30-Second Verdict
The PAX 4 wins on my score sheet, 8.3 to 8.0 — and the V3 Pro wins on almost every line of the spec sheet. Both statements are true, and the price gap between them is the most honest one in the shop: it buys you nothing you can measure and everything you can feel. The V3 Pro has convection heat, a removable, cheap-to-replace battery, degree-by-degree control, dosing capsules and slightly better vapour. The PAX 4 has the design, the ease, the pocket, and the composure. If you have to ask whether the design tax is worth it, it isn't — buy the V3 Pro. If you already know it is, nothing in this article will stop you, and it shouldn't.
PAX 4: 8.3/10
XMAX V3 Pro: 8.0/10
Buy the PAX 4 if:
- You want the device to disappear — into a pocket, onto a coffee table, into your life
- Zero learning curve matters: one button, four modes, no technique
- You're buying an object you'll enjoy owning, not a tool you'll maintain
- The person using it would not enjoy the phrase "7–10 second committed draw"
Buy the V3 Pro if:
- You're running the numbers, at all, even slightly — the numbers all point here
- The removable 18650 matters (it should — a cheap cell swap vs a sealed-battery countdown)
- You want true convection, 1° temperature control, on-demand mode, capsule compatibility
- It's going to festivals, camping trips, or mates' houses, where the cheap one travels with less worry than the dear one
Quick Specs:
| PAX 4 | XMAX V3 Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Heat-up | ~20s | ~15s to 180°C spec; ~30s to a usable 200°C |
| Battery | Sealed 2800mAh, ~5 sessions | Removable 18650 (2600mAh), 6–8 bowls, cheap swaps |
| Bowl | ~0.35g, half-pack lid included | 0.2–0.3g capacity, runs best ~0.1g |
| Weight | 125g | Light, plastic/aluminium, ~150 × 27 × 24mm |
| Warranty | 2yrs, 3 with registration | Electronic base only, no published term |
| Price | Check current price | Check current price |
The Hook: The Designer Jacket and the £30 Uniqlo That's Technically Warmer
Every winter, the same argument happens in every wardrobe in Britain.
On one hanger: the designer jacket. Beautiful cut, beautiful cloth, the kind of thing that makes you stand differently at the bus stop. It cost real money and you have never once regretted it, although you have also never once said the number out loud in company.
On the other hanger: the £30 Uniqlo puffer. It is, and this is the infuriating part, technically warmer. Higher fill rating. Lighter. Packs into its own pocket. Dries faster. If you fed both jackets into a spreadsheet, the Uniqlo wins every row, and the spreadsheet would then ask why the other jacket costs five times more, and the spreadsheet would be right, and you would wear the designer one anyway.
The PAX 4 is the designer jacket. The V3 Pro is the Uniqlo. And the V3 Pro is technically warmer.
I want to be precise about that last bit, because most premium-vs-budget comparisons let the premium device win the performance argument and lose the value one. Not here. The V3 Pro's 100% convection heater scores higher for vapour than the PAX 4's conduction-leaning oven — 8.0 against 7.8. Its removable 18650 embarrasses the PAX 4's sealed cell. Its temperature control is a proper 1°-increment range against four modes and a nudge. I called it the Decathlon of dry herb vaporisers, and Decathlon's whole trick is that the cheap kit isn't actually worse.
So what does the price gap buy? That's this article. The PAX 4 review put it in one line — the V3 Pro does its job more, the PAX 4 does its job with composure — and the whole comparison is an audit of what composure costs, category by category. One of these devices I recommend to strangers more than any other machine I own. The other one is the vape my own household keeps trying to steal. They are not the same device, and honestly, they're barely in the same shop.
We stock both at HerbVape.co.uk — details and pricing below.
Vapour Quality
PAX 4: 7.8/10 · V3 Pro: 8.0/10 — the V3 Pro, narrowly, with an asterisk the size of a chimney.
The V3 Pro's convection heater does things a budget vape shouldn't do: hot air through the load rather than a hot wall cooking it, proper flavour separation on the opening draws, and — through the water pipe adapter — density that holds its own against a Crafty+. The asterisk is technique. This device demands 7–10 second committed pulls with partial vent coverage, and week one genuinely feels like you've bought a dud. I nearly sent mine back before someone on the internet told me, in so many words, to pull harder.
