WARNING: This product contains nicotine.
Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit | Review

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit | Review

We independently review everything we recommend.
When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more›

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Vandy Vape has seen a gap in the market and filled it at the first attempt by creating the Simple EX squonk kit. The Simple EX is a compact kit that offers a system as pocket-friendly as a pod mod with the battery life and juice capacity of full-blown squonk kit.

The Simple EX mod features an 850mAh inbuilt battery with a 4ml capacity squonk bottle. It has variable voltage controls and can fire up to 20 watts.

It comes paired with an MTL RDA that has extensive airflow options and is designed to be perfect for use with nicotine salt e-liquids.

The Good

Excellent design, compact yet solid build, perfect MTL draw with plenty of options, excellent flavor, and good battery life.

The Bad

The display is a little too dim, and there’s no resistance reading.

The Bottom Line

If you are an everyday vaper that likes squonking and RDAs and have been sitting on the fence about getting a pod mod, don’t. Get the Simple EX kit instead and thank me later. It produces an excellent, flavorful vape, with MTL draw options for everyone, and even restricted DL. Along with excellent build quality, a cool design that fits in the palm of your hand. This truly is the perfect little MTL Kit.

9.5

Specs

  • Size: 58.5x42x24mm (Mod), 25.8x21mm (RDA)
  • Working voltage: 3.2-4.2 volts
  • Working current: up to 6.5 amps
  • Output voltage: 3.2-4.5 volts
  • Coil resistance range: 0.8-3.0 ohms
  • Output power: up to 20 watts
  • Output mode: Voltage
  • Standby current: up to 20uA
  • Charging current: 800 mA (battery 850 mAh)

In the Box

  • Simple EX Squonk mod
  • Simple EX RDA
  • PC comp cap
  • Quick charge USB cable
  • Stainless steel top cap
  • PC drip tip
  • Delrin drip tip
  • Spare parts bag
  • Instruction manual
  • Two superfine MTL fused Clapton coils
Design9.7

With squonk mods and pod mods on the rise, it was only a matter of time for one of the manufacturers to combine the benefits of the two and make a squonk mod for the pod mod market.

The Vandy Vape Simple EX kit isn’t really for beginner vapers as it does require some knowledge on how to build and use an RDA, although they do try to make the process as easy as possible. It’s aimed more at everyday vapers who want a small portable mod, so they don’t have to waste money buying replacement coils.

The Simple EX mod is made out of a combination of zinc alloy and plastic. For something so small and light it still has a quality solid feel to it.

One one side of the mod there’s three buttons and a small tinted display. The fire button and the +/- buttons have an angled slope to them, so they are easy to find and press without looking. They are all adequately clicky, although there is some rattle with our unit when you shake it.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

The display on the Simple EX is incredibly ‘simple’; it only displays your current voltage and battery level. The battery status is a gauge of five horizontal bars.

The mod can fire in 0.3V increments from 3.3 to 4.5 volts. This is displayed everytime you click the fire button, and is controlled by the +/- buttons on the device.

On the reverse side of the device are the squonk bottle and its cover. The cover is a slightly transparent plastic panel (which matches the color of the RDA). It’s held in place with a nice large magnet at the top, and two small dimples at the bottom. It snaps into place perfectly and is also easy to remove, thanks to two indents on either side of the mod.

The silicone squonk bottle has a 4ml capacity, with a threaded top cap and collar made of Delrin. It’s easy to remove and replace, and the covering panel holds it in place securely.

The included RDA comes with a colored PC cap and a stainless steel cap with two different style 510 drip tips. It’s 19mm in diameter, although it does seem the mod is capable of housing up to a 22mm with no overhang.

The RDA features 6 different size airflow holes, so you can really tune in the perfect MTL or restricted DL vape. We will go into more detail on this later.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Style

I absolutely love the look of the Simple EX kit. It’s compact, sophisticated and still has a nice touch of flair.

I was hoping to receive the neon green version, as that’s a little more eye-catching, but the black one we have for review is very slick looking. The design accent of matching the colored squonk panel and RDA is a really nice touch, and I’m sure you will be able to purchase replacements further down the line to change the style.

Even the large ‘Simple EX’ logo on the top side of the mod doesn’t detract from the looks.

There’s only one thing I’d change with the whole styling of the device, and that’s to either have less of a tint on the display cover, or a slightly brighter screen. As it can be a little difficult to see in low light.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Build Quality

For the most part, the build quality on the Simple EX squonk kit is excellent.

