Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA Review by Pugsley

’There’s one in every family’

Ever since I was a child I have heard this muttered in my general direction more times than I care to remember, try and hide your surprise, it’s not like I went out of my way to be the black sheep of my family, yet…nature chose me to be the one who carried our family’s torch for all those who appeared to be a little…different.

I don’t mean in a particularly evil way either, I wasn’t prone to kicking puppies or pissing in my sister’s wardrobe…the latter came much later when I discovered drinking, but…if there was ever a situation requiring a degree of seriousness, or a united family front, coming together to support other family members in a time of dire crisis then…the stern request of ‘Keep him in the fucking car’…was quite often spoken. Was it justified?..Possibly, although I was always sure to be understanding in such a situation… even at that age…

Yet, because of this biological affliction, I find myself quite attracted to anything that is a little ‘wayward’. It’s almost as though I feel a kindred affiliation with the ‘alternative’…SO…it really came as no surprise that when I learned about the item I am reviewing today, I was instantly smitten…not at first you understand, this thing is after all 18 months old, which in vape terms is a lifetime, and in reviewing terms is even longer than that. But once I learned that this particular device was different to anything else that a company synonymous with ‘not straying from the path’ actually do…well…

Had to see it…call me fickle…don’t…if you do I’ll kick the crap out of your puppy. Shall we…

Welcome back once again my pondering little plume puppies, back again with more of the same, except not quite. Same but different. Same manufacturer that I’ve been fixated with lately, yet…different for them, which is particularly infuriating for me given that a few weeks ago I was singing their praises for never faltering from their course, but hey…I’m not perfect after all…who’d o’ thought it…

No need to be rude. SO! The manufacturer is of course Steam Crave, and to say I’m currently riding the Steam Crave steam train is sugar coating the shit out of it. I quite simply cannot get enough. In fact, I already have three of their devices lined up for review in the coming weeks, happy fucking days…but…today, today is a different day, because today I am reviewing one of their devices that – to all intents and purposes – could well have been made by someone else. And like I said, this item has been cherry picked from their back catalogue, being released early last year…I’m nothing if not punctual, and I do enjoy randomly dropping in with a review for an older device with all the grace and elegance of a true professional…

So without further ado, let us get into the thick of it, and I do mean thick – I would even go as far as to say ‘girthy’ -with the ‘awkward step-son’ of the Steam Crave family…Courtesy of my new friends over at Healthcabin …the Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA 

Now, there will be those of you out there who have already met this wayward upstart, but I’m going to continue this review as if that’s not the case, because, well…I’ve only just met it, and to me…I’m all that matters (dick). And even if you have heard about it, and watched/read reviews on it, but didn’t actually pull the trigger on one, maybe it’s high time you took another look, because let’s face it…the Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA is no munter.

But the best reason for a re-visit I shall come to a little later. For now, let us grab a hold of this girthy gargantuan, and test its metal.

The Lowdown

The Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA is a 31mm tank (31!..that’s…more than 30!) with a dual coil postless build deck and a 7ml (10ml with bubble glass) juice capacity. Now…I know that doesn’t sound like a lot when compared to the newer Steam Crave tanks…the Plus V2 for example can, in it’s fully erect state (ahem), take a whopping 28ml, and…that’s only a 30mm tank. But forget what you know, because believe me this tank has NOTHING to do with any other Steam Crave tank on the market – except obviously the newer Glaz mini MTL RTA which, it would appear, has completely replaced its big brother on Steam Crave‘s own site. For that reason alone, I can only imagine the Glaz V2’s days are indeed numbered…more reasons to read ahead, so…you’ve seen the numbers, now let’s take a look at just what makes this troubled teenager so very different from the rest. We’ll start at the top…

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Shittest drip tip ever!..I’ll just throw that out there. Thankfully, in the 18 months or so since this was released Steam Crave seem to have learnt this particular lesson, and their newer stuff has had some serious attention thrown at it in that particular area. But this?..This is shite. For a start, it’s not 810 – it’s a smidge bigger, which I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with if the tip itself was a worthy crown for such a beautiful piece of vape jewellery, but alas…it’s thin plastic and incredibly cheap looking. Thankfully, out of the 50 or so tips in my stash, I did find a couple that happened to fit with an extra O-ring, so…throw this shit in the bin…and do that.

