Thanks for taking the time to view my late but finally here review of the Eleaf Tessera with ELLO TS tank review. I was provided a pair of kits directly from Eleaf for this review, why a pair? I will get into that in a moment.
Specs:
Tessera mod:
Ello TS sub ohm tank:
Sometimes you just get unlucky
I received the very good looking brushed stainless steel Tessera kit about 2 months ago. The first few days were great, so much so I took it as one of my mods to the ECC show. That night as I was having drinks with a friend and fellow reviewer it kept shutting off on me. I would turn it back on and then a few puffs and again, it was off. I had to look and see what was happening and it turns out it was going into overheat protection. I was running the ELLO TS tank it comes with at only 45 watts so this was odd. My friend has the same mod with him, the sweet looking red version and his was fine.
The next day I tried different tanks and sometimes it was fine but other times it went into overheat protection again. I checked with another friend who had the same kit and his was working fine so I contacted Eleaf about getting a replacement. A month later I had the sexy green Tessera in hand and have been using it since without incident.
I only bring this up as sometimes reviewers get pre production samples, that was the case with me. If not for confirmation that I was alone in my problem from the small sample size I talked with it gave me confidence to give them a second chance. It is easy to slam a company but sometimes you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I still wanted to relay my experience though to try and be as transparent as possible.
Tessera mod
My first thought when receiving the Tessera was wow, this is a departure from Eleaf's normal design style....I like it. I was very impressed with the brushed stainless steel finish and the green....oh yeah, it is a sexy little mod with an automotive type finish. I am hoping this is the direction Eleaf will go on future mods as the fit and finish is very nice.
The build quality is impressive with a few exceptions, not crazy about how the back feels hollow when you tap on it and the screen scratches easily if you remove the screen protector. My silver didn't come with a screen protector, it is scratched up but the green did so it still looks good. I do get some rattle from the silver but hardly any from the green. The fire back has a nice tactile click to it and easy to fire with either your fingers of palm, whichever way you hold it it is easy to fire. Not crazy about the up/down and mode buttons though, they feel loose and with the mode button so close to the others if you have fat thumbs that can be annoying.
The screen is excellent, bright and easy to see under any lighting conditions.
The menu is pretty easy to navigate and made much easier by the 1.45inch TFT Color Display.
The mod is over 30mm but don't think that means you can fit a 30mm tank on it, it gets that dimension from the bulging screen and back plate. Here is a 28mm Vandy Vape Triple RTA to give you an idea of how it fits.
The 510 is mounted from underneath so no possibility of it coming off with your tank....hello Predator....haha
All in I like the look of the Tessera, I thought the brushed stainless steel was nice until I saw my friends red and now the green....hubba hubba, good looking mod for sure.
Power performance
Even though it is not what I would say mind blowing in regards to power mode it is still pretty damn good. No lag when hitting the fire button, it fires right up and seemed fairly accurate comparing it to my DNA and Yihi mods. One thing that surprised me when trying to run the battery all the way down was how it was still giving me the full 100 watts all the way until it told me to charge, impressive.
There is a preheat function which seemed to work well but it is not the style I prefer. The preheat it set by choosing the power up to 150 watts and duration from 0 to 2 seconds. If your only using one tank with the same coil all the time then that is fine, set it and forget it. I don't know about you but I use a lot of different tanks though and each can require different amounts of power. I have done it in the past where I am running a high watt tanks with my preheat set high then switch to a lower watt tank and forget to change my preheat....talk about burning esophagus. That is why I prefer a percentage based preheat like Yihi, Smoant and a few others include. A preheat that gives a boost based on the watts you are running at, say it is a 20% boost, that means if you are running at 100 watts it will give you a preheat of 120 watts for the first second or so. Change a tank and lower the watts to say 50 and that same percentage based preheat at 20% will then fire at 60 watts, really helps and saves a step.
One thing I wanted to mention that is a pet peeve of mine is the power steps. With the Tessera starting from 1 to 20 watts the steps in between are 0.1 watts which is fine to fine tune for MTL and low wattage vapers. After 20 watts though the Tessera goes into 1 watt increments which is great and makes for quicker adjustments. If your like me I like to end on an even number, hate mods that land at 54.6 watts, I want 55 dammit...yeah, the OCD is strong with me.
