30-Second Verdict
The Legacy Pro 2 gets the job, 8.7 to 8.3 — stronger vapour, a removable battery, and money left over. The PAX Flow interviews beautifully: best-in-class stealth, gorgeous design, a side-loading oven that makes the AirVape's clamshell look prehistoric. But when the question is "who actually delivers on a Saturday night," the AirVape's hybrid hits harder, runs cheaper, and can swap in a fresh cell at the bar. The honest one-liner: hire the Flow if you need to not be noticed; hire the Legacy Pro 2 for everything else.
Legacy Pro 2: 8.7/10
PAX Flow: 8.3/10
Buy the Legacy Pro 2 if:
- Vapour strength matters more to you than vapour invisibility
- You want a removable 18650 instead of a sealed cell on an 18–24-month timer
- You like real temperature control — 100–240°C in single degrees, not five presets
- The price gap buys a spare battery, a charger and a case
Buy the PAX Flow if:
- Discretion is the actual job — gigs, bars, anywhere vapour raises eyebrows
- You want the slickest loading and the smallest pocket footprint in this class
- Design polish is worth paying for, and you know it about yourself
- Bong Mode and the PAX aesthetic genuinely appeal
Quick Specs Face-Off:
| Legacy Pro 2 | PAX Flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Heat-up | ~15s | 25–35s |
| Battery | Removable 18650, 5–7 bowls | Sealed 2000mAh, 4–6 sessions |
| Bowl | 0.2–0.3g | ~0.4g |
| Weight | ~232g | 135g |
| Warranty | Lifetime (register within 30 days) | 2 years (UK) |
| Price | Check current price | Check current price |
The Hook
One vacancy. Two candidates. Sit down, both of you.
The job is my going-out slot — the front-right jeans pocket, Friday nights, gigs, festivals, weekends away. It's a real position with a real incumbent: the Crafty+ has held it for eighteen months, and it's fair to say the role has been under review since the Sunday its battery died halfway through a roast. Both of today's applicants know this. Both of them have been circling the job openly — I wrote as much in each of their reviews, in almost the same words. The Flow has been "muscling in on the going-out slot the Crafty+ normally owns." The Legacy Pro 2 turned up to its interview with festival experience already on the CV.
Candidate one: the PAX Flow. Immaculately presented. I called it the Take That comeback when I reviewed it — the brand everyone had written off, back with something that actually works. References include a Manchester gig where it passed as a phone in a crowded bar. Salary expectation: premium, which is confident.
Candidate two: the AirVape Legacy Pro 2. Scruffier CV, more qualifications. The Sage Barista Express of vaporisers — session and on-demand, removable cell, dosing caps, a temperature range like a spec-sheet flex. Asking for noticeably less and visibly aware that undercutting the other candidate is a negotiating position all by itself.
Interviews like this are never about who's impressive. They're about what the job actually is. So let's do this properly: competencies, one at a time.
We stock both at HerbVape.co.uk — details and pricing below.
Vapour Quality
First competency, most weighted. 9/10 plays 8.5/10, and the gap is real.
The Legacy Pro 2 produces properly strong vapour — not strong for its size, not strong for the price, strong full stop. Denser than the Crafty+ it's trying to replace, in the Mighty+'s conversation at the top of the bowl, with opening draws at 195°C that arrive dense and flavourful off a fifteen-second heat-up. The caveat is the famous one: it's draw-dependent. Pack tight or pull hard and output collapses, and the device sits there politely waiting for you to figure out it was your fault.
The PAX Flow is the best vapour PAX has ever made — the redesigned chamber's six-times-more-airflow claim is, for once, honest marketing. It's comfortably in the Veazy and Crafty+ conversation. But it's a conduction-leaning hybrid with a hot-walled oven, and it has a flavour window: spectacular first two or three draws, fading by draw five or six, roasty by ten. And it doesn't reach the AirVape's density ceiling at any point in the bowl.
Winner: Legacy Pro 2. The Flow's vapour no longer needs an apology. The AirVape's never did.