The PAX 4 asks nothing of you and delivers slightly less. Sip it and you get controlled, predictable, clean vapour — the best any non-Flow PAX has produced — with a compressed flavour profile and no surprises in either direction. There is no learning curve because there is nothing to learn.
So the honest framing: the V3 Pro has the higher ceiling and the lower floor. Nail the draw and it out-vapes the PAX 4, especially through water. Fluff the draw and the PAX 4's worst bowl beats the V3 Pro's worst bowl every time. The 0.2-point gap on the score sheet is a technique tax refund — you earn it back with your lungs. Winner: V3 Pro, for those willing to train for it.
The Strain Test, Side by Side
Same jars, same grinder, and about as pure a heating-philosophy face-off as this site can stage: a hot-walled hybrid oven against a true convection heater with a heat-soaking chamber. The PAX 4 ran 0.35g, firm level tamp, manual-nudged onto 180/193/205°C. The V3 Pro ran 0.1g — it'll take three times that, but runs better half full — dropped in loose, session mode, bare mouthpiece, at 180/195/205°C. Different packs because different physics; that's the point.
Jack Herer
The strain that shows you up showed up the price gap first — by pointing the wrong way.
Low temp: the V3 Pro's first draw was "cleaner than it has any business being" — pine needles, lemon peel, a cooling menthol edge at the back that no PAX has ever found in this jar. The PAX 4's first draw was the best any PAX has given me — pine, lemon peel, a thread of fresh resin — but the menthol detail is the convection tell: the cheap device heard a note the dear one didn't. Then both declined the same way, because the V3 Pro's metal chamber soaks heat between draws and starts behaving like the oven it was built to avoid. V3 Pro: four draws, two properly good. PAX 4: five draws, two genuinely good. Call the low end a draw — literally.
Mid-temp, both hand over to black pepper — the durable heart of this flower, untroubled by either machine — over woody haze, four consistent draws each. The difference is shape: the V3 Pro trades "flavour early, clouds late" at every setting, while the PAX 4 keeps its density flat and its layers blended from the first pull. Neither stacks the pine-into-pepper handover the way a glass stem does, and both reviews say so in nearly the same sentence.
Top temp: earth and roast on both, three draws, evenly browned ABV, nothing worth writing down — the V3 Pro adding a bit of skunk musk, the PAX 4 a touch of leather. On Jack, the price gap buys you nothing. That's the spec-sheet side of this article in a single strain.
Wedding Cake
The jar that flatters devices flattered both, and finally separated them.
Low temp: vanilla and sweet cream, thick, on both — the V3 Pro's "first time all week the device has felt generous rather than merely competent," the PAX 4 with a cherry edge landing on the exhale exactly where the jar promised. Dessert notes sit low and heavy; stored chamber heat does them no harm on either machine. Five draws PAX, four V3 Pro, all of them lovely.
Mid-temp is the split. The V3 Pro delivers butter, baked cake, warm dough, late pepper — four dense draws — but hands it over as "warm sweet cream as one satisfying thing rather than vanilla, butter and dough as three separate ones." Rich, not resolved. The PAX 4 at 193°C did the thing that earned its vapour score: vanilla, butter, dough, pepper — four things I could name separately. On this jar, at this temperature, the designer jacket is actually warmer. Once. In one place. It's a real place, though, and if dessert genetics are your daily flower it's the strongest per-draw argument the PAX tax has.
Top temp: caramelised sugar tipping burnt on both, dessert collapsing into generic warmth, three draws, done. Convergence, as ever.
The flavour-device/delivery-device call: the V3 Pro is a delivery device with a flavour device's first three draws — convection early, oven late. The PAX 4 is half and half — resolution at mid-temp on the right strain, blending everywhere else. Between the two: the V3 Pro wins Jack's opening seconds, the PAX 4 wins Wedding Cake's middle, and everything else is a dead heat conducted at different prices.
Design & Build
PAX 4: 9.5/10 · V3 Pro: 7.0/10 — the PAX 4, by the widest margin in the article. This is what the price gap is.
The PAX 4 is the prettiest vape in its class and arguably in the shop: anodised aluminium, no visible screws, no seams, an object that reads as designed-not-assembled and sits on a coffee table without announcing itself. People pick it up. People who don't vape pick it up.