Also around the top we have Steam Crave’s signature engraving…

Just in case you forgot who it was you were actually sucking on, which is apparently a problem for some people… Now…here cometh the first oddity!..I for one, am a huge fan of Steam Crave’s top fill system; 2 massive kidney shaped fill ports, heavily recessed into the top. But the Glaz’s ‘I’ll do what the fuck I want’ awkward adolescent approach to everything completely does away with it, and instead, we go a little ‘Wismec’…

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The Steam Crave Glaz Mini MTL tank thankfully does not have this. I say ‘thankfully’…because I fucking hate it, sure…the opening and closing mechanism and tension are absolutely perfect as you would expect from them, but fuck me sideways I’ve never warmed to this ideas. It is fraught with issues. Firstly, if you’re using a Chubby bottle you have to take off the drip tip to get your bottle close enough, and secondly, when you do, the hole is barely big enough to get your tip in…hey, I’ve been an awkward teenager…I know how much of a problem that is…

Moving swiftly on… To add insult to this adolescent injury, there isn’t…as far as I can tell…a pressure release hole, meaning, the air will come out of the same hole you are pushing your liquid into…LOOK…there are just simply too many innuendos I can use to describe what’s going on here okay!..Just…grow the fuck up ffs… Where was I…?Yes…this can be a messy issue, and also, the rubber grommets they tend to use in this kind of system can get kinked up and stuck in the top cap when you close it. I had this thing throw its entire contents out through the airflow twice just because the rubber grommet had got snagged up and air was getting in, so there I was, with a terrible wet mess all over my jeans, and all down to a split rubber…Oh fuck off. Moving down we come to the glass of the Glaz. Out of the box you have the 7ml straight glass already installed, but as the bubble glass is included, and I fucking love my bubbles, it was the first thing to go – followed closely by the drip tip.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, well this window is the window to another window…

Deep indeed, right to the core of things in fact. And here…is where you will find the very reason this tank is called The Glaz…even though it’s not spelt properly…but we’ll overlook that, maybe it’s just its nickname used by the other tanks…like…Gaz…anyway, you don’t need to be eagle eyed cherry to see that what we have here is a little ‘unique’…a glass chimney with the build deck on view?..What is this fuckery??..Well…it’s essentially this…

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Now I never had the V1, but I have friends who did and I have read their reviews and done a little research. There are two main differences here which were upgraded in the V2. Firstly, the interior has been upgraded for strength by including those SS reinforced ‘struts’ running up along the inside of the glass, I would imagine that if you dropped the V1 on it’s head – which didn’t have these – all that glass would just crush in on itself quite easily. And secondly, the glass is no longer threaded…I mean that’s just a bad idea all around anyway, so it’s nice to see common sense take a good turn for a change. Which brings us next to the visible build deck…

\Unlike anything that Steam Crave have done before, there’s no ‘pop out’ from the bottom affair like on all their other tanks, and there’s no second option either. If anything, this time it’s done in the same way as any other tank out there, screw off the bottom and the whole thing is detachable without the need to drain your tank…it’s…‘familiar’…however the deck it’s self is anything but. I believe one of the complaints from the V1 was a lack of juice flow, and this has been addressed by leaving the bottom of the juice channels open instead of having 2 small holes for your juice to squeeze through, allowing more flow to feed your wicks. There is still a ‘ledge’ around the bottom for your wick ends to sit against, but for the best part it’s gaping. Building on this ‘X’ shaped postless deck is just as simple as any other postless deck, and all the tools for the job are included. Steam Crave tend to get some flack for their use of tiny hex screws, but to be perfectly honest I’ve never had an issue with them – I find them easier to use, and as long as you don’t over tighten them then you shouldn’t round them. I’ve never had one round on me yet, but if they’re a real bugbear for you, then they have included some spare standard flat-head grub screws in the box.

There’s enough room in there for a pretty serious build too, and wicking is also relatively straight forward – give your tails a good comb through, and tuck the ends into the juice channels, just be sure not to over, or under stuff them. There’s always a ‘Goldilocks’ zone with this kind of thing, but it’s not difficult to get right, and of course it’s always a good idea to prime your wicks prior to screwing it all back together again…

Then simply screw it all back together, get in a terrible mess filling it up, and you can then see the Glaz in all its transparent glory…which I have to say, is rather beautiful…I almost got a bit teary…

The downside being…it unfortunately doesn’t stay this way because as soon as you start using the thing, the insides just get coated in condensation making visibility a short lived treat.

May I suggest Steam Crave…that you invent some kind of miniature windscreen wiper system, so I can enjoy an uninterrupted view? You can have that idea for free, but you must name it the ‘Pugscreen wiper’ …that’s my only stipulation.

