Review: Sigelei 100W Box Mod - Power to the people

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As I told you when I did the review of the IGO-W8 a couple of weeks ago I've been using mainly mechanical mods since I started vaping almost three years ago now, but I was thinking it was time to try out some regulated mod and see what all the fuzz with all these watts was about. There is a bunch of high watt box mods (like 50W and above) on the market today they just keep getting more and more powerful. Price-wise they vary a lot and you can get them from around £50 and all the way up to what... £500(?). The one I'm reviewing today is in the lower end of the price-scale. It's the Sigelei 100W, priced at £59.99 at UKEcigStore. Now first of all ... safety again: Your own safety is of course the most important thing. You didn't switch from cigarettes that would kill you slowly just to get your face blown off really really fast in a vaping accident, did you? With these regulated mods it's not so much you need to think about to vape safely, but there is one thing: Batteries. Playing around with this tool tells us that on full power this mod will drain around 16A from your batteries (remember you have 2 of them in there so the voltage over them is double). This means... don't buy the cheapest batteries you can find. Actually.. don't ever do that. Make sure you get a battery that can do 20A continuous draw, like the Sony VTC5 (or VTC4 or if the 5 is out of stock again) or the new improved AW 18650s. Now ... back to the Sigelei. Some specs:  Chip: Yihi SX330 V3 100 Watt chip Batteries: 2 x 18650s (not included) Output Power: 10 Watts - 100 Watts Output Voltage: 1.5 Volts - 6.0 Volts  Output Current: 30.0 A Minimum Atomizer Resistance: 0.15 Ohms Input Voltage: 6.2 Volts - 8.5 Volts Input Current: 1.3 A - 20.0 A Efficiency: 95%  Screen size: 0.96" OLED  Fire Method: Regular Button Adjust Power Method: Up and Down Button Software upgrade: No  Connector: 510 Integrated charger: No Material: Aluminium alloy  Dimensions: 102x56x23mm In the package: The package includes the mod itself, a user manual, a cute little screwdriver that fits the small screws that are also included to secure the battery lid. You actually don't need to use those as the lid is also held in place by magnets. But probably handy if you're going to do some extreme sports while using this mod, or if you just don't want the 2 screw holes open. Design and looks: I got the silver version of the mod. It is quite a big mod, and quite heavy once you've popped in your 2 18650 batteries. It might just be me but it feels and looks a bit cheap. It might be the colour and coating and maybe the buttons that makes it look a bit like plastic, but honestly I think the black version looks better. And I don't like the font where it says 100W. It doesn't quite look 2014. They could have used the font that they use on the box or just removed the text all together. The display looks good though. Anyway it's not the most beautiful mod in my eyes, but in a way that doesn't really matter that much either, and design is not the reason you'd go out and buy one of these quite bulky 100W mods. In use: As I said it is a quite big and heavy mod. Maybe a bit big for everyday use, but I've ended up using it every day anyway. If you're using this with a multi-coil dripper and put it on 100W it will damn near kill you. I did this with the IGO-W8 and it was the first time I've coughed after vaping in like a year. Huge amount of vapour with just a quick push of the button. And I had to write down a "note to self: get some lower nic juice" as I got kind of dizzy after 3-4 hits. This mod really delivers the wattage it promises. I've also used it a lot with the Aspire Nautilus, and for me around 15W is the sweet-spot with this combo. And it is a great combo indeed. Gives you a lot of flavour and vapour. And another great advantage of this is the huge battery capacity you get from 2 18650s. I think I went around 4 days without needing to recharge, and even though I use other mods as well, this was my main vape these days. So this really is a great combo if you're going out camping or something like that where you're not able to charge for a few days. Since this is a dual battery mod you can of course step the voltage down to below what the batteries give you, but not lower than 10W. Now a couple of things I miss in this mod. First of all, I miss a USB charging option. You need to take your batteries out to charge them. I guess with the huge battery capacity you might say it's not needed, but for my use it would actually come in quite handy. If you're bringing this as your only mod for say camping it would be great to be able to charge it in the car, or when you make a stop on your way there. Another thing I noticed was that when the display shows somewhere 20% and 30% battery left, it actually starts cutting the power. I was at 30W on the IGO-W8 when this happened. I then mounted the Nautilus and turned down to around 15W and was able to keep going for a while again, but when it hit around 20% I think, it started cutting power again. So... you actually should recharge at 30%-ish. Then there is a minor issue with the power adjustment. Just clicking the adjustment buttons will change the power in 0.1W increments. Now if you want to adjust a lot it you can just hold the button down and it will start adjusting faster and faster... and a bit too fast in the end, so you suddenly end up at 10W or 100W (depending on which way you were going) pretty fast. They could have put the limit on how fast it would go a bit lower, making it easier to hit your mark, but it's not a really big issue, just takes a little bit of getting used to. Conclusion: The Sigelei 100W is a real workhorse. It gives you a lot of power at a really reasonable price. It is one of the cheapest 100W box mods out there at just £59.99. It has some issues as I've described above, but some of them takes just a little getting used to, like remembering to charge at 30% and so on. In my opinion this is not the mod you go buy to take pictures of and add lighting effects in photoshop to show off your vaping forum friends. This is the mod you go buy if you want a really affordable mod that will give you lots of power for your multicoil drippers, or if you want huge battery capacity for your clearomizer tanks... or both, which is true in my case. It is actually a really flexible mod that can be used with a lot of different setups. So if you don't mind it's looks and it's minor quirks but need a flexible, powerful mod you'll get a lot of that for your money here. Thanks a lot to Michael from UKEcigStore who sent me the mod for review. And he also provided me with a 5% discount code: vapingiraffe that you can use if you want to give the Sigelei a go. Disclosure: All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.  The mod was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review. This review contains affiliate links.