The V3 Pro feels like a budget device, and its review said so in as many words. It's honest plastic over an aluminium shell — it's survived two of my drops (kitchen tiles, pavement) without drama, which is more than prettier devices can claim — but nobody's calling it premium, because it isn't, because that's the deal. It's a Casio, not a Rolex. More to the point, it's a consumable: the magnetic mouthpiece is a running cost (Dave ISO-soaked his on a camping trip and cracked the housing — that story is in the review and it's a design note, not an accident), the max screens fray after 20–30 cleaning cycles, and the silicone seals go missing on schedule.
One is an object you keep. One is a tool you maintain. Winner: PAX 4, and it isn't a contest — it's the thesis.
Battery & Charging
PAX 4: 7.5/10 · V3 Pro: 8.5/10 — the V3 Pro, and this is the spec sheet's best punch.
The V3 Pro's removable 18650 is the single feature that ages better than anything else in this comparison. Six to eight bowls per charge, and when the cell degrades — every lithium cell degrades — you spend a few quid and thirty seconds and you're back to new. Dave has daily-driven his for two years on exactly that plan: one battery swap at month eighteen, capacity fully restored, no RMA, no customer service, no drama. Pack a spare cell and a festival weekend never sees a charger.
The PAX 4's sealed 2800mAh gives you about five sessions and a countdown clock: 18–24 months of daily use to meaningful degradation, warranty explicitly excluding it, and then a paid mail-in refurbishment or a shrug. PAX's defence — a battery door would ruin the seamless body — is true and is also the design tax stated as an engineering constraint. For medical users who depend on the device daily, this is the line on the spec sheet that should decide the purchase, and both reviews say so.
The PAX 4 claws back a little on charging manners (USB-C on the body, 50% in ~25 minutes, against the V3 Pro's 2–2.5 hours on a 2A brick — though the V3 Pro answers with pass-through and external cell chargers). Not enough. Winner: V3 Pro, decisively.
Ease of Use
PAX 4: 9.5/10 · V3 Pro: 7.5/10 — the PAX 4, just as decisively the other way.
The PAX 4 is the most foolproof device in the bracket: one button, four modes, haptics, lip-sensing, motion standby, ~20 seconds to ready. You don't learn it, you use it. It's the strongest argument for choosing it over devices that out-vape it, and I've made that argument against dearer machines than this one.
The V3 Pro is simple but not effortless — three buttons and an OLED are fine, but the draw technique is a genuine learning curve, and week one convinces a meaningful fraction of buyers they've been sent a dud. It rewards the effort with things the PAX can't do at all: 100–220°C in 1° steps, session and on-demand modes, a built-in stir tool, and POTV ONE dosing capsules for five-second loading and a pristine chamber.
Jake clocked the pair of them on my desk, and — as the owner of a Solo 3 who bangs on about on-demand to anyone within range — asked, genuinely baffled, why the expensive one didn't have an on-demand mode and the cheap one did. I didn't have a good answer. There isn't one. Winner: PAX 4 for humans; V3 Pro for tinkerers; the tinkerers already knew.
Cleaning & Maintenance
PAX 4: 8.5/10 · V3 Pro: 7.0/10 — the PAX 4.
The PAX 4 is the best cleaning experience PAX has shipped: 3D screen pops out with a fingernail, magnetic mouthpiece, accessible airpath, about ten minutes for a full strip, no tools. It wants attention often — weekly for daily users, or the flavour goes PAX-y — but the work is trivial and the parts are permanent.
The V3 Pro's parts are individually easier to clean and collectively a subscription: screens fraying every 20–30 cycles, a mouthpiece you must never ISO-soak (see: Dave, camping), silicone seals that emigrate. Budget for consumables every year — the review folded that into the value maths and it's the honest way to read this category too. High-frequency-low-effort versus low-cost-high-churn. Winner: PAX 4.
Portability
PAX 4: 9.5/10 · V3 Pro: 8.5/10 — the PAX 4, with a role reversal worth noticing.
The PAX 4 is the better pocket device: 125g, roll-of-mints footprint, flat sides flush against the leg, reads as generic consumer tech to anyone glancing over. It's the going-out champion and that's the brand.
The V3 Pro is the better away device: slim enough for a front pocket, but its real portability feature is psychological — cheap enough to actually take places. Festivals, camping, lending. It lives in my lending library and my festival bag precisely because losing it wouldn't ruin the weekend, and a spare 18650 replaces the charger entirely. Take the PAX 4 to a field and you'll spend half the time doing pocket-pat checks on a premium sealed-battery object; take the V3 Pro and you'll spend that time using it.