It feels incredibly sturdy for such a small device while maintaining a light frame.

The only issues I with have our device is that all of the buttons do rattle a little when you shake it. I also found the tolerance of the o-rings on the RDA to be incredibly snug, especially with the plastic cap.

They will become looser over time, and there are spares included with the kit.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Portability

This is definitely the most portable squonk mod on the market and matches up in stature to many of the pod mods currently available.

The mod measures in at 58.5 x 42x 24mm, with the RDA adding another 25.8mm on top.

It’s incredibly pocket-friendly, and I barely notice when I have it with me.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Innovation

There’s nothing innovative with the individual elements of the Simple EX Squonk Kit. However, Vandy Vape is the first to make such a compact mini squonker with an internal battery.

They definitely saw a gap in the market that needed filling, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see others follow.

Features9.0
Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

As its name proclaims this is a simple device, that doesn’t require many features.

There’s an LED display that shows both current voltage and battery status, and a micro USB port for charging the built-in 850mAh battery. It’s also capable of passthrough vaping.

The device can be switched on and off with five clicks of the fire button, to prevent any accidental pocket fires.

There are the usual safety features of overtime protection, atomizer checking, low power, short atomizer, high or low resistance warning and overheat protection.

However, the one feature I really think is lacking is resistance reading not being displayed on the screen, it’s obviously checking the resistance for safety, but not revealing it to the user is a strange decision.

Simple Ex RDA9.5
Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

The included RDA features a two-post deck that’s only designed for a single coil. Vandy Vape includes two of their Superfine MTL Fused Clapton coils in the kit, which is excellent.

Mounting the coil is a reasonably simple process, as the coil legs slot through grooves on either post. However, it’s a little bit fiddly tightening down on the flat head screws as they are so small.

You also need to take caution with cutting off the remaining protruding coil legs, as there’s not much space between the deck and the top cap.

The kit comes with two different caps, a colored PC comp style cap and a stainless steel cap which has two different 510 drip tips. One of the tips is Delrin and has a 3mm bore, while the other is also PC and has a 4mm bore.

I found the PC cap to be a much tighter fit to the build deck, so tight that on the first attempt at using it, and even after lubing it with a bit of juice, I couldn’t remove it.

I ended up having to remove one of the o-rings on the deck just to make it a little easier. However, after a few weeks use it think the PC has worn in a little and it’s far easier now.

Squonking9.5
Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

The Simple EX Kit comes with a 4ml capacity squonk bottle. It’s like a mini version of the Pulse bottle, just without the tapered collar.

It sits in the perfect position to squeeze while holding the device, and the bottle has the perfect amount of resistance to it.

The RDA has an extensive juice well so is ideal for squonking. Especially considering the juice doesn’t even make it out of the air holes when you do oversquonk.

I just find myself giving it one full squonk, which saturates everything perfectly with no leaking whatsoever and it does an excellent job of removing excess liquid.

Also, 4ml juice capacity goes a long way with MTL vaping at this resistance, so the bottle size is perfect.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Airflow

The Simple EX RDA has 6 different airflow slots that align with the airhole of either cap.

The airflow openings are 0.6mm, 0.8mm, 1.0mm, 1.5mm, 2.0mm and 2.5mm.

On it’s smallest setting the airflow is an incredibly tight MTL, in fact too tight that I barely used it. One the widest setting and with the plastic wider bore cap you can get a nice restricted DL vape.

It’s an amazingly versatile airflow and one that can cover all forms of MTL vaping.

Performance9.7
Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

When it comes to performance, the Simple EX is quite simply better than any pod mod on the market, especially for flavor and airflow options.

I tried the RDA with the supplied coils and also some simple round wire coils at about 1.3 Ohm. Although the flavor was a little more pronounced with the provided coils, it was still great with simple Kanthal.

Vandy Vape suggests the following airflow setting, nic salt level, and Voltage combinations:

  • 10-20mg nic salts – 4.2 volts – 2 mm airflow
  • 20-30mg nic salts – 3.9 volts – 1.5 mm airflow
  • 30-40mg nic salts – 3.6 volts – 1 mm airflow
  • 40-50mg nic salts – 3.3 volts – 0.8 mm airflow
  • 50-60mg nic salts – 3.3 volts – 0.6 mm airflow

However, one thing I have to make very clear is this device is not just for nic salts; you can use freebase nicotine also. It’s just about finding the right balance for your style of vaping.