The Strain Test, Side by Side
Same two jars, same grinder, both devices cleaned between strains. The Legacy Pro 2 ran its ladder at 180/192/203°C. The Flow ran its preset modes — Discreet at 180°C, Efficiency at 190°C, Flavour at 200°C. Different ladders, same flower, so read the shapes rather than the digits.
Jack Herer
Both hybrids gave Jack's fragile top end a fair hearing at the bottom of their ladders — and both lost it on schedule. The Flow's Discreet mode produced pine needles and lemon peel with a proper citrus lift, brighter than any PAX has ever managed from this jar: two genuinely good draws, thinning to green herb by draw four. The Legacy Pro 2, packed deliberately loose in a cap, held pine clean enough to place through four draws, with lemon peel behind it.
The divergence is the middle of the bowl, and it's the whole comparison. On the AirVape, black pepper cut through at 192°C well-defined and separated — and when the pull stiffened, a gentle re-tamp brought the density straight back, a trick the review said should be in the manual. On the Flow at 190°C, the pepper turned up on time but the separation didn't: its review's exact complaint was that the pine doesn't hand over to the pepper, it just stops being there. A hot-walled box blends flavours instead of layering them. The AirVape, convection-leaning, layers.
The Flow's Jack verdict was "a respectable cover version, not the original recording." The AirVape's was that a real Jack Herer is available — if you do your half of the work. A cover version versus a performance that depends on the performer: on this strain, I'll take the one with the higher ceiling.
Wedding Cake
Now the Flow fights back, because dessert genetics were built for hot walls.
The Flow's Wedding Cake at 190°C was the single most impressive thing the machine does — butter separating cleanly from dough, cherry deepening towards jam, vapour thick enough that "thick" got used about a pocket device. Its review called the oven better with this jar than any conduction device on the site. The Legacy Pro 2's rendering was also its relaxed best — eleven draws of vanilla, butter and dough as three distinct things, no re-tamp, no negotiation — but running slightly dry in character, where the Flow's rendition had genuine body.
At the top of both ladders the strains did the correct collapse into caramelised sugar and pepper, the AirVape a shade drier, the Flow's grip noticeably warm by the finish — its oven sits where your hand goes, and Wedding Cake sessions run long enough to notice.
One fresh observation both reviews support: these two devices' Wedding Cake performances are nearly level, and their Jack performances aren't close. Which means the real question for a buyer is what's in your jar. Dessert-heavy rotation: the Flow is genuinely competitive. Anything fragile or sativa-leading: the AirVape pulls away.
The call: the Legacy Pro 2 is a delivery device that can do real flavour when you set it up for it. The Flow is a delivery device with a flavour window — excellent early, converging on brown roast by the top. Both keep the two plants distinct at mid-ladder; only the AirVape still manages it at the top. Flavour honours to the AirVape.
Design & Build
Here the Flow simply wins the room. Anodised aluminium, no visible seams, a matte finish that reads as generic tech rather than VAPORISER — and the side-loading magnetic oven door, which is the single best loading mechanism on any pocket device I've used. One-handed, while walking, elegant.
Now compare the AirVape's answer to the same question: the clamshell. Flip the lid, watch AVB stick to the underside of it, negotiate with gravity, close it again. It's the worst loading mechanism on a premium portable, and set against the Flow's magnetic door it looks like it was designed a decade earlier. The AirVape's materials are lovely — cork wrap, gold-plated chamber, glass airpath — but the interaction design loses to PAX on every count.
Two asterisks for the Flow: heat builds in the grip on longer sessions (Bong Mode gets properly uncomfortable, and the fix is a sleeve PAX sells separately), and there's more plastic inside than the price suggests. The AirVape's asterisk is the early cork-bubbling reports, which the lifetime warranty covers.
Winner: PAX Flow (9 vs 8.5). Its one clear competency victory, and if you handle both in a shop it'll win your hands too.
