Drake puts the ENVII Artisan RTA through its paces. Is this one of the best RTA tanks of 2017?
I have a love/hate relationship with RTA tanks. The idea behind them is perfect – RDA flavor combined with sub-ohm tank capacity – but the execution usually leaves a lot to be desired. Is the ENVII Artisan RTA different?
My main issue with RTA tanks – and this is my own, personal experience – is that they’re just too darn fiddly to work with/build on compared to their RDA counterparts. They also seem to leak ALL the time, which annoys the crap out of me.
I’ve even thrown an RTA in the bin before because it was so difficult to wick correctly. Hello, Griffin 25 RTA. But there are plenty of decent RTAs out there, I just prefer using RDTAs or sub-ohm tanks.
I’d heard a lot of good things about the ENVII Artisan RTA, though, so I had high hopes that I might have finally found an RTA tank that I could finally live with long term.
ENVII is a US company, FYI, and they have a whole roster of devices you can buy right now. This is my first experience with the company, however, though I will say this: from what I have experienced thus far, I am very impressed.
I’ve been using the ENVII Artisan RTA for about a month now. What follows is a detailed breakdown of all my testing notes from this period, complete with pictures and specs.
Let’s do this!
ENVII Artisan RTA Review: Design
Packaging, or the quality of packaging, I should say, tells you a lot about the type of company you’re dealing with.
An unmarked, generic cardboard box, nine times out of ten, tells you you’re dealing with amateurs. And that is never a good sign. It makes you think, “ewww, this isn’t going to be very good.”
And most of the time, you’re right – the product sucks.
ENVII is on the complete opposite end of that spectrum with its packaging. The box itself appears to be made from aluminum – or something similar – and is decorated in an arresting yellow-on-black color scheme.
I love the logo, the fonts, the color choice and, especially, how everything is sealed in place inside the box with foam. You also get plenty of spares included but, sadly, no coil, so make sure you’ve got one to hand when you buy one.
The ENVII Artisan RTA tank itself is very handsome. It looks a lot like a standard sub-ohm tank, reminding me of Vaporesso’s ESTOK a little bit, and the machining is razor-precise whatever angle you look at it from.
ARTISAN is etched onto the bottom of the tank next to bottom air flow and the tank is available in either rose gold or stainless steel; my review unit was stainless steel. Guess they didn’t know about my love of rose gold 🙁
The ENVII Artisan RTA will hold 3ml of E Juice – which is OK, though I do prefer a 5ml tank, personally – and is a 22mm design, meaning it’ll sit snugly on top of most mods.
It looks great on my VooPoo Drag and Vaporesso Nebula, for instance, and they’re about as different as different can be when it comes to mods.
You fill the tank from the top, as you’d expect, though ENVII has a rather novel twist on this method doing things – you turn the top a quarter-turn left to refill, which ensures the pin connection is not disturbed.
The airflow is wide, so you can tamper with it until your heart’s content. I like mine wide-open, but it is nice to have the option for a tighter vape. The pin is also gold-plated, for your mod’s pleasure.
All in, this is one hell of a well-designed mod. Every aspect of its construction has been well thought out and perfectly executed. I tried to find some faults with it, that’s kind of my job, but I could find nothing.
So, kudos on that front, ENVII!
ENVII Artisan RTA Review: The Deck & Wicking
The ENVII Artisan RTA features a post-less deck and is best used with a single Clapton or Alien coil. It is also SUPER easy to setup – and I really do mean super-simple, regardless of your skill level.
There is a slight learning curve, in that you have to set it up properly before you fill the tank up, but the included adapter lets you setup the coil and wick it without any real fuss; it’s just an extra step you have to do before filling the tank.
Do it right and you’re in for a massive treat; mess it up and you will have to start ALL over again. Just be sure not to over-stuff it when wicking, as this will bung it up. You want it nice and fluffy, so it soaks up the juice.
FYI – do not fill the tank up right away, test the build first, because once the tank is full you will lose all your E-Juice if you have to disassemble it and you don’t have a syringe to hand to suck it out first.
Yes, this is annoying. But the upside is the ENVII Artisan RTA is pretty easy to build on, so most people shouldn’t have any issues. Personally, I’d rather have this extra step and get it right, than remove it and have to deal with leaking and dry hits.
I did mess mine up the first time around and received a dry hit for my sins, but once I’d remedied the wicking (it was too heavy) the ENVII Artisan RTA fired beautifully.
I’m not a great at wicking, as I mostly use sub-ohm tanks on account of being a lazy bastard, but I have been building more this year, thanks to awesome tanks like GAIA RDTA and the Wotofo Lush Plus.
The ENVII Artisan RTA is the least temperamental tank I have used so far; you don’t need to be super precise to get it right. For me, this is a huge USP for an RTA tank.
I can nail the build and wick on the ENVII Artisan RTA like 98% of the time, which means you will be able to do it 100% of the time. Trust me: this thing is super simple to setup – and the flavor and clouds are IMMENSE.
ENVII Artisan RTA Review: Performance
Overall flavor and cloud production are immense. This is a single coil tank, but you wouldn’t know it – it performs brilliantly. I like to run my 0.46ohms Alien coil around 50W, this for me is the sweet spot as you get great flavor and it doesn’t murder your E-Juice.
It can handle a lot more, but for me, this is more than adequate. The ENVII Artisan RTA will handle all kinds of coils too, so long as they’re not too big. Most standard Clapton and Alien coils will be fine.
Overall, the performance, flavor and cloud production on the ENVII Artisan RTA is brilliant. I can always tell when a tank is a solid performer because my better-half moans about the house being full of sweet-smelling fog!
The flavor, once you get it wicked correctly, is outstanding. I’ve found you can go as much as five days between a wick-change as well, providing you run it at lower wattages, which is a real USP for me, as most RTAs I have used require more frequent re-wicks.
The main thing here, though, is this: the ENVII Artisan RTA offers up bad-ass performance and seldom leaks, which, in the world of RTA tanks, is a very rare thing indeed.
I have had a couple of leaks, one ruined my jeans, but that was my bad – I wicked it poorly – so as long as you’re not a complete novice when it comes to wicking, you shouldn’t befall a similar fate.
Overall potency isn’t quite up there with an RDTA, unfortunately, but it wipes the floor with nearly every sub-ohm tank I’ve tested in the past 18 months, which is high praise indeed, as there have been some absolute stonkers released in the past 12 months.
ENVII Artisan RTA Review: Verdict
The ENVII Artisan RTA is a fairly unique little tank. It looks great and is packaged brilliantly. I love the post-less design, as it makes wicking and building very simple, providing you use the provided converter.
It doesn’t leak anyway near as much as 99.9% of the RTA tanks I have owned and the flavor and cloud production is immense. The 3ml capacity could be bigger, but, again, this is a small issue that won’t upset too many users.
The ENVII Artisan RTA is a brilliant tank to live with; it delivers plenty of value and is super easy to set up, which, for me, is one of the main things missing from so many RTA tanks.
ENVII has nailed it on this front.
Once you’re locked and loaded, you can just forget about it. Keep her filled up with E-Juice and you’ll go from anywhere up to a week before you need to disassemble it and pop in some new wicking cotton.
The ENVII Artisan RTA comes highly recommended, especially if you’ve been burnt by an RTA in the past, as I have been many, many times.