Stealth: PAX 4, comfortably — the V3 Pro's OLED is bright in the dark and its silhouette says "tool." Winner: PAX 4 for nights out, V3 Pro for weekends away; on points, the PAX 4.
Value for Money
PAX 4: 7/10 · V3 Pro: 9.5/10 — the V3 Pro, by the widest gap this site's score sheets can express.
The V3 Pro is the best pound-for-pound value in portable vaping — 85% of premium performance at 30% of premium cost, functionally immortal on cheap batteries, with yearly consumables as the only honest asterisk. The PAX 4 review itself listed the V3 Pro first among the reasons the PAX's value score is a 7: denser vapour, and a battery you can replace for the price of a pint.
And here's the blind-test kicker from the PAX 4 review worth restating: Dave's blind-test winner in that price conversation was the budget Smono 4 Pro. Not the PAX. When the flavour's coming through a screen and nobody can see the anodising, the spreadsheet devices win. Every time. The PAX tax is real, it's more than the V3 Pro costs on its own, and it buys nothing a blindfold can detect.
What it does buy — design, ease, pocket composure, and a real two-years-three-with-registration warranty against the V3 Pro's unpublished electronic-base-only cover — is genuine, but none of it lives on this line of the sheet. Winner: V3 Pro, and it's the most lopsided category in the article.
Score Comparison
| Category | PAX 4 | XMAX V3 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Vapour Quality | 7.8/10 | 8.0/10 |
| Design & Build | 9.5/10 | 7.0/10 |
| Battery & Charging | 7.5/10 | 8.5/10 |
| Ease of Use | 9.5/10 | 7.5/10 |
| Cleaning & Maintenance | 8.5/10 | 7.0/10 |
| Portability | 9.5/10 | 8.5/10 |
| Value for Money | 7/10 | 9.5/10 |
| Overall | 8.3/10 | 8.0/10 |
Four categories to the PAX 4, three to the V3 Pro, 0.3 between them overall — closer than the price gap suggests, which is the article's subtitle doing its job. Look at which categories each wins, though: the V3 Pro takes everything measurable (vapour, battery, value), the PAX 4 takes everything experiential (design, ease, cleaning, pocket). The spec sheet and the design tax, itemised.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the V3 Pro if you're asking the question. That's not a dodge — it's the sorting mechanism. The buyer weighing these two on merit is a spreadsheet buyer, and every cell of the spreadsheet says V3 Pro: better raw vapour, replaceable battery, real temperature control, on-demand mode, capsules, and money left over for a WPA, a spare cell and a grinder. It's the device I recommend to strangers more than anything I own. First serious vaporiser, festival machine, medical daily-driver on a budget, lending vape: this one.
Buy the PAX 4 if you stopped asking somewhere around the word "composure." Some purchases are decided before the spec sheet loads, and PAX has built a very good business on knowing it. If you want the device that disappears into a jacket and reads as consumer tech at the bar; if the person using it will never, ever do a 7–10 second committed draw with partial vent coverage; if you're buying an object for a life that already contains nice objects — the PAX 4 is the best version of that purchase PAX has ever made, and the vapour is finally good enough that you're not paying only for the anodising.
The price-gap test, one last time: if you have to ask, it's the V3 Pro. If you don't, it was always the PAX 4. Neither answer is wrong. Don't let the other side's spreadsheet — or coffee table — guilt you.
How I Actually Choose
By destination, and the split is total. The PAX 4 is going-out kit: three or four sessions a week, the pocket slot, pubs and dinners and anywhere the device needs to look like it belongs in polite company — when Sarah hasn't annexed it, which is its own recurring event. The V3 Pro is going-away kit: the lending library, the festival bag, camping, the backup that boots when everything else is flat. It's been that for two years and it has never once let me down, which is more than I can say for devices costing four times more.
Sarah's audit of the V3 Pro remains the truest thing anyone has said about this comparison. She picked it up, turned it over: "That's the one you tell people to buy, right?" Yeah. "Not the one you actually use." Also yeah. I've thought about that irony at length — I recommend Decathlon while wearing the designer jacket — and I've made peace with it, because both halves of the hypocrisy are correct advice for the person receiving them.
The Verdict (The Bookend)
The Uniqlo is technically warmer. It was technically warmer at the start of this article and eleven categories of evidence haven't changed the temperature reading: the V3 Pro vapes slightly better, runs effectively forever on cheap cells, and costs less than half as much. If clothing were thermodynamics, the argument would be over, and if vaporisers were spec sheets, so would this one.
