The Pax 2 Improves Upon One Of The Best Vaporizers On The Market

A few years ago, a little company called Ploom released the first version of its Pax vaporizer — and it was nothing short of a revelation. Unlike most competing devices on the market, Pax featured the kind of industrial design that you would expect from high-end electronics.

The newest version of its vape takes all the best parts of the original — the sleek design, the brushed metal finish, the easy-to-use, push-button interface — and improves upon them. The Pax 2 is about 25 percent smaller and 10 percent lighter, yet it features a deeper oven for heating up material more evenly.

The Pax 2 is more efficient than the original, with up to 30 percent longer battery life. It has four different temperature settings, as opposed to three, and it’s added some smart motion and lip-sensing technology to know when the vape is actually in use, so it doesn’t overheat any material you’ve got in the thing.

Oh, and about that “material”… Pax can heat up and vaporize any sort of loose-leaf tobacco or flavored tobacco or marijuana. Obviously the legal and regulatory landscape around cannabis has changed in states around the country, but marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I drug on the federal level.

As a result, the Pax team has to be careful about the message it sends on what this product is used for. But it will say this — it’s not a “tobacco company,” but a vaporization company. That was illustrated in some moves it made behind the scenes recently.

The company that designed the device is now known as Pax Labs, after it dissolved a partnership with Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and sold off its rights to the Ploom name.

While JTI will continue to manufacture the Ploom Pod devices, Pax Labs is now free to develop and distribute its own products — including the Pax 2. As a result, the company has big plans to make its vaporizer available in markets outside the U.S. for the first time.

The Pax 2 is now available for pre-sale on the Pax site at $279, and begins shipping in early April. If that’s a little too expensive, the original Pax is being sold at a bit of a discount from launch, but it’s still a little pricey at $199.

Either way, though, you’re still getting a damn fine vape.