Uwell Caliburn AK3: “Small but remote”
The Chinese are our friends, you know, and this is the first review of the device sent by the sourcemore.com store, for which many thanks to them. I will be infinitely grateful to you if you support this post with a like, and also use this wonderful magic word “UCAK3” when ordering this device.
This review, as you understand, revealed itself to the world thanks to the vape shop, but this does not affect and will not affect my opinion in the future, it will still remain unbiased and objective as much as possible.
// Specifications //
Dimensions: 67.5 x 44.1 x 12mm
Weight: 35.8g
Body material: aluminum alloy + plastic
Power supply: built-in 520mAh
Cartridge capacity: 2.0ml
Evaporator resistance: 1.0Ω (grid)
Power: 13W
Operating mode: Power
Protection: low/high resistance, overheating, short circuit, overcharge/over-discharge
Connector type: magnetic
Screen / diagonal: not provided
Port charging: Type-C
// Equipment and disassembly of the device //
In the box, the goods are immediately presented by the face. There is a transparent plastic window through which you can see the color of the device inside. There is nothing interesting on the box itself: the company logo, the “owl” (if you turn the box over), the list of equipment on the back and other information. Inside the pod itself with a pre-installed 1 Ohm cartridge, the second one is exactly the same in a separate box, there is also an instruction, a warranty card and a cord for wearing the device around the neck.
There is nothing special to disassemble here. There is a cartridge on top, it is held on by magnets, there is also an adjustment for fit. By itself, nothing backlashes, but if you try, you can move the cartridge a little in all directions. The cartridge has a top filling, but here the difficulties begin, which will be discussed in the next paragraph. At the bottom there is a reciprocal contact group and magnets, there are also two holes for air intake.
On the carcass is exactly the same reciprocal contact group with two magnets, a slightly raised microphone and a hole for air intake is visible on the side. The container for the cartridge has a window through which, during the vaping process, the remaining liquid inside the cartridge is visible, which, in turn, also has a mark with the minimum required amount of liquid.
There is not much to tell about the carcass itself. The charge port is on the bottom, as is the modest company logo. On the back plane there is a discreet logo of the series made almost in the entire body, on the side there is a kind of ribbed drank, which makes it seem as if a plastic cover was put on the podium. This decision is completely decorative and has no practical use. Since we have come to the side rectangular face, it is worth noting the beautiful glowing “Caliburn” logo, which lights up when hovering and charging. It changes colors and when the charge is low, it will light up in the first place in the corresponding color. Thus, instead of the usual LED “somewhere out there”, there is a whole face dedicated to these tasks. Of course, it is not only for beauty, because it can signal certain problems, if any. And yes, it doesn’t burn brightly, so you definitely won’t be blinded at night.
// Operating experience //
There is not much to tell about operation either, but there are some nuances that are worth pointing out. Let's start with the gas station. I'm one of those people who doesn't like top dressing on pods for one simple reason. Here you have not completely dry hands, but you need to grab hold of slippery plastic with rounded shapes, and you can spend a few minutes to somehow open this case. The lid sits quite firmly and, on the whole, it is easier to open it by breaking it away from you (as it should be in principle), but it opens with such a bang that you are afraid to break the plastic cartridge every time. There is an air outlet here, but if you fill too intensively, fluid can also come out even with an unfilled cartridge.
The next step is leaks. More precisely, there are two points at once. On the one hand, the cartridges are quite tenacious, so much so that there was no need to get the second one, despite the operation for almost a whole month. Approximately 10 ml passed through the evaporator and it still conveys the taste quite well without a hint of burnt. However, after the second refueling, the liquid began to be squeezed out through the seal at the very base. It was squeezed out periodically and without fanaticism, but if this business is started and not wiped, then the cartridge landing along the edges will also be in greasy spots from the liquid, just like hands when used. At the moment, the cartridge is already very bad and the liquid began to seep a little in the area of \u200b\u200bthe contact group, which rather indicates the end of its life, because this was not the case before.
With regards to taste and puff, then here is a real “poder” classic. The grid is sweet, but due to the low power and not the most free airflow, the taste is pleasant, to some extent even a little detailed and evokes only positive associations. All this time I was steaming the taste from the CandyLab New Year's line “White Sangria with Peach and Orange”. Due to the small amount of sweetener, I can say that the cartridge moderately sweetens the taste and does not cause diabetes. Well, the puff itself here is moderately free, I would call the border of the freest MTL and the tightest RDL. It can be pulled into the cheeks, but more often it was pulled immediately into the lungs, albeit with little effort.
To summarize the operation I can cover. The front and back face is plastic, which does not collect any scratches at all, I specifically tried to leave them with a key, but nothing happened. Most likely, over time, there will be gloss in some places, but for a month the flight is excellent. The bottom, top and right side (where the designer cutout is) is aluminum alloy, which can pick up scratches if desired, but I'm fine with that (except for the bottom side, which I intentionally scratched with a wrench).
But about charging, everything is sad. With a native cable from the computer, the pod is charged for at least half an hour. With a Samsung charger with a 2-ampere block, the device did not want to interact at all, periodically flashing in all possible colors. For 15 minutes, it never managed to be charged (such charging is stated on different sites).
// Conclusion //
The first and most important thing to note is the price tag for this piece and its size. The device is very small and compact, easily fits into a zippo pocket of jeans, and is also easily lost in a regular pocket. For such dimensions, it has a decent taste transfer and a normal capacity of 520mAh, which is enough for a day. I think the leaks are also rather Chinese random, because otherwise there were no problems with the quality. Yes, refueling could have been done differently, but this is a nitpick, because I did not find real jambs, with the exception of the difficult extraction of cartridges for this device. Only here they can always be ordered for future use on the same sourcemore.com, but the choice will be yours.
Tasty steam and trouble-free devices!
