Product intro and specs
The ARGUS MT and XT are the latest box mods to be released by VOOPOO, a company that burst onto the scene to instant popularity with their DRAG mod and never looked back. Since then, I’ve reviewed about a dozen or so of their products, and it’s been mostly up and down. While the DRAG 2 felt outdated at release time, some products like the DRAG Baby Trio went quietly unnoticed despite being fantastic.
Today, I’m reviewing two very similar kits. The main difference between the two devices is that the MT features a built-in battery listed at 3000 mAh, while the XT comes with no battery and is compatible with 21700, 20700, and 18650 batteries (18650s fit with the included adapter).
Both mods are rated at 100 watts and feature a few power modes and a TC mode. The mods are IP68-rated and seem like a direct competitor for the Geekvape S100 I recently reviewed. The kits come with the MAAT TANK NEW, which is an updated version of their 2019 MAAT sub ohm tank.
Price: TBA
Colors: (Both) graphite, dark blue, lime green, carbon fiber / MT: pearl white / XT: silver gray.
- Material: Leather/zinc alloy
- Output power: 5-100 watts
- Output voltage: 0-8.5 volts
- Resistance range: 0.05-3.0 ohm
- Charging voltage: Type-C 5V/3A
- Battery: (XT) 1 x 21700/18650 / (MT) 3000 mAh (built-In)
- 1 x MAAT TANK NEW (6.5 mL)
- 2 x Coils (XT: TPP DM1 / TPP DM2) / (MT: TPP DM2 / TPP DM4)
- 1 x Type-C cable
- 1 x User manual
- 1 x Glass container
- 1 x Silicon rubber pack
First impressions
I’ve reviewed a lot of IP-rated mods over the years, and off the bat, these reminded me of a Geekvape Aegis mod—which is a good thing, as the Aegis line of mods is fantastic. One thing that stood out on these ones for me however is that the body isn’t covered in rubber and the pearl white MT I got looks fantastic in a clean way. In the right light, it has almost a chameleon sparkle on the paint.
The mods feel lightweight, but the build quality is excellent. The leather feels thick and substantial but still soft to the touch. The bottoms are rubberized to prevent tipping on the MT, while the XT has a metal bottom for the battery door. Suffice it to say, overall I was pretty impressed with the looks and feel of these devices—but let's see how they work!
Build quality and design
Anyone who has used an Aegis mod will be pretty familiar with the ARGUS MT and XT devices. They are very light for rugged IP68-rated mods and not too bulky at all, with the XT being slightly larger. Above the screen is the fire button which is a rectangle with an indent in the middle. The button has a little bit of a rattle on the XT but not on the MT.
Below the screen are the up and down buttons and further below is the Type-C charging port. Both mods also offer a lock switch. The main difference is with the XT you get a larger switch above the fire button with three stages (right locks the adjustment buttons but can fire, left locks the device, and middle is no lock,) while the MT features a smaller switch under the screen with two positions (lock with no fire and no lock). I would have liked the three-step switch on both.
Both devices come with nice and bright rectangular screens that seem to be roughly one inch. You can't change the color (each mode has its own color.) Also, not sure if I have an early firmware or something, but both screens stay permanently on when the device is on and don’t go into sleep like other VOOPOO devices. There is a display time, and I tried adjusting it, but it didn’t make a difference. The devices stay on and it does drain the battery life a bit.
Most of the color options are the same between the devices, except the MT has a pearl white option while the XT has a silver gray. For the MT I actually got the pearl white which looks fantastic. The tank is just silver though; a pearl white tank to match the MT I got would have been sleek as hell. The mod is all white with a nice kind of sparkle in the right light and has a white leather. Probably gets dirty easily but looks fantastic out of the box. Really love the look of it and would love to see more mods like it.
For the XT, I was sent the silver gray which features a matte and shiny silver body and a gray leather on the sides that becomes an army green on the back. It also looks good, but is similar to many rugged mods I've seen before so it doesn't stand out like the pearl white one. There is no silicon/rubber outside cover like we see on many of these mods, but I like that as it makes the color options more unique.
Branding wise they kept it very nice and simple. The metal frame on one side has a small GENE.TT logo, and engraved in the leather on the back is the ARGUS logo. Not overdone like they’ve done in the past with the DRAG mods. Overall, both mods look great, but the pearl white MT really stands out.
Features and functions
Both mods feature the same chip, specs, usage, etc. The mode labeling is weird though, and I wish it were more similar to what people are used to.
The mods have three power modes: Smart, RBA, and Turbo. All three are pretty similar. Turbo is just power but with a hard pre-heat, RBA is regular power mode, and Smart is regular power mode but supposed to automatically set the wattage. Since wattage is printed on coils, I find it pretty unnecessary. Just a regular power mode with pre-heats would have sufficed.
They also offer TC mode for Ni, Ti, SS, and three memory modes. That’s nice since many companies have been leaving TC off of new mods, but I didn’t get to test it due to time constraints. However, VOOPOO has historically been decent at TC, so I expect their TC modes to work well enough.
Using the ARGUS MT & XT
As far as the menu goes, navigation is pretty straightforward. Here is a quick rundown of the usage:
- Five clicks of the fire button to turn on and off.
- Press up and down to enter menu mode.