Battery & Charging
The Flow's headline is speed: USB-C at last, 50% in twenty minutes, full in under forty. Real-world stamina is 4–6 sessions, so an all-day outing means planning a top-up. And the cell is sealed — 2000mAh on the standard 18–24-month degradation timeline, with no user-serviceable fix at the end of it.
The Legacy Pro 2 gives you 5–7 bowls per charge and a slow three-hour USB-C refill — worse on paper, until you remember the 18650 comes out. A cheap spare cell and ten seconds swaps it; the device never dies of old age. On a festival Saturday, the Flow's fast charging is useless without a socket. The AirVape's spare cell lives in a pocket.
Winner: Legacy Pro 2 (8.5 vs 8). For a going-out device specifically — the job being interviewed for — swappable beats fast-charging, and it isn't close over a three-year ownership window.
Ease of Use
The Flow is the easier hire to onboard: one button, haptics, five modes, figured out in a session. Loading through the side door is genuinely pleasant. Quirks are minor — you scrape ABV out with the multi-tool rather than tipping it, and Bong Mode hides behind a ten-click cycling ritual.
The Legacy Pro 2's interface is simple (three buttons, OLED, 1°C steps) but the operating is technique-dependent: loose pack, slow draw, caps-or-suffer, three sessions to learn. In exchange you get real temperature control instead of five fixed points, plus an on-demand mode the Flow simply doesn't have.
Winner: PAX Flow (8.5 vs 8) — with the note that the AirVape's extra complexity is where all its extra capability lives.
Cleaning & Maintenance
Both score 8.5, and both earn it differently. The Flow's side-loading oven gives full access to chamber and stainless airpath — ten minutes for a proper clean every 30-odd bowls, thirty seconds of daily wipe-down, easily the best cleaning experience PAX has shipped. The Legacy Pro 2, run capsule-led, is about a minute a day and five minutes a week; run bare, it's fiddlier than the Flow.
Winner: honest draw. Use the AirVape's caps and it edges ahead; ignore them and the Flow's simpler geometry wins.
Portability
The Flow's specialist subject. 135g, flat sides, no brick-bulge, disappears into skinny jeans and reads as a phone at a bar — the Discreet Mode gig story from its review is the proof: four minutes of vaping in a crowded venue, zero vapour clocked. Nothing in this price bracket touches it, and 9.5/10 says so.
The Legacy Pro 2 is pocketable-but-noticeable at ~232g, and its going-out credentials rest on the cap workflow — pre-load five in a tin and never open the device in public. Its CV's field-experience entry is a six-hour Parklife Sunday run flawlessly off exactly that system. It travels well. It does not vanish.
Winner: PAX Flow, decisively (9.5 vs 8). If the job description had said "stealth" instead of "going out," the Flow would have been hired at the door.
Value for Money
The price gap separates the candidates, in the wrong direction for PAX. The Flow's value score (6.5) was the lowest on its report card for a reason: at its price it's beaten on vapour by cheaper devices, and its one unique selling point — disappearing — is the only thing the premium buys. The Legacy Pro 2's 8 reflects the widest feature spread in its bracket at a lower price, with a lifetime warranty attached (register within 30 days, day one, no excuses).
Salary negotiation summary: the cheaper candidate has more qualifications. Winner: Legacy Pro 2, comfortably.
Score Comparison
| Category | Legacy Pro 2 | PAX Flow |
|---|---|---|
| Vapour Quality | 9/10 | 8.5/10 |
| Design & Build | 8.5/10 | 9/10 |
| Battery & Charging | 8.5/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 8.5/10 |
| Cleaning & Maintenance | 8.5/10 | 8.5/10 |
| Portability | 8/10 | 9.5/10 |
| Value for Money | 8/10 | 6.5/10 |
| Overall | 8.7/10 | 8.3/10 |
Three competencies each, one dead heat — and the AirVape's wins are in the heavyweight categories: vapour, battery, value. The Flow wins the ones you notice in the first week; the AirVape wins the ones you notice in the second year.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the PAX Flow if discretion is a hard requirement rather than a nice-to-have. If your vaping happens at gigs, in beer gardens, around people who don't need to know — the Flow is the only device in this comparison that genuinely disappears, and its vapour is now good enough that the stealth costs you respectability rather than satisfaction. Design-led buyers will also simply be happier with it in their hand, and that's a legitimate reason to spend money. Even Dave — whose review of the entire PAX back catalogue was giving up on his PAX 3 — tried the Flow and produced the brand's best testimonial in years: "Wait, when did PAX stop being rubbish?"