Steam Crave fans will have undoubtedly noticed the lack of one thing which you normally find on all of their tanks and that’s the juice flow control. No such witchcraft here I’m afraid, I’m guessing it’s just not needed due to the difference in the top fill method, it appears to hold it’s own pretty well without it, for a time anyway. As I mentioned earlier, this will leak like a sonofabitch if any air can get in through the top for any length of time, but for filling purposes it seems fine, however…one little advantage I have noticed with the juice flow control came to me almost by accident, and it happened on the odd occasion that I forgot to re-open it after filling. Like most people out there I tend to not vape the same flavour continuously, so…if you close the flow, then refill with a different flavour, then leave it closed and carry on vaping until you feel that first ‘twang’ of dryness…and then open the flow, you can pretty much get away with completely changing the flavours without the two mixing together…this has now become the norm for me, and thus…I have become a big fan of this juice flow control. So, I’m a tad upset that this tank doesn’t have it, but…I really can’t see how it could work in this with the way the interior is put together…so that’s a pretty pointless thing for me to mention…and ends up just being…a lot of words (shrugs). And finally…we have the airflow…

Once again, utterly different to anything Steam Crave normally do, and…compared to the majority of their tanks, it’s a tad more on the restricted side. Not super restricted though, far from it, but I do have this fully open all the time, whereas with their other tanks I tend to have them set on half. If I had to guess…if you compared this to, say, the Aromamizer Plus V2 and had them both on full bore, the Glaz is about half of the Aromamizer in terms of restrictedness. It’s more than enough for the intended purpose, and we’ll come to the ‘Why?’ at the end, however…due to the honeycomb configuration it is, as you would imagine… silky smooth. But…as is always the case with Steam Crave…the tension on the AFC, as well as anything else that moves on this thing, is absolutely perfect, and I have to admit, I like it so much that I adjust it just for that special feeling it gives me…don’t judge.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on the Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA would be thus: As I said earlier, forget what you know, do not bag one of these and expect it to behave and look like a standard Steam Crave product because it is a totally different animal. Yes…the manufacturing, the engineering, and all those lovely things you come to expect from Steam Crave are apparent, the machining is flawless as is always the case. But what sets the Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA apart from the rest of its family can be summed up in one word…

Is there any other image that purveys that word quite so well…I don’t think there is. ‘But all Steam Crave tanks have exceptional flavour’…you might well say, and you’d be right, they do. In fact I don’t know a Steam Crave tank that doesn’t…but the Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA manages to raise that bar ever so slightly higher, and that’s all down to that glass chamber. Why?..How the fuck do I know!!..But what I can tell you is that the glass chamber appears to not grab any flavour back like a stainless steel one does. You can literally pick out every nuance from every flavour in your liquid because of it. Was that intentional…or was it just an exercise in making something that looks cool?..Who knows? But whatever the reason this came into being, I for one…am very glad that it did.

It’s not without it quirks though, that top-fill is a pain in the ass on the best of days, and don’t even get me started on the drip tip, but you can put up with both of those once you find out just what the Glaz is all about…it’s simply… that good. Yes…it’s 31mm, so you’ll have to be choosy with what mod you can find to power it, but if you’re thinking of buying one then that decision will no doubt have already been made.

And yes, it’s slightly more restricted than you would be used to if you’re a devout Steam Crave fan, but again…that only helps the flavour. The last thing you want to do is pump a whole lotta air through this thing and ruin the entire experience, so they have taken away that option, and I agree with that decision 100%…I love airy tanks, and this does me fine. And then of course there’s the way it looks…

Its simplistic and no nonsense approach to aesthetics, with its ample amount of brushed stainless and a knurled AFC, is in my opinion one of the best looking girthier tanks around…I mean just look at it…so sexy. And then there’s the other points – it’s easy to build on and wick, it’s heavy in a good way, it comes with a comprehensive package of spares and the fact that you can see your coils (sometimes)…is rather cool. But…that’s not the best bit, although…the best bit is also the worst bit…

The Price

Now, at time of writing Healthcabin currently have this on sale for £16.50 / $21.80 if you opt for the black or the gunmetal. Already a fucking bargain, BUT…if you go for the brushed stainless, which in my opinion is by far the best looking one, that is currently at a discounted rate of £14.93 / $19.56 (I can literally hear the sound of kids being kicked off their parents’ computer right now in a vape budget panic frenzy). Find that deal by clicking this link…

Steam Crave Glaz V2 RTA – Healthcabin 

A special thanks to healthcabin for providing this device for review.

For those that have seen this through to the end, this is the part where I like to pimp myself and my good friends out by telling you how fucking fantastic we are and what we’re up to, so…BIG THINGS COMING…. Firstly, there’s our calculator. It’s getting a serious following now, but we’ve completely lost Grubby to this thing, day and night the man is obsessed with coding for what is coming next. It’s…fucking…amazing, so…look out for the changes that are coming very soon here…

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This interesting review was written by Pugsley from vapingcommunity, click to view original review there with more pictures and GIF.