I’m now using 12mg freebase nicotine on the 1mm airflow hole at 3.6V, and it is giving the perfect MTL experience, with a nice defined throat hit. If I want to use it a little more open and toward a DL vape, I just lower my nic level accordingly.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Flavor

It’s no secret that the closer you are to the coil, generally leads to a more flavorful vape and that’s why RDAs always tend to beat out RTAs and Sub Ohm tanks when it comes to flavor.

So it’s no surprise that a little reduced RDA like this is going to give far better flavor than that of any pod mod on the market.

However, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this good. It really does produce an exceptionally flavorful vape. Also, the fact that you can just switch out your cotton when it’s time makes it all the better.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Airflow

Vandy Vape has done an excellent job at covering a multitude of airflow options and vaping styles with the different diameter airholes and both top caps.

The stainless steel cap and more extended mouthpieces are better suited for the smaller airflows, and tighter MTL draws, even if it doesn’t look as cool as the PC cap, it does give you a slightly better flavor.

I prefer the look of the PC cap so usually just rock that on top, even if I’m on the 1mm airflow.

The airflow, on the whole, is incredibly smooth and quiet, but for one exception. For some reason, and only some of the time it does give a slight high pitched whistle on the 1mm hole, which unfortunately for me is the draw I prefer.

It doesn’t happen all of the time, and I’ve tried changing the coil position, different caps and positions, and I still can’t stop it. It may just be something to do with my particular RDA, and to be honest for the vape it gives me, I can live with it.

Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Battery Life

The 850mAh battery does an excellent job at getting you through most of the day, depending on how you vape.

I mainly use the Simple EX as a pocket-friendly stealth device when I’m walking the dog, or going out for the evening. So I’m not vaping it all day long, and the battery life is more than sufficient for those scenarios.

However, conservative vaping and you could easily make it through a day, and it has a larger capacity than most pod mods.

I do wish it charged a little faster, as it does take around 1-2 hours from completely dead. But there is vape while charging to keep you going.

Likes

  • Looks great
  • Incredibly compact
  • Good build quality
  • Great squonking performance
  • Easy to use
  • Multiple top caps and drip tips
  • Plenty of airflow options
  • Pretty leak-resistant
  • Perfect MTL draw
  • Can do a restricted DL draw
  • Good battery life
  • Two MTL Clapton coils included

Dislikes

  • Lack of resistance reading
  • The screen is a little dim
  • Tiny post screws can be fiddly
Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit

Verdict

The Simple EX Kit is quite simply the device I’ve been waiting for.

My main devices are squonkers, but sometimes I can find them a little too cumbersome to carry around, and sometimes I don’t want to be bellowing out clouds, I just want a nice flavorful MTL draw.

I’ve reviewed and tested so many of the refillable pod mods on the market, and quite frankly none come close to the Simple EX, it performs like a champ.

It may be a little more expensive to buy initially over a pod mod, but you will save money in the long run, not having to purchase further replacement coils. Just re-wicking it like I do my other squonker is a godsend.

I think Vandy Vape have done an excellent job with the design, the build quality, and the supplied RDA. I would like to have seen a resistance reader, but maybe that will come with version 2.

While the Simple EX may not be the perfect little device for beginners or those that don’t like to build coils. It’s still easy to use and is the perfect little device for me.

OUR VIBE

If you are an everyday vaper that likes squonking and RDAs and have been sitting on the fence about getting a pod mod, don't. Get the Simple EX kit instead and thank me later. It produces an excellent, flavorful vape, with MTL draw options for everyone, and even restricted DL. Along with excellent build quality, a cool design that fits in the palm of your hand. This truly is the perfect little MTL Kit.
Design
9.7
Features
9.0
RDA
9.5
Squonking
9.5
Performance
9.7

Best Vapes

Learn More About Vaping

Marc Panayiotis
Marc Panayiotis
Marc Panayiotis, co-founder of our vaping website, combines over 10 years of expertise and a deep understanding of 1000+ products to establish our platform as a reliable industry resource and inspire our team.
CBDfx Gummies High-Potency 1500MG CBD

Related Articles

If you are an everyday vaper that likes squonking and RDAs and have been sitting on the fence about getting a pod mod, don't. Get the Simple EX kit instead and thank me later. It produces an excellent, flavorful vape, with MTL draw options for everyone, and even restricted DL. Along with excellent build quality, a cool design that fits in the palm of your hand. This truly is the perfect little MTL Kit.Vandy Vape Simple EX Squonk Kit | Review