Buy the Legacy Pro 2 if you want the best performing, best value, longest-living device of the two — which is most people, most of the time. Stronger vapour, real temperature control, an on-demand mode the Flow doesn't offer, a battery you can swap at a bar table, and change back. The costs are honest ones: it's bigger, it's more visible, the clamshell will annoy you until the caps rescue you, and it demands three sessions of learning before it shows you what it's got.
A postscript on the Flow's likeability, because it's real: Jake borrowed mine for a gig at the Ritz — post-redemption Jake, the one who returns things now — and handed it back charged, cleaned, and set to Bong Mode. "You didn't tell me it had a hidden mode," he said, faintly betrayed. "I had to find it on a forum in the queue." The Flow makes people want to explore it. Devices don't score points for charm. They probably should.
How I Actually Choose
Both candidates have been doing trial shifts against the incumbent, and the honest rota looks like this. The Flow runs four or five bowls a week and gets the nod when stealth is the brief — the gigs, the bars, the situations its Discreet Mode was built for. The Legacy Pro 2 runs three or four sessions a week and gets everything else out-of-doors: the long days, the festivals, anywhere a spare cell beats a charging cable.
The Crafty+, meanwhile, has noticed the office is quieter around it. Between the Flow taking the stealth nights and the AirVape taking the big days, the incumbent's eighteen-month hold on the going-out slot is over in all but name. Nobody's been formally let go. That's not how rotations work. But nobody's been charging it, either.
The Verdict (The Bookend)
Every interviewer knows the moment: both candidates have left, the notes are on the desk, and one CV keeps ending up on top.
The Legacy Pro 2 gets the job. It scored higher, it costs less, it hits harder, and it's the only candidate whose battery situation improves with a cheap accessory instead of expiring on a schedule. For the general role of "the device that leaves the house," it's the stronger hire, and the 8.7-to-8.3 scoreline is an accurate margin.
But here's the thing about one-vacancy interviews: sometimes the losing candidate makes you realise there's a second role. The Flow isn't a worse Legacy Pro 2 — it's a specialist, and its specialism is being invisible while staying genuinely good. If your going-out is more Northern Quarter than Parklife, more bar than field, hire the specialist and don't apologise for it.
One vacancy, two candidates — and the real answer, as ever in this hobby, is that the job description decides. Write yours honestly before you spend the money.
FAQ
Legacy Pro 2 vs PAX Flow — which should I buy?
The Legacy Pro 2 for most people: stronger vapour, removable battery, on-demand mode, cheaper, 8.7 vs 8.3. The PAX Flow if stealth is a hard requirement — nothing at this level disappears like it does.
Is the PAX Flow's vapour really good now, or just good for a PAX?
Genuinely good — comfortably in the Veazy/Crafty+ conversation, with a spectacular first third of the bowl. But it has a flavour window that fades by draw five or six, and the Legacy Pro 2 beats it on density and top-end separation. 8.5 vs 9 is a fair gap.
Which battery lasts longer — per charge and per lifetime?
Per charge they're similar: 5–7 bowls (AirVape) vs 4–6 sessions (Flow), with the Flow charging much faster over USB-C. Per lifetime it's no contest — the Legacy Pro 2's 18650 is removable and cheap to replace; the Flow's sealed cell is on the standard 18–24-month degradation timeline with no user fix.
Can I use either with a bong or water piece?