TC Performance
The ELLO TS tank comes with a HW1 coil which is SS so works in TC but I had not gotten to it yet and just coiled up an RDA with a fresh SS316L simple single wire build. My first impressions were good, this is decent TC performance so I was happy for a little bit. It didn't last long though, thought made the juice I was using was clogging up the coils quick. I then took that same RDA and tossed it on a DNA mod....ahhhhh good TC is back. It did have me scratching my head but figured hmmm, let's try something else. RTA with a fresh dual SS316L parallel clapton build, a build I am very familiar with. Performance was so so to say the least, back on the DNA and yep, working fine. I then began to mess with the TCR values but when I got to 138 which is the TCR for SS430 and it still sucked I figured why bother trying anymore.
Some builds would actually work decently in TC and others not at all, even the decent builds went from good to blah rather quickly but still worked fine on my other mods. Really this was frustrating and I normally keep trying but it seemed once I got it right, it went wrong quick. It would even kick me out of TC and back to power mode at 20 watts, not all the time but enough to piss me off.
One thing that I am sure contributes to the inconsistent TC is it reads ohms low. Almost a consistent 0.02 off but sometimes as much as 0.05, you need accuracy in ohm readings for a consistent TC vape and it fails there.
Fine mod for power but don't get this expecting a good consistent TC vape unless you enjoy frustration.
Battery life
The first few days with the brushed SS the battery life was good until it started acting up. With the green Tessera I really felt as if it didn't last as long, I could not go a while day without charging a second time. This was vaping in the 50 watt range, not like I was running a TFV12 full bore all day, I did try that though, not recommended.
The battery does charge up fairly quickly, I timed it at an hour and a half to fully charge from 0% which isn't lightning fast but also not bad. That was with a 2amp charger, if using a lesser charge adapter expect longer charge times.
The stated mah for the internal battery is only 3400 but in use it was better than I was expecting. Got much better battery life that a single battery mode using a 3000 mah 18650.
Passthrough charging works, had to use it a few times in the car. The mod will get pretty warm while charging though, I always unplugged it whenever I got out of the car.
Specs:
Tessera mod:
- 83mm H x 42.5mm W x 30mm D (510 area 25mm)
- 169 grams weight
- 1 to 150 watts
- Output voltage: 0.5-8V
- Output mode: VW/RTC/TC(Ni/Ti/SS/TCR)
- Resistance range: 0.05-1.0ohm (TC modes) 0.1-3.0ohm (VW/RTC mode)
- 3400mAh built in battery
Ello TS sub ohm tank:
- 4ml (2ml TPD version) I measured 5ml with a syringe
- HW2 Dual-Cylinder 0.3ohm Head (pre-installed)
- HW1 Single-Cylinder 0.2ohm Head
- Spare glass and o'rings
Sometimes you just get unlucky
I received the very good looking brushed stainless steel Tessera kit about 2 months ago. The first few days were great, so much so I took it as one of my mods to the ECC show. That night as I was having drinks with a friend and fellow reviewer it kept shutting off on me. I would turn it back on and then a few puffs and again, it was off. I had to look and see what was happening and it turns out it was going into overheat protection. I was running the ELLO TS tank it comes with at only 45 watts so this was odd. My friend has the same mod with him, the sweet looking red version and his was fine.
The next day I tried different tanks and sometimes it was fine but other times it went into overheat protection again. I checked with another friend who had the same kit and his was working fine so I contacted Eleaf about getting a replacement. A month later I had the sexy green Tessera in hand and have been using it since without incident.
I only bring this up as sometimes reviewers get pre production samples, that was the case with me. If not for confirmation that I was alone in my problem from the small sample size I talked with it gave me confidence to give them a second chance. It is easy to slam a company but sometimes you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I still wanted to relay my experience though to try and be as transparent as possible.
Tessera mod
My first thought when receiving the Tessera was wow, this is a departure from Eleaf's normal design style....I like it. I was very impressed with the brushed stainless steel finish and the green....oh yeah, it is a sexy little mod with an automotive type finish. I am hoping this is the direction Eleaf will go on future mods as the fit and finish is very nice.
The build quality is impressive with a few exceptions, not crazy about how the back feels hollow when you tap on it and the screen scratches easily if you remove the screen protector. My silver didn't come with a screen protector, it is scratched up but the green did so it still looks good. I do get some rattle from the silver but hardly any from the green. The fire back has a nice tactile click to it and easy to fire with either your fingers of palm, whichever way you hold it it is easy to fire. Not crazy about the up/down and mode buttons though, they feel loose and with the mode button so close to the others if you have fat thumbs that can be annoying.