But you already know why the other jacket exists. The PAX 4 wins this comparison 8.3 to 8.0 because a vaporiser isn't only a spec sheet — it's a thing you carry, hold, and are occasionally seen with, and the PAX 4 is better at being that than anything the spreadsheet can price. The design tax is real, and it's the whole price gap. It's also the most transparently honest premium in the shop, because for once the premium device isn't pretending the cheap one is worse. It's just pretending not to care.
One of them keeps you warm. The other changes how you stand at the bus stop. I own both, obviously. That's not a verdict, it's a confession — but it's also the answer most collections eventually arrive at.
FAQ
PAX 4 vs V3 Pro — which should I buy?
The V3 Pro if value, vapour-per-pound, or battery longevity leads your decision — it's better on all three, at less than half the price. The PAX 4 if design, effortlessness and pocket discretion lead — it wins ease of use, build, cleaning and portability, and takes the overall 8.3 to 8.0. The gap is a design tax, openly charged.
Does the V3 Pro really produce better vapour than the PAX 4?
Marginally, on the score sheet — 8.0 vs 7.8 — and conditionally in practice. The V3 Pro's convection heater gives brighter opening draws and, through a water piece, more density; but it demands long, committed 7–10 second pulls and a week of learning. The PAX 4 delivers slightly less with zero technique. High ceiling versus high floor.
What's the battery difference in the long run?
Everything. The V3 Pro's removable 18650 is cheap and swaps in thirty seconds — the device is functionally immortal (Dave's has run two years of daily use: one cell swap, one mouthpiece, and still cheaper all-in than the PAX 4 alone). The PAX 4's sealed 2800mAh faces meaningful degradation in 18–24 months of daily use, isn't warranty-covered for it, and resolves via a discounted paid refurbishment through PAX. Daily and medical users should weigh this line heaviest.
Can I use either with a bong or water piece?
The V3 Pro, emphatically — the WPA is the single accessory that transforms it, and 200°C session mode through water is where it stops being a budget curiosity. The PAX 4 has no water story beyond improvising with Mode 4 at home. If water's in your routine, that's a clean point to the V3 Pro.
What are the real running costs?
V3 Pro: a small yearly consumables bill — screens every 3–4 months, a mouthpiece roughly yearly, the odd seal, a fresh cell every 18 months or so. PAX 4: a cleaning kit and, eventually, the battery service. The V3 Pro costs less to buy and slightly more to keep; it's still not close overall.
Which is easier to clean?
The PAX 4 (8.5 vs 7.0) — pop-out 3D screen, magnetic mouthpiece, accessible airpath, ten minutes, no consumables. The V3 Pro's parts clean easily but wear out on a schedule, and its one hard rule matters: never ISO-soak the magnetic cap. It cracks. There is documented fieldwork on this.
How do the warranties compare?
PAX 4: two years, three with registration inside 30 days, honoured without much fight — battery degradation excluded. V3 Pro: TopGreen covers the electronic base only and publishes no fixed term. At the V3 Pro's price the replacement-parts model is the warranty, and it mostly works — but it's a real difference if peace of mind is on your spec sheet.
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 identified the exact hypocrisy at the centre of this article two years before he wrote it.
He recommends the cheap device to strangers and carries the dear one to the pub, and he has stopped pretending these two facts are in tension. They are the same fact, wearing different jackets.
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:
- PAX 4 Review: The Smeg Toaster of Vaporisers
- XMAX V3 Pro Review: The Decathlon of Dry Herb Vaporisers
Head-to-Head Comparisons:
- PAX 4 vs PAX Flow: Which PAX Should You Buy?
- PAX 4 vs PAX Mini 2: The Clutch Bag and the Handbag
- V4 Pro vs V3 Pro
Best-Of Guides:
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Get Both at HerbVape.co.uk
PAX 4 — the designer jacket: composure, pocket theatre, and the best-looking thing in the shop.
Buy the PAX 4 →
Worth grabbing with it: HerbVape Smell-Proof Case (Small) — carbon-lined case for the going-out kit.
XMAX V3 Pro — the £30 Uniqlo that's technically warmer: convection, cheap batteries, spreadsheet royalty.
Buy the XMAX V3 Pro →
Worth grabbing with it: XMAX V3 Pro Complete Mouthpiece — the consumable you'll eventually need; buy it before the camping trip, not after.
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 review 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.