As I told you when I did the review of the IGO-W8 a couple of weeks ago I've been using mainly mechanical mods since I started vaping almost three years ago now, but I was thinking it was time to try out some regulated mod and see what all the fuzz with all these watts was about. There is a bunch of high watt box mods (like 50W and above) on the market today they just keep getting more and more powerful. Price-wise they vary a lot and you can get them from around £50 and all the way up to what... £500(?). The one I'm reviewing today is in the lower end of the price-scale. It's the Sigelei 100W, priced at £59.99 at UKEcigStore.

Now first of all ... safety again:
Your own safety is of course the most important thing. You didn't switch from cigarettes that would kill you slowly just to get your face blown off really really fast in a vaping accident, did you? With these regulated mods it's not so much you need to think about to vape safely, but there is one thing: Batteries. Playing around with this tool tells us that on full power this mod will drain around 16A from your batteries (remember you have 2 of them in there so the voltage over them is double). This means... don't buy the cheapest batteries you can find. Actually.. don't ever do that. Make sure you get a battery that can do 20A continuous draw, like the Sony VTC5 (or VTC4 or if the 5 is out of stock again) or the new improved AW 18650s. Now ... back to the Sigelei.


Some specs: 

• Chip: Yihi SX330 V3 100 Watt chip
• Batteries: 2 x 18650s (not included)
• Output Power: 10 Watts - 100 Watts
• Output Voltage: 1.5 Volts - 6.0 Volts 
• Output Current: 30.0 A
• Minimum Atomizer Resistance: 0.15 Ohms
• Input Voltage: 6.2 Volts - 8.5 Volts
• Input Current: 1.3 A - 20.0 A
• Efficiency: 95% 
• Screen size: 0.96" OLED 
• Fire Method: Regular Button
• Adjust Power Method: Up and Down Button
• Software upgrade: No 
• Connector: 510
• Integrated charger: No
• Material: Aluminium alloy 
• Dimensions: 102x56x23mm

In the package:
The package includes the mod itself, a user manual, a cute little screwdriver that fits the small screws that are also included to secure the battery lid. You actually don't need to use those as the lid is also held in place by magnets. But probably handy if you're going to do some extreme sports while using this mod, or if you just don't want the 2 screw holes open.

