Created by a former Apple employee, the newly released Firefly vaporizer is a portable vape which has been creating a lot of buzz lately amongst the vaping community. After much ado, I’ve finally been able to get my hands on one and have spent the past few days playing around with it in order to come up with a comprehensive review. Priced similarly to the Davinci Ascent (which I’m a big fan of; see my review), I was eager to see how the Firefly would perform.

The Firefly arrived in slick packaging in a style similar to the Ascent, and unpacking was fairly easy. After removing the contents of my package, I noticed that alongside the unit came a battery, charger, carrying case, instructions, extra screens, and a brush. The unit had slightly larger dimensions compared to what I was anticipating, but it definitely feels very durable and is mostly made out of metal. However, this durable construction comes at the cost of making the Firefly quite heavy, and its definitely that heaviest portable vape that I’ve tried to date. It did fit comfortably in my jacket pocket as well as jeans, but it did weigh me down. The cleaning process is not very hard an involves keeping the bowl screen, faceplate, and mouthpiece clean (run a pipe cleaner through the mouthpiece from time to time).

On the left side of the Firefly, there’s an on/off switch, LED indicator, and charging port. On the right hand side there’s a button to activate the heating element, making for a simple and ergonomic design. The herb trench can fit about .3-.5 grams of herb comfortably, and it can be accessed by removing the magnetic metal faceplate (using ground bud is ideal). Although the bowl is a little small for my liking, it is easy to replace herb because it cools down rapidly (although the unit stays warm for a while), allowing you to hit several bowls in succession if you feel like it.

After popping in the battery and charging my Firefly for about two hours, I turned it on and then held down the heat button. Similar to the MFLB and Firewood, the Firefly has no temperature gauge and you need to get a feel for how long to hit it for to maximize your vapor production. Fortunately I’m familiar with this process thanks to other vaporizers, and I got the hang of it fairly quickly. After about two seconds my bowl turned bright orange and produced ideal vaporization temperatures almost instantly! The heating element is where I feel the Firefly really shines, and after only a few seconds I was getting good clouds of vapor for about six solid puffs. The draw on the firefly was very smooth, definitely smoother than most portables I’ve used (thanks to several large air intake ports). Also make sure to be careful when handling the Firefly, because after repeated hits the “porthole” showing your herb can get extremely hot!

Due to the high amount of energy used by the dynamic convection heating element, the battery life was quite short, allowing me to only get about 4 bowls vaporized from a full charge. Therefore, don’t expect the Firefly to be a good idea for parties or vape sessions with numerous friends, but its fine for personal use (I’m a heavy vaper and found the battery lasted me through the day while out and about). Unlike the Ascent however, you cannot use the Firefly while charging.

Overall, the Firefly is a durable portable vaporizer, and its incredibly fast warm-up times combined with solid build quality and smooth draw make it a solid contender in the portable vaporizer market. Aside from it weighing more than I’d like, my only other complaints with the Firefly are its small bowl size and relatively short battery life, but even then the rapid warm-up times and ease of refilling the herb trench balance these shortcomings out. If you’re looking for a discreet yet durable portable vaporizer which can achieve fast warm-up times to complement your plugin vape, I definitely recommend considering purchasing a Firefly!