- Use up and down to cycle through modes and fire to accept.
- After selecting a mode, you can use up and down to adjust within the mode and fire to accept.
- Hold fire to exit menu mode.
- Fire and down resets the puffs.
- The switch on the front locks the mod (check the previous section for details).
Overall, very simple and easy to use with a good menu.
Power mode performance
Testing for this section was done with the MT and its internal battery. They only list two max outputs, watts at 100 and volts at 8.5. Amps aren’t listed on their site, and I do wish they included that as well.
During my testing, the max achieved wattage was 93, so their rating is close enough. The amp limit I got was 28 with a 0.11-ohm coil which is average for internal battery mods. The volt limit I got was 8.172+, and I say plus because I was hitting the watt limit with a 0.73-ohm coil. So, there is a boost circuit like all single-cell mods should have, and I'm sure it can hit the 8.5V listed with no problem if you use a higher-resistance coil. Either way, the volt limit will never be an issue, so good job there.
The mod tends to hit a little high overall, but its performance is very comparable to the Geekvape S100. Really good performance overall. I did test the XT a little to see if I’d get a little more out of using a good external 21700 battery, but the results were very similar. So based on that, the internal battery used is likely pretty good in its ability to put out max power while fully charged.
The mod did overheat at max wattage during my test, but I typically don’t recommend pushing single-cell mods to 100 watts anyway. There is one coil rated between 80-100 watts, but it’s really best at 80 watts and I had no issues with the 80-watt tests at all. In any case, I’d suggest using the other three coils, which will give you more battery life as well. Overall though, the mods perform very well in power mode.
Battery and IP68 testing
Testing for battery stats was done on the MT which uses an internal battery. They list the charge rate at 3A and the internal battery capacity at 3000 mAh. The max charge rate I got during my testing was 2.34A, but it was done with a standard cell phone brick which maxes out at 2-2.5A. You would need a specific charger to hit 3A, but I find it plausible and it’s still one of the fastest charges I've personally tested (if not the fastest).
For charge time I got about 80 minutes which is really good for the battery size. I also got a usable battery capacity of 2700 mAh. Most devices are overrated by about 20% due to a variety of reasons like soft cell cutoff and chipset limitations. This one is only 15% off, so their rating is fair. Weirdly though, it does not have passthrough vaping.
As far as being IP68, it passed easily as usual. No issues leaving them underwater for 30 minutes and no issues dropping the XT—I only performed the drop test on the XT as I didn’t want to possibly ruin the pearl white MT. Very happy with their durability and ruggedness.
MAAT TANK NEW tank rundown
So let's do a quick rundown of the tank. The tank included in the kit is the MAAT TANK NEW sub ohm tank, which is an updated version of the MAAT tank from 2019. It uses the TPP coils which are already compatible with a variety of tanks and pod tanks, so some may be familiar with them.
The tank is pretty basic. It’s a bottom airflow sub ohm tank with a large 6.5 mL capacity and a quarter twist top cap. The coils are plug-n-play and the drip tip is a standard Delrin 810 tip with an O-ring. The airflow doesn’t use the standard ring at the bottom of the tank but is adjusted through a slider which works well.
To replace the coils, you unscrew the base of the tank and pop them out. Thankfully, the coil is easy to grip and sticks out plenty, so it can be done by hand. The quarter twist fill is excellent. There are two large fill holes with flappers, but the flappers work well and there is plenty of room, so it’s really easy to fill.
There are four coil options in total (all mesh):
- TPP-DM1 0.15-ohm (60-80 watts)
- TPP-DM2 0.2-ohm (40-60 watts)
- TPP-DM3 0.15-ohm (80-100 watts)
- TPP-DM4 0.3 ohm (32-40 watts)
The two included with the MT kit were the DM2 and DM4, while the XT comes with the DM1 and the DM2. Three out of the four coils I tested felt a little overrated and were best at the lower end of their watt range.
Starting with the DM4 coil, it feels a little underpowered for the airflow and size of the tank. Flavor is pretty average and coil life is below average. Moving onto the DM2, flavor is better than the DM4 but still lacking compared to most good sub ohm coils these days. Coil life is right around average as well.
As for the DM1 coil that comes with the XT, I found it performed best around 75 watts. Flavor was just decent and coil life was, again, average. It was the best of the three coils I tried, but still a bit behind compared to the coils offered in better tanks.
Overall, the coils aren't bad, but also not up to today's standards. VOOPOO aren’t really known for their coils, so that’s not surprising. But in any case, you can only expect so much from an included tank in a kit, where most typically range from bad to just ok.
Pros / Cons
Gallery
Verdict
Overall, the ARGUS MT and XT are very good competitors for Geekvape’s Aegis line, and worthy of a look if you want a rugged mod. I can’t choose one over the other—both are great, so it comes down to how you feel about internal vs external batteries. As far as the MT goes, the internal battery performed great in my testing and is rated well by VOOPOO.
The MAAT TANK NEW it’s not that great, but to be fair most included tanks in kits really aren’t. So, as is the case with most kits, you’d be better off just getting the mod and buying a separate tank—or just using the tank as a backup if the kit is priced competitively. In any case, if you are in the market for a new rugged mod, give one of these a look for sure.
Let me know how you feel about the latest VOOPOO mods in the comments below!
