30-Second Verdict
The Solo 3 v2 wins — 9.2 to 8.7 — and it costs £38 less. That changed what sits at the top of my best-of lists. It hasn't changed who I hand a vape to when they've never owned one. The Solo is the better vaporiser; the Mighty+ is still the better first vaporiser. Both sentences are true, and this whole comparison lives in the gap between them.
Solo 3 v2: 9.2/10 | £217.99 Mighty+: 8.7/10 | £255.99
Buy the Solo 3 v2 if: - Flavour is the reason you're buying — the all-glass path does something S&B's PEEK path structurally can't - You want session AND on-demand in one body: two vapes, one purchase - You'd like your cleaning to take thirty seconds instead of a cooling-unit teardown - Battery matters: 12–15 bowls per charge against 6–8, with pass-through
Buy the Mighty+ if: - This is your first serious vape and you want zero decisions and zero technique - You want the one that works the same way on your worst day, every day, for years - Clumsy people, shaky hands or busy households are in the picture — there's no glass to break - You value twenty years of accessories, warranty and forum knowledge over the last half-point of terp clarity
Quick Specs Face-Off:
| Solo 3 v2 | Mighty+ | |
|---|---|---|
| Heat-up | ~20s session / ~15s on-demand | ~60s to 180°C |
| Battery | Sealed, 12–15 bowls, pass-through | 2× 18650 sealed, 6–8 bowls |
| Bowl | 0.1–0.15g standard stem | 0.15–0.2g (chamber holds 0.25g) |
| Vapour path | All-glass borosilicate | PEEK throughout |
| Size / weight | 130 × 49 × 32mm, 280g | 140 × 84 × 30mm, 227g |
| Warranty | Lifetime heater / 2yr device / 1yr battery | 2 years, 3 with registration |
| Price | £217.99 | £255.99 |
The Hook
Britain builds in two moods, and the country has never quite forgiven itself for either.
The first is the Victorian glasshouse. Iron ribs, thousands of panes, the whole structure organised around one idea: let the light through and put nothing in its way. Stand in one and what you notice is that there's nothing between you and what's growing — no wall, no filter, no interpretation. It is also made of glass. Panes crack, and you learn where to put your elbows. Nobody who loves a palm house has ever pretended it was a robust building; they love it precisely because it isn't.
The second is the civic centre. Concrete, boxy, poured somewhere between 1962 and 1974, and called 'the brick' by everyone who walks past it. It was never designed to be admired. It was designed to open at nine, hold the library and the housing office and the registrar, and still be doing it in forty years without anyone thinking about it. Its one genuine flaw is hidden inside the structure — the service ducting, a nightmare to get into when it needs cleaning, and it always needs cleaning.
The Solo 3 v2 is the glasshouse. The Mighty+ is the civic centre.
I called the Mighty+ the Land Rover Defender in its own review and gave the Solo 3 v2 the Joy Division–to–New Order treatment in its. Set both aside. What matters here is that these are the two devices most people actually choose between at this money, and they've stopped sitting where they used to: the Solo 3 v2 now takes Best Overall across most of my best-of guides. The Mighty+ kept the job it has held for years — the one I recommend to somebody who's never owned a vaporiser and doesn't want a hobby.
One of these buildings is better. The other is the one that opens every morning.
We stock both at HerbVape.co.uk — details and pricing below.
Vapour Quality
9.5/10 against 9.0/10, and for once the half-point gap describes something you can actually hear.
The Solo 3 v2 runs a hybrid heater — roughly 80% convection airflow, 20% conductive contact from the stainless oven walls — down an all-glass path, and the glass is the entire argument. Its review put it as vinyl against Spotify: same song, but one of them makes you stop and ask whether that note was always there. Nothing is added to the vapour on its way out because there's nothing for it to touch. On-demand mode fires to target in about fifteen seconds — press, two draws, release — which the Mighty+ cannot do at any setting.
The Mighty+ is convection for flavour, conduction for consistency, through a PEEK path and that oversized cooling unit, and its review is unusually honest about the missing point: if the category were Vapour Consistency it would be a 10. It's smooth, cool and terpy at 180°C, it never asks anything of you, and it has never once combusted anything. It's also, by its own admission, not a ripper — a sipper, 5–12 draws over 10–15 minutes, more joint than bong.
