The industry standard for electronic cigarette batteries is now the automatic model, but for a long time manual batteries we’re also very popular and are usually still offered by many e-cig makers. Many advanced users would prefer the manual batteries, as it gave them more control over their vaping. Let’s go over both battery types and their respective characteristics.
Automatic Electronic Cigarette Battery
The automatic e-cig battery type is the simplest to use. It activates as you puff and stops at the same time you stop sucking air in. It’s pretty much what would resemble the closest to an analogue cigarette and has become the most popular battery in e-cigarette type vaporizers.
Manual Electronic Cigarette Battery
The manual type e-cig battery is not complicated either, however to activate the heating atomizer, you must press down on a button, hence it operating manually. When you press the button, the heating element activates and you can puff in vapor, and stops as soon as you depress it.
What difference does it make to use manual or automatic batteries?
To answer the question, it’s best to go back a few years and explain how the two batteries operated. Manual batteries became popular by many for a few reasons. Firstly, manual batteries allowed you to take very long drags, for bigger vapor puffs. Automatic batteries often have a shutoff after x amount of seconds as a security fail-safe. Early on, the delay was often too short, as short as 3-5 seconds. Many users of electronic cigarettes wanted a bigger throat hit and we’re not attaining it with automatic e-cig batteries, hence the manual models we’re selling more.
Nowadays, automatic batteries will go for 7-8 or more seconds before the automatic shut off, and that is usually enough for a very large vapor cloud. The improvements have made manual batteries less favorable, as you would always have to press down to operate the small compact e-cig. Additionally, using the automatic battery provides a closer experience to a real cigarette.
There’s other factors in play that do advantage manual batteries as well. The biggest advantage we think manual batteries have is that you can more effectively avoid e-liquid dripping onto your lips. By drawing all the vapor out after releasing the button, it ensures nothing is left to condense. Automatic batteries are more prone to e-liquid drips forming, but there’s little danger, just a bad taste left on your lips!
E-Cigarettes are also known for needing to be primed, or heated up in simple English. The atomizer needs a couple of small puffs to quickly raise in temperature and produce maximized vapor. With the manual battery, you can simply hold the button down for a few seconds before taking your first puff. A small difference, but it can be a big preference for many. Those who want the largest possible puffs will go with a manual battery to be able to have control over heating the element for a long time before taking a large puff, but overall, the difference is minimal as overheating the atomizer will have a negative effect as well.
Conclusion – Automatic or Manual E-Cig Battery?
There is no absolute winner, however with the current state of automatic batteries offered by the best e-cig makers, it is safe to say that most will prefer the automatic e-cig. It’s user-friendly and many would grow tired of having to press down to vape. E-cigarette users usually prefer the automatic batteries nowadays over manual ones because they do allow for fairly long puffs and don’t have as many restrictions as they used to. Manual e-cig batteries still have their place none the less, there are the advantages we listed above that will please a specific crowd, and to this day remain a popular choice. If you look at the best personal vaporizers of 2014, all of those devices operate using power buttons. In the end, it really is a question of preference and trying both may find you liking both as well. Sometimes, you don’t have to pick sides, I myself adore manual batteries but really don’t mind automatics either.