Design and looks:
I got the silver version of the mod. It is quite a big mod, and quite heavy once you've popped in your 2 18650 batteries. It might just be me but it feels and looks a bit cheap. It might be the colour and coating and maybe the buttons that makes it look a bit like plastic, but honestly I think the black version looks better. And I don't like the font where it says 100W. It doesn't quite look 2014. They could have used the font that they use on the box or just removed the text all together. The display looks good though. Anyway it's not the most beautiful mod in my eyes, but in a way that doesn't really matter that much either, and design is not the reason you'd go out and buy one of these quite bulky 100W mods.

In use:
As I said it is a quite big and heavy mod. Maybe a bit big for everyday use, but I've ended up using it every day anyway. If you're using this with a multi-coil dripper and put it on 100W it will damn near kill you. I did this with the IGO-W8 and it was the first time I've coughed after vaping in like a year. Huge amount of vapour with just a quick push of the button. And I had to write down a "note to self: get some lower nic juice" as I got kind of dizzy after 3-4 hits. This mod really delivers the wattage it promises.

I've also used it a lot with the Aspire Nautilus, and for me around 15W is the sweet-spot with this combo. And it is a great combo indeed. Gives you a lot of flavour and vapour. And another great advantage of this is the huge battery capacity you get from 2 18650s. I think I went around 4 days without needing to recharge, and even though I use other mods as well, this was my main vape these days. So this really is a great combo if you're going out camping or something like that where you're not able to charge for a few days. Since this is a dual battery mod you can of course step the voltage down to below what the batteries give you, but not lower than 10W.

Now a couple of things I miss in this mod. First of all, I miss a USB charging option. You need to take your batteries out to charge them. I guess with the huge battery capacity you might say it's not needed, but for my use it would actually come in quite handy. If you're bringing this as your only mod for say camping it would be great to be able to charge it in the car, or when you make a stop on your way there. Another thing I noticed was that when the display shows somewhere 20% and 30% battery left, it actually starts cutting the power. I was at 30W on the IGO-W8 when this happened. I then mounted the Nautilus and turned down to around 15W and was able to keep going for a while again, but when it hit around 20% I think, it started cutting power again. So... you actually should recharge at 30%-ish. Then there is a minor issue with the power adjustment. Just clicking the adjustment buttons will change the power in 0.1W increments. Now if you want to adjust a lot it you can just hold the button down and it will start adjusting faster and faster... and a bit too fast in the end, so you suddenly end up at 10W or 100W (depending on which way you were going) pretty fast. They could have put the limit on how fast it would go a bit lower, making it easier to hit your mark, but it's not a really big issue, just takes a little bit of getting used to.

Conclusion:
The Sigelei 100W is a real workhorse. It gives you a lot of power at a really reasonable price. It is one of the cheapest 100W box mods out there at just £59.99. It has some issues as I've described above, but some of them takes just a little getting used to, like remembering to charge at 30% and so on. In my opinion this is not the mod you go buy to take pictures of and add lighting effects in photoshop to show off your vaping forum friends. This is the mod you go buy if you want a really affordable mod that will give you lots of power for your multicoil drippers, or if you want huge battery capacity for your clearomizer tanks... or both, which is true in my case. It is actually a really flexible mod that can be used with a lot of different setups. So if you don't mind it's looks and it's minor quirks but need a flexible, powerful mod you'll get a lot of that for your money here.

Thanks a lot to Michael from UKEcigStore who sent me the mod for review. And he also provided me with a 5% discount code: vapingiraffe that you can use if you want to give the Sigelei a go.


Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The mod was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review contains affiliate links.