Winner: Solo 3 v2. The Mighty+ produces the denser cloud and the more forgiving draw. The Solo produces the more legible one. If you've ever suspected S&B vapour of being slightly clinical, the glass path is the confirmation you were looking for — and if you've never suspected that, you may not need this section at all.
The Strain Test, Side by Side
Same jars, same grinder, same weights logged — both devices have run the full control circuit, so this is genuinely two lap charts laid on top of each other rather than an argument by analogy.
Jack Herer is decided in the first three seconds, and both reviews reach for almost the same words — which is what makes the difference so stark. The Solo took 0.13g loose in a standard stem, 2mm of headroom, 5°C steps: pine needles on draw one with nothing in front of them, lemon peel just behind, a cooling menthol edge on the exhale that only ever turns up through cold glass. At 185°C black pepper arrives on draw two and the citrus doesn't die on contact — it thins across three draws while a woody haze builds behind. Fourteen draws, and at 200°C there's still pepper distinguishable from heat. The Mighty+ took 0.18g, cold load, no capsule, and gave pine on draw one too — but softened. The chamber walls and that oversized cooling unit take the needle-point off before it reaches you: warm pine rather than fresh pine, lemon peel faint but legible underneath and still there on draw four, which beats most session devices. Pepper turns up properly defined at 190°C, the haze goes dry and incense-like, and by 200°C it's earth, leather and light fuel over an even mid-brown ABV with no scorch anywhere. Twelve draws. The Solo hands you fresh pine; the Mighty+ hands you warm pine — and the rounding that makes it warm is the same rounding that means all twelve draws were identical to last Tuesday's twelve. Its own review's phrasing is the fairest summary either machine gets: it never sparkles, and it never falters. Jack survives the Defender rather than shining in it. The Solo's cost is the mirror image — pack Jack's fluffy structure too tight and on-demand browns the top layer before you've drawn.
Wedding Cake is where both devices pass the test outright and then disagree about what to do next. Both reviews independently land on the same phrase: four distinct things — vanilla, butter, dough and pepper — rather than one undifferentiated sweet. The Solo managed it on 0.12g into a fresh stem (house rule; a warm stem carries dessert notes into whatever follows), vanilla and cream as two separate items at 175°C, pepper cutting through at 185°C and sitting alongside the sweetness rather than underneath it, cherry deepening towards jam, ABV an even golden-brown top to bottom. The Mighty+ managed it on 0.2g in a dosing capsule, and its low-temp stage is the best passage the machine produces all year — vanilla and sweet cream thick enough to feel the weight of on the tongue, five draws its review calls the cooling unit's finest hour. Then the tell: the Solo's own review predicts this comparison unprompted, conceding that its glass rendering is well-lit and faintly clinical and somebody stepping over from a Mighty+ could find it thin. That's exactly right, and the Mighty+ is the thing they'd be missing. Glass gives Wedding Cake resolution; the cooling unit gives it upholstery. On dessert genetics the rounding-off stops being a tax and becomes a gift. Both machines cleared the test that matters — at 200°C, Jack and Wedding Cake still read as two different plants, one in leather and light fuel, the other in caramelised sugar.
The call: the Solo is the better flavour instrument and it isn't close on the fragile top end where glass earns its money — more draws out of less herb, every note arriving unedited. The Mighty+ is the better renderer of a heavy, sweet load, and the more thorough extractor of whatever you carelessly throw at it. Light through glass, or the same job done through concrete every single morning.
Design & Build
Both scored 9/10. They aren't the same 9.
The Mighty+ is PEEK plastic — the aerospace-and-medical thermoplastic, vapour path included, so no plastic taste and no off-gassing — 227g at 140 × 84 × 30mm, and its review's central anecdote is that it went off a kitchen counter onto tile mid-tea-making and came back on without a scratch. Two years of daily use and the only visible wear is heat discolouration on the chamber rim. Screen doesn't fade, buttons don't go mushy, cooling-unit latch doesn't loosen. Sarah calls it 'the brick' and the review concedes she's not wrong.
