The atomizer can hold either 2mL of e-juice or 7.5mL, which is more than other vape tanks, with the glass tube extender included in the kit. The unit itself has a single-button, with an LED indicator light behind it that shows cell life.

The vape pen has a spring-loaded, 510 connection on top and it can direct output a maximum of 80W, and the lowest unregulated output is 3.2V. The battery also acts much like a mech mod as its performance is tied to the battery life, so the production diminishes if the battery is losing power.

SMOK Resa Stick Kit Review: A Closer Look

The first thing that pops out about the Resa kit is the colors. The Resa Stick features a cobra-resin exterior on its stainless steel frame that comes in a total of nine different colors. The tank also comes outfitted with serpentine features like the 810-Cobra resin drip tip that is not interchangeable.

When you choose a kit color, the tank and battery will be the same, so no need to worry about the devices clashing or having mismatched colors. Some people may like the loud, unrestrained colors, other people, not so much.

smok resa stick desktop

The Resa Stick kit is a combination of the battery and tank, which are both 510-threaded. The unit has a single, hexagonal firing button surrounded by an LED light that indicates battery life with several different flashes.

Many light patterns mean different things when the LED lights up (like the 4x it flashes when you are vaping it). The only important one to remember is if the light starts blinking 15 times, then the battery is below 3.3V.

smok resa stick white image

The Resa vape pen looks thick, and that’s because it is; it has a base diameter just shy of one inch, or 25mm, so it could fit tanks with that diameter. It measures over 83mm long (3.3 inches). The unit mostly consists of the firing button, the USB charging port, the very tiny airflow hole on the base of the device and that’s pretty much it.

There are no screen or adjustments buttons, and the rest of the device has a clean, polished look unless you think the honeycomb, Cobra-skin layout of the pen is anything but clean or polished.

The Resa Baby Tank

The Resa Baby atomizer is a departure, in a few ways, from typical SMOK tanks. For one, it uses a threaded top-fill system, where you unscrew the top cap to access the fill ports. Other SMOK atomizers use the push-back/swivel top cap that exposes a single fill port, which has its fans as well as detractors.

smok resa sticks image

This new top cap also features smooth, clean threads underneath, so it is not hard to remove. The Cobra-resin 810 drip-tip is removable, but other 810 drip tips will not work on this mouthpiece, as the threads will not support it, although drip tips from tanks by Vaporesso, iJoy or Joyetech may work, as they have double o-ring seals.

smok resa stick starter kit image

The glass bubble piece can either hold 2mL or 7.5mL depending on where you live. US vapers will probably get the 7.5mL, but they will not get a spare 2mL glass bubble section and vice-versa for TPD or EU vapers. The kit does come with two sub-ohm, mesh-style coils that can vape between 30-50W for the 0.25ohm coil, while the 0.15ohm coil vapes best between 40 to 80W.

smok resa stick tank image

The removable coil base is where the adjustable airflow slots are located. They move in unison, so you adjust them on one side, and it gets changed on the other side. The base is removable, and the coil head also attaches into the bottom, but screws into the chimney to connect all the pieces. The Resa measures 25.5mm or one inch at the base but extends out to 28.5mm (or 1.1mm) at the widest point on the glass section.

Kit Contents

Depending on where you live, the Resa atomizer will either come with a pre-installed 2mL glass part, along with a 7.5mL extender piece or not, if you live in a TPD country where you will get only the 2mL part, as is required of all vape tanks.

smok resa stick kit image

Regardless, the Resa Stick kit includes the following:

  • One SMOK Resa Stick vape pen battery
  • One SMOK Resa Baby 2mL atomizer (with a pre-installed 0.15ohm coil)
  • One spare 0.25ohm V8 Baby-Mesh coil
  • One Micro USB cable
  • One warranty card
  • One user manual

How to Use the Vape Pen

The Resa vape pen has a very basic operation. There are no button combinations; neither are there any buttons other than the main one. As there are no adjustable features on the unit, there is no need for an extra user interface.

  • It has a simple five-clicks-on starting point
  • and you press the button every time you want to take a vape

The device does feature some power regulation, so it is not a full mech mod. But it does function much like mech mod in that the performance of the Resa is tied to its battery life.

