The Vandy Vape Jackaroo Dual marks another chapter in the industry’s attempt to create truly indestructible devices. Since 2017, the market for “life proof” mods, designed to take abuse, has been dominated by Geekvape with the Aegis series. This year, others have got in on the act, including Vandy Vape. Is the Jackaroo Dual worth consideration?
Let’s take a look at the specs:
- Dimensions: 90.5mm*56.8mm*29.7mm
- Materials: Magnesium aluminium alloy, silica gel, G10
- Power output: 5W-188W
- Battery capacity: 2x 18650 external cells
- Charging: 1.8A USB-C chargin
Price: $69.99 (pre-order)
Durability Test
Construction, fit and finish of the Jackaroo Dual are excellent. Build quality is always a priority with mods that are marketed as “indestructible” and Vandy Vape has executed their design well. The chassis is covered with a familiar rubberised coating, which is great for shock absorbance and feels comfortable in the hand. Exposed magnesium aluminium alloy plates on the top and bottom of the device are machined with great precision and each side of the device hosts a removable G10 panel. Not only is this device built to last, it feels premium at the same time.
I performed a variety of stress tests with the Jackaroo Dual and it passed them all with flying colours. The combination of sealed chassis and chipset didn’t allow for any water ingress, even when submerged for over 30 minutes. Several drops from shoulder height on to concrete caused some superficial scuffs but did not stop the device from functioning. I do not think the average user will be breaking this mod.
Ergonomics
Ergonomics are important with larger mods like the Jackaroo Dual. Again, Vandy Vape has clearly been thoughtful with their design choices here, opting for a pistol style grip that feels really natural in the hand, when using the index finger to fire. Vandy Vape claims that magnesium aluminium alloy was used to keep the weight of the mod down and while the Jackaroo Dual isn’t super light, it’s certainly less heavy than some competitors, which is great.
Chipset
In terms of user experience, Vandy Vape are clearly trying to keep things simple by iterating on an existing chipset. The Jackaroo Dual uses a board almost identical to what we saw recently in the Pulse 2, albeit with a higher power ceiling of 188W.
Five clicks of the fire button power the device on/off. When powered up, holding the + and – buttons together opens the main menu. From here, you can customise the UI by disabling any settings that you don’t need, or change display colours. I really like this feature, as it allows you to remove clutter from the mode select menu, which is accessed with three clicks of the fire button.
Four clicks of the fire button allows you to go deeper into your current output mode. When in wattage mode, this allows you to choose a power curve. When in temperature control mode, this allows you to adjust wattage. The Vandy chip still has app connectivity via Bluetooth but at the time of writing, it’s not available on iOS and must be side loaded on Android. This is unfortunate and I hope the situation can be resolved in the future. Since navigating the menu is intuitive on the mod, I don’t see it as much of a problem, though.
When it comes to performance, the Jackaroo Dual impressed me. Power deliver is very responsive and the dual 18650 configuration allows you to push mid-high wattages for extended periods of time. I found temperature control to be serviceable when using a stainless steel build with factory settings, though TCR can be adjusted if you like to fine tune your TC experience.
Battery Management
Battery management is what I would expect from a properly tuned dual 18650 device. I was consistently able to get just shy of a full day’s vaping from a pair of 3000mAh 18650s, when vaping at 75W. This was extended to almost two days when vaping at 45W and almost five days when vaping at 15W with an MTL atomiser. Even high wattage vapers should be satisfied with this.
The Jackaroo Dual is equipped with 1.8A USB-C charging. If you’re charging two high capacity cells from flat to full, this will clearly take a long time but with any external battery device, I recommend using an external charger. In testing, the device seemed to charge cells quite evenly though, so the built in charging can be used when needed.
The Wrap
In summary, I am thoroughly impressed with the Vandy Vape Jackaroo Dual. From build quality to performance, to ergonomics, this device delivers. Waterproof, shockproof mods are proving to be extremely popular with those who work outside or in harsh environments and this fits the bill. The Jackaroo Dual is a fine competitor to mods like the Geekvape Aegis Legend.
Pros:
- Excellent build quality
- Great ergonomics
- Intuitive chipset
Cons:
- None
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