IJOY Captain AirGo Review: A Rugged Vape for Beginners

Product intro and specs

The Captain AirGo is the latest pod AIO by IJOY, a company that’s been around for quite some time, but hasn’t been as active as other vape companies lately. I haven’t gotten one of their products to review in a long time, so I was interested to see how they were doing these days.

The AirGo Pod is a pod system in a medium-sized package, made for MTL vaping. Its internal battery is listed at 930 mAh and uses a fire button with an inhale to fire option as well. It comes with refillable 5.5 mL pods and there’s only one coil option available at the moment—a 0.8-ohm mesh coil.

Price: Out of stock

Colors: Black with black leather, black with orange leather, silver with red leather, and more.

Build quality and design

The AirGo is not one of those tiny pod vapes, but it’s still pretty pocketable at about the size of a stack of credit cards. It measures 88 mm x 50 mm x 14 mm. The reason for the size though is the large internal battery and the fact it’s IP68 rated for water, dust, and shock resistance. The design looks like it takes inspiration from the Geekvape Aegis line of mods. It’s available in six colors. I received the black with black leather edition, which comes with a soft non-slip silica gel covering.

The device is extremely simple with a one-button layout. The fire button is placed at the top of the front side, right above the USB-C port. Branding is almost completely hidden, with a “Captain” etched on one side of the device that really blends in. All in all, it’s really a good-looking and durable pod system, with plenty of color options to pick from.

Getting started

Using the IJOY AirGo is pretty straightforward. I really like the concept here; everything is uniform, making it a great choice for a beginner vape. There is only one coil option, the device is locked into a fixed output, and there is only one button. The main control is the fire button. You can click it five times to turn it on or off and you can choose to use the button or just inhale to fire.

The AirGo comes with only one pod in the package, which I'm not a fan of. All pod vapes should always include two coils. There is no adjustable air or any settings to play with. Refilling a pod is really easy. It uses a standard rubber plug fill method located on the bottom of the pod. The pod rests on top of the device, so it is almost fully exposed which is nice. However, they did make the pod dark-tinted which can make it hard to see your juice level at times. I’m not a fan of tinted pods—I get it for looks, but clear pods are much more functional.

To remove the pod, just push on the back of it and the front will hinge on the body, making it easy to grab. It’s held in by strong magnets and they fit in great with no wiggle or play. When putting it back in, start with the front side where it hinges, then let it go and the magnets will snap it back in.

The coils are plug-n-play. To replace a coil, remove the pod and just pull the coil out from the bottom and pop in a new one. The coil is placed at the side of the pod, so it can be replaced with the pod being around 75% full. Overall, a very easy to use pod system as it should be.

Performance

I like how IJOY kept things simple with the coils. There is one coil option only which is a 0.8-ohm mesh coil. The device itself is locked into a 3.5-3.6V output so all hits are the same (15-16 watts). Another thing I like is that they claim 16-22 mL per coil as the lifespan on their website. I’ve been measuring coils by mL for a while and it’s nice to see some companies starting to do the same. That’s essentially 3-4 fills due to the large capacity, and 20 mL is about what I’d expect from a good coil in this watt range.

I used 50/50 VG/PG nic salt juices in it. It sadly only comes with one coil, but I was sent extra kits so was able to test two coils. As far as flavor goes, they performed well for a pod coil—no complaints there at all. The lifespan of the coils wound up much better than what they claim on their site. I got seven fills out of the one coil and eight fills out of the other. So about 38-44 mL per coil, which is much more than I expect out of a 15-watt coil. Really good coils for a pod system.

Battery life and charging

The Captain AirGo It comes with an internal battery listed at 930 mAh. IJOY lists the charge rate at 1.5A and the port is USB-C. I tested all this and for the charge rate I got max 1.24A so good rating there. It was rounded up a bit, but more than good enough. They don’t list a full charge time, but I tested it at around 58 minutes, which is very good for the battery size.

For battery capacity, I got 823 mAh, which is close enough. It’s not uncommon for companies to overrate battery sizes. It’s to the point where I expect them to be overstated by 15-20% every time and this one is under that, at about 12%.

I do want to point out one thing as well to be fair. A company could use a battery listed at 3000 mAh from a manufacturer, but those ratings could be slightly overstated. Then, on top of that, it matters when a device considers a battery dead, aka the “soft cell cut-off”. A higher soft cell cut-off gives you less usable mAh as well. Those two factors combined are why you’ll often see overrated battery specs on internal battery devices.

The USB-C port is located on the front of the pod underneath a plug. The battery meter is a standard pinhole LED with three steps.

They did add a cool feature to check the charge level. Most devices only let you check when vaping, but with the AirGo you can tap fire twice and it’ll display the charge. I’d really like a fourth step, but nobody does that so it’s hard to ding them for it. It’s a very standard meter with an easier way to check it. Finally, the AirGo does have passthrough vaping so you can vape while it charges.

IP68 testing

For the IP68 rating, I submerged the device for 30 minutes with the device turned on (no pod attached.) Upon taking it out, I did have some minor issues. I dried it off, but the air sensor was stuck on causing an auto fire at first. After letting it dry out (about 10 mins) the air sensor stopped working, but I was able to use it via the fire button. Then about 20 or so minutes later, the air sensor started working again and it was back to normal. So, while it can survive water, try not to submerge it—and if you do, let it dry out really well before using it. I’ll give it a borderline pass for this.

For the shock test, I dropped it several times from six feet onto a hard floor with no issues. Threw it up in the air several times as well and spun it so it would land randomly. The device suffered no noticeable physical damage and continued to work with no issues. So again, another pass.

Pros / Cons

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Verdict