There is also an 8-second cutoff feature that prevents you from overloading the battery so that feature also sets the Resa apart from other unregulated mods. The 8-second cutoff time is not the only safety feature loaded onto the stick.

It also protects against low resistance and low voltage.
There is no locking feature for the button, as you only turn it on or off whenever it is not in use.

  • After priming any one of the coils with a few drops of e-juice, screw it back into the base and then into the rest of the tank.
  • Screw the assembled tank into the battery section, turn it on with five-clicks of the firing button, and start vaping.

Taking the Resa for a Vape

With the mesh-style Baby M2 0.15ohm coil, which uses organic cotton as its wicking material, the flavor was noticeably better than the other, 0.25ohm coil, which has a typical, single-vertical coil. The mesh wraps around the entirety of the coil, so it heats the wick evenly, and then produces better flavor, while not putting out huge clouds.

smok resa stick coil image

The life of the coil was quite long as well. The battery, although it is 2000mAh, and carries a hefty charge, does diminish with heavy use in only a few hours. If you are using the Resa only occasionally, the battery might last you an entire day. And if you vape it only a few times during the day, it might even last longer than that.

smok resa stick battery image

The SMOK Resa Stick vs. the Titan X Hybrid vs. the SMOK Prince

The Titan X

This Titan X features a tube-style device with an attached sub-ohm tank and includes two different styles of coils in the kit. The battery section has a capacity of 1500mAh, and the two coils can fire at 1.0ohm and 0.4ohms, respectively.

Titan X Hybrid Sub-Ohm Vape Mod image

The vape pen has simple, one-button controls, and the tank can hold up to 3mL of e-juice. The entire device measures 127mm in length (5.3 inches) and has a diameter of 19mm (0.74 inches). The Titan X can output a maximum of 50W, and features a clean, polished stainless steel exterior.

The SMOK Prince

The Prince is another vape pen from SMOK that features a massive, high-capacity 3000mAh and comes with the TFV12 Prince sub-ohm tank with a pre-installed 0.17ohm coil (plus a spare).

SMOK Stick V12 Prince Vapor image
The device features stainless steel throughout its build and has only a single power button on its exterior, which has an LED behind it that shows battery life. The SMOK Prince tank can hold about 8mL of e-juice and has a wide-bore snake-skin 810 drip tip atop its mouthpiece.

SMOK Resa Stick Specifications

Colors Black, green, blue, purple, pink, rainbow, red, yellow, white
Material Stainless steel and Glass
Dimensions 25mm (1 inch) x 83mm (3.3 inches)
E-Juice Capacity 2mL/7.5mL
Battery 2000mAh
Thread 510
Resistance range 0.15 – 0.25 ohm
Voltage Range 3.4V-4.2V
Cutoff Time 3.4V-4.2V

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Solidly built (stainless steel)
  • Very easy-to-use
  • Mesh-style coils give off great flavor
  • 7.5mL maximum e-juice capacity
  • Long battery life of the kit

Cons

  • A little heavy to carry around
  • No adjustable features

Closing Thoughts on the SMOK Resa Stick

The SMOK Resa Stick kit is yet another unit in the long line of SMOK vape pens, which started back with the SMOK Stick V8. Not much has changed from that founding device, to be honest. There is still the high-capacity battery – 3000mAh. The tank options may have changed, as well as the coil-types with the new mesh-style coils giving off improved flavor quality.

In terms of usability though, the device is not hard to get a grasp on, literally. There is not much adjusting that you can do with the Resa kit, which is perhaps part of the appeal for vape pens. You fill the Baby tank, screw it into the battery and voila! The battery life is not bad unless you are not continually vaping it, so it can last for a day, easy.

Published: May 10, 2019Updated: December 17, 2020
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Thanush Poulsen

Being a regular Sweden student, I discovered innovative ways of living healthier. And with my very first e-cigarette, I’ve got obsessed with all things digital. So vaping collided my interests in electronics, science, and health. I enjoy bringing people into the world of vaping through my reviews, guides, and best-of lists.


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