The screen is excellent, bright and easy to see under any lighting conditions.
The menu is pretty easy to navigate and made much easier by the 1.45inch TFT Color Display.
The mod is over 30mm but don't think that means you can fit a 30mm tank on it, it gets that dimension from the bulging screen and back plate. Here is a 28mm Vandy Vape Triple RTA to give you an idea of how it fits.
The 510 is mounted from underneath so no possibility of it coming off with your tank....hello Predator....haha
All in I like the look of the Tessera, I thought the brushed stainless steel was nice until I saw my friends red and now the green....hubba hubba, good looking mod for sure.
Power performance
Even though it is not what I would say mind blowing in regards to power mode it is still pretty damn good. No lag when hitting the fire button, it fires right up and seemed fairly accurate comparing it to my DNA and Yihi mods. One thing that surprised me when trying to run the battery all the way down was how it was still giving me the full 100 watts all the way until it told me to charge, impressive.
There is a preheat function which seemed to work well but it is not the style I prefer. The preheat it set by choosing the power up to 150 watts and duration from 0 to 2 seconds. If your only using one tank with the same coil all the time then that is fine, set it and forget it. I don't know about you but I use a lot of different tanks though and each can require different amounts of power. I have done it in the past where I am running a high watt tanks with my preheat set high then switch to a lower watt tank and forget to change my preheat....talk about burning esophagus. That is why I prefer a percentage based preheat like Yihi, Smoant and a few others include. A preheat that gives a boost based on the watts you are running at, say it is a 20% boost, that means if you are running at 100 watts it will give you a preheat of 120 watts for the first second or so. Change a tank and lower the watts to say 50 and that same percentage based preheat at 20% will then fire at 60 watts, really helps and saves a step.
One thing I wanted to mention that is a pet peeve of mine is the power steps. With the Tessera starting from 1 to 20 watts the steps in between are 0.1 watts which is fine to fine tune for MTL and low wattage vapers. After 20 watts though the Tessera goes into 1 watt increments which is great and makes for quicker adjustments. If your like me I like to end on an even number, hate mods that land at 54.6 watts, I want 55 dammit...yeah, the OCD is strong with me.
TC Performance
The ELLO TS tank comes with a HW1 coil which is SS so works in TC but I had not gotten to it yet and just coiled up an RDA with a fresh SS316L simple single wire build. My first impressions were good, this is decent TC performance so I was happy for a little bit. It didn't last long though, thought made the juice I was using was clogging up the coils quick. I then took that same RDA and tossed it on a DNA mod....ahhhhh good TC is back. It did have me scratching my head but figured hmmm, let's try something else. RTA with a fresh dual SS316L parallel clapton build, a build I am very familiar with. Performance was so so to say the least, back on the DNA and yep, working fine. I then began to mess with the TCR values but when I got to 138 which is the TCR for SS430 and it still sucked I figured why bother trying anymore.
Some builds would actually work decently in TC and others not at all, even the decent builds went from good to blah rather quickly but still worked fine on my other mods. Really this was frustrating and I normally keep trying but it seemed once I got it right, it went wrong quick. It would even kick me out of TC and back to power mode at 20 watts, not all the time but enough to piss me off.
One thing that I am sure contributes to the inconsistent TC is it reads ohms low. Almost a consistent 0.02 off but sometimes as much as 0.05, you need accuracy in ohm readings for a consistent TC vape and it fails there.
Fine mod for power but don't get this expecting a good consistent TC vape unless you enjoy frustration.
Battery life
The first few days with the brushed SS the battery life was good until it started acting up. With the green Tessera I really felt as if it didn't last as long, I could not go a while day without charging a second time. This was vaping in the 50 watt range, not like I was running a TFV12 full bore all day, I did try that though, not recommended.
The battery does charge up fairly quickly, I timed it at an hour and a half to fully charge from 0% which isn't lightning fast but also not bad. That was with a 2amp charger, if using a lesser charge adapter expect longer charge times.
The stated mah for the internal battery is only 3400 but in use it was better than I was expecting. Got much better battery life that a single battery mode using a 3000 mah 18650.
Passthrough charging works, had to use it a few times in the car. The mod will get pretty warm while charging though, I always unplugged it whenever I got out of the car.
