This review is part of a sponsored content series by Ascent by Da Vinci, a luxury hand-held vaporizer.
Every member of the team here at Boing Boing who has tried Da Vinci's digital hand-held vaporizer, the Ascent, has remarked at how well made the device is, and how good it feels in your hand. In one of those rare moments where a gadget works as well as it looks, the Ascent also heats up instantly, is a breeze to use and the all-glass air path offers many advantages.
I've tried a few hand-held vaporizers over the years. Butane or electric, all are slow to warm up and difficult to fine tune, with settings like Low, Medium and High. Da Vinci touts the accuracy of Ascent's digital controls, which also come up to operating temperatures faster than any other vaporizer I've seen, even table-top units. You can set it by Fahrenheit or Celsius in 1 degree increments. The first time I turned the unit on, it heated up so fast I was confused and had to check the manual!
The air path on the Ascent is really, really nice. Manufactured with tobacco in mind, Ascent has a table on their website with temperature suggestions for all sorts of stuff from St. John's Wort to Ginsing. I've tried the unit with a variety of materials, and the flavors it brings out are quite strong. A current marijuana, from my favorite dispensary, offers nutty flavors that are not experienced by smoking it. The Ascent pronounces these flavors much more boldly and upfront than even the best table-top vaporizers.
All-glass also means its easy to clean. The unit pops apart easily, allowing its pieces to be cleaned with your favorite solution, dried, and put back together in a flash. Other hand-helds have presented real challenges, with sticky mist gumming up the on-off switch. Not so with the Ascent.
Da Vinci clearly gained a ton of experience with their prior-model vaporizer, and engineered this from an owners POV. Ascent is the best working, best made unit I've seen.
