Product intro and specs
The Ursa Mini is the latest AIO kit by Lost Vape, a company best known for making some of the best mods in vaping with their DNA-powered mods. In the last couple of years, they have been making their more affordable Quest line, as well as some pod systems.
The Ursa Mini is a follow-up to their Ursa Quest Multi which I reviewed recently. It is a smaller version of it in an AIO design, and it is made predominantly for MTL vaping but can do some low-wattage DL vaping as well. It uses an internal battery rated at 1200 mAh and has a full screen and adjustable watts. It comes as a kit with a proprietary pod tank that has a 3 mL capacity.
Price: $14.99 (at Element Vape)
Colors: Dark knight, crystal cream, glitter ocean, phantom purple, phantom red, and more.
Build quality and design
The Ursa Mini is a very small AIO system that’s very pocketable. It has a similar form factor to the many we’ve seen of this style, like the Freemax Marvos 60W and the Vaporesso LUXE 80. It basically looks like a pen-style mod with a casing around it. It’s unique for sure and looks great.
This is a very lightweight kit with a zinc alloy and stainless-steel body, but still feels durable enough for everyday use. It stands at 107.2 mm x 26 mm x 30.7 mm, not much bigger than an advanced pod device. I received the Phantom Green color of their options. Unlike many of these kits where the color options are very similar to each other, these color options are all varied and different. The Phantom designs are made out of two colors fading into each other. My unit has an orange bottom that fades up into a seafoam green, while the non-Phantom ones boast a frame in one color and a body with a design on it in another. They are really great-looking devices and the paint seems to be holding up great as I’ve experienced no paint chipping or issues with it at all.
At the front of the device, you have a basic 0.69-inch black and white rectangular screen, reminiscent of the old DNA mods. I really would have liked a nicer color screen on this device as everything else looks and feels premium. The screen looks a little dated and out of place. Branding is very simple with two small “Lost Vape” and “Ursa Mini” logos, one on each side of the frame, and a small “V” logo on one side of the body. All in all, it’s a really good-looking device that I just wish had a color screen.
Getting started
The Ursa Mini is a pretty simple AIO system to use. There are three buttons on this device; fire, up, and down. Basic operations are as follows:
- Click fire five times to turn it on or off.
- Use up and down to adjust wattage.
- Hold up and fire to lock the adjustment buttons (mod will still fire).
- Hold down and fire to reset the puff counter.
The screen displays the wattage, a puff counter, a battery meter, resistance, and a puff timer. There are no modes or menus on this device.
The Ursa comes with a proprietary tank which isn’t named anywhere so I’ll call it the Ursa Mini pod tank. It’s held in place by magnets and pops in and out. To adjust the airflow, there is a dial on the side. The dial is smooth and has a stopper, making it really easy to adjust. It has a small, medium, large, and extra-large hole, allowing from a restricted DL down to a solid MTL vape. The included tank is a little too tinted for my taste, making it hard to see the juice level unless in really good lighting. I wish it would have been clear or a light tint instead. I get it’s done for style, but I prefer functionality first.
Coil replacement is very easy. It uses the same plug-n-play coils as we’ve seen on many of these devices. Just pull the coil out from the bottom and pop in a new one. Then put it back in and refill it. You do need to pretty much empty the pod before replacing the coil, but if you do it sideways a little juice can stay in there as well. One thing I really like though is, similar to the Freemax Marvos 60W I recently reviewed, the coil actually protrudes out a lot so is easy to grab and pull. Excellent job there for sure. This makes it a very easy to use beginner AIO system, as it should be.
Refilling the Ursa Mini pod tank is easy. Just remove the pod and there is a standard rubber plug on the bottom. Unplug it and fill through the fill hole. Nothing groundbreaking, but it’s a proven method for refilling these tanks. Overall, a pretty easy-to-use AIO pod system, with the added bonus of the coils being very easy to replace by hand.
Performance
The most important part of any pod device is going to be the coils—lots of nice systems have been ruined by poor coils. The Ursa Mini uses the UB lite mesh coil line. It comes with two coil options; a 0.4-ohm mesh rated for 20-30 watts, and a 1.0-ohm mesh rated for 10-15 watts. You can also buy the other options separately, which are a 0.8-ohm mesh coil rated 12-17 watts, and a 1.4-ohm mesh coil rated 8-10 watts.
For coil performance, I started with the 1.0-ohm coil and found it best at around 11 watts. The flavor was really good, and while I expected to go through about 10-15 mL of juice before it died, I was able to get double that with 30 mL. So it had a really good flavor and life.
Then I went on to the 0.4-ohm coil and found it best around 20 watts. Personally, I find this 20-30 watt range kind of a no man’s land, as it’s too high for using strong nic salts and too low for using standard juice. So, I usually test both. I filled a tank with 24 mg nic salts at 18 watts and it was meh. Then I switched to a more DL setup and found it best around 21 watts using 70/30 3 mg juice. Flavor was still meh at best and it only lasted about 20 mL.
Overall, really good performance from the MTL coil, but not so good from the DTL coil—which is fine, as this kit is best suited for MTL vaping in my opinion.
Battery life and charging
Lost Vape list the device with an internal battery rated at 1200 mAh, but I couldn’t find a charge rate listed anywhere. That’s disappointing as companies should always list a charge rate. During my testing, the max charge rate I got was 0.91A, which is more than good enough for a device like this and should be listed at 1A. I hope they do list it soon, as people should know what they are buying. It does allow for passthrough vaping as well so you can vape while it charges.
The Type-C port is located at the bottom of the device, which typically I'm not a fan of for devices like this—I like it to be in a spot where the device can still stand up. I timed a full charge at 1 hour and 37 mins, which is not bad but not great. For battery size, I got a usable 1190 mAh. Now it’s not uncommon for companies to overrate battery sizes. It’s to the point where I expect them to be overstated by 20% every time. This one though is dead on, so great rating on the battery size.
Pros / Cons
Gallery
Verdict
Overall, Lost Vape did a good job with this device. It serves as a smaller MTL version of the Ursa Quest Multi kit they released earlier this year. It’s a great device for beginner vapers who want something more substantial than a pod but nothing too big or bulky, or for MTL vapers who want an on-the-go kit. It’s a really good choice for MTL vaping on a pod AIO, especially since most similar devices are made for a restricted DL. So, if you are a MTL vaper and want a kit like this, you won’t be disappointed.
We’d like to hear from you. Have you tried the Lost Vape Ursa Mini kit? How was your experience with the device? Let us know in the comments below.
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