The Flow, surprisingly, yes — Bong Mode runs at 225°C with the standby sensor disabled, accessed by cycling the four visible modes three times. Fair warning: the grip gets hot. The Legacy Pro 2 has no equivalent mode; adapters exist but it's not the device's brief.
Which is easier to clean?
Effectively a tie — both scored 8.5. The Flow's side-loading oven makes access trivial; the AirVape is a one-minute daily job if you run dosing caps, fiddlier if you don't.
Which is better for medical users?
The Legacy Pro 2 — stronger extraction, 1°C temperature control for careful dosing, an on-demand mode for breakthrough top-ups, and the removable battery that matters when a device is something you depend on daily. The Flow's role is daytime discretion.
Does the Legacy Pro 2's clamshell really matter day to day?
Less than the forums suggest, more than AirVape would like. With pre-loaded dosing caps you almost never open it; without them, every reload is a small negotiation with gravity. Next to the Flow's magnetic side door, it's the AirVape's most dated feature by a distance.
About Dennis M.
Dennis M. has been vaping daily for the best part of a decade — since an original Mighty in 2018 — and has tested 50+ devices for this site. He works in IT, has ADHD, and uses cannabis for chronic pain management. He lives in Manchester with his partner Sarah, who has watched two separate devices audition for the same pocket and declined to sit on the panel.
Dennis has sat on both sides of real job interviews and maintains the vaporiser kind is fairer: the candidates can't claim their greatest weakness is perfectionism.
A note on spelling: 'vaporizer' is the de facto international spelling, but I've stuck with the British 'vaporiser' throughout this blog.
Questions, corrections, or a device you want tested? dennis@herbvape.co.uk
Related Content
Full Reviews:
Head-to-Head Comparisons:
- Legacy Pro 2 vs Mighty+: Which Hybrid Wins?
- Legacy Pro 2 vs Solo 3 v2: Feature Stacker vs Flavour King
- PAX Flow vs Mighty+
Best-Of Guides:
New to Vaping?
Get Both at HerbVape.co.uk
AirVape Legacy Pro 2 — the successful candidate: the strongest vapour and the best economics of any going-out portable we stock.
Buy the AirVape Legacy Pro 2 →
Worth grabbing with it: HerbVape Universal Cleaning Kit — ISO, buds and brushes for the glass airpath and magnetic screens.
PAX Flow — the specialist hire: stealth nothing else at this level can match, with vapour that no longer needs an apology.
Buy the PAX Flow →
Worth grabbing with it: PAX FLOW Grip Sleeve — the honest answer to the warm-grip problem, especially if Bong Mode appeals.
Just one more bowl.
Last updated: 25 September 2026.
Review Policy: I buy or borrow the devices I review. HerbVape.co.uk is my employer, but my opinions are my own — they pay me to be honest, not to sell you shite. Affiliate links and discount codes exist because running a site costs money, not because they influence scores.
Strains Used: Jack Herer — sativa (Haze × Northern Lights #5 × Shiva Skunk), ~20% THC, terpinolene/caryophyllene/pinene-dominant, pine-citrus-pepper profile with fragile top notes. Wedding Cake — indica-leaning hybrid (Triangle Kush × Animal Mints, via Triangle Mints #23), ~24% THC, caryophyllene/limonene/myrcene-dominant, vanilla-cream-dough dessert profile over peppery earth. Same two strains, same jars, across every vaporiser reviewed on this site — the strain is the control, the device is the variable. Strain effects vary by individual, batch and consumption method.
Medical & Legal Disclaimer: Nothing in this article constitutes medical advice, and I am not a medical professional. Cannabis is a controlled substance in the UK; medical cannabis is legal only on prescription from a registered specialist clinic — Sapphire, Cantourage and Zerenia are three of the larger ones. HerbVape.co.uk sells vaporiser hardware only: we do not sell, prescribe, or recommend cannabis or cannabis products. Vaporisers are sold for use with legal dry herbs and legally prescribed medical cannabis. You must be 18 or over to buy one, and cannabis law varies by jurisdiction — check yours.