The Solo 3 v2 is anodised aluminium over a stainless oven, 280g at 130 × 49 × 32mm — smaller footprint, heavier in the hand — and the Sea of Green unit has taken eight months of daily use and multiple tumbles with no rattles and no error codes. The v1 era was rough: my mate Tom did an Error 5 RMA inside three months, and the v2 replacement has been faultless for six. But the vulnerability isn't the body, it's the stems — two cracked in eight months, £15 for a two-pack — and if you have dexterity issues from pain or fatigue that's a real consideration rather than a footnote.
Winner: draw on score; Mighty+ on nerves. The aluminium unit is the better-made object. The plastic one is the only one of the two with nothing on it you can break.
Battery & Charging
Winner: Solo 3 v2. 9/10 against 8/10, and the bowl count is the reason.
The Solo does 12–15 bowls at 185–195°C, about 10 run hard at 210°C, and towards 18 on gentle on-demand micro-doses. The Mighty+ does 6–8 at 180–190°C, 4–5 if you hammer it, maybe 10 sipping at 175°C — an eleven-hour extended-edition Lord of the Rings sitting needed two charges, which remains the most useful battery benchmark anyone has published.
Charging is closer than the gap suggests, and it costs money. Arizer quotes about three hours from flat; a proper PD brick gets the Solo there in roughly ninety minutes, measured repeatedly across eight months. The Mighty+ manages 80% in about forty minutes and a full charge in just over an hour — but only with the S&B Supercharger, which is sold separately, which is a cheek at £255.99. On a standard phone charger it takes four hours, which is slower than the barrel-port charger on the original Mighty. Budget accordingly.
Neither cell is user-swappable; both are sealed 18650-class packs you'll eventually RMA. The Solo supports pass-through — a few minutes on the charger from flat and you can vape while it's plugged in — while the Mighty+'s own review describes its pass-through as limited and tells you not to rely on it. On raw runtime this is the least argued category on the card.
Ease of Use
Winner: Mighty+, and it's the only category it wins outright. 9/10 against 8.5/10.
Turn it on, set a temperature, wait about a minute, draw. Two buttons, up and down. No app needed, no technique, no combustion risk, and it vibrates when it's ready so you can load it and walk off. There's a Superbooster on a double-tap — instant +15°C for ninety seconds — and that's the entire depth of the interface. Its review calls it the vape it would give its mum for her arthritis, and that isn't a throwaway line, it's the whole product.
The Solo's session mode is nearly as simple, and the v2 software is what fixed it: streamlined menus, customisable on-demand presets, degree-precise control across 50–220°C, and the option to switch off that v1 lock screen that used to demand a button combo like a cheat code. On-demand still has a real learning curve — a powerful element will char the top layer if you overfill. The fix is a loose pack and 2–3mm of headroom, it takes about a week, and session mode is the fallback the whole time. Could your mum use session mode? Probably. On-demand might want a five-minute tutorial first.
Sixty seconds against twenty is the counter-argument, and it's a real one — the Solo is quick enough that it broke an eighteen-month-old kettle-and-vape morning routine, which its review documents at some length. But glacial-and-thoughtless beats quick-and-attentive for a lot of buyers, and pretending otherwise is how people end up returning things.
Cleaning & Maintenance
The most lopsided category on this site: 9.5 against 5. Not a typo, and not a slip of the pen in the Mighty+ review either — it's the score its author gave it himself.
The Solo's herb sits in the glass stem, not the oven, so resin builds on borosilicate rather than on a heater. The stems are the only gunky parts, the oven still looks essentially new after eight months, and the routine is a brush after each session and an ISO soak every 10–15 bowls. Thirty seconds. The reclaim collects in the lower third of the stem and is usable, if you're the sort who simmers it into butter.
The Mighty+ cooling unit is a maze that collects sticky reclaim, and by 15–20 bowls you feel the draw resistance and taste the weight. A teardown means separating every small piece, soaking it, and excavating corners with swabs and toothpicks — every 2–3 weeks with regular use, with an O-ring lost down the sink drain along the way, as its review confesses. The hot Q-tip trick and a second cooling unit in rotation make it bearable, but bearable is the ceiling, and capsules don't fix it — the cooling unit is where vapour condenses regardless of what the herb sat in.
Winner: Solo 3 v2, by four and a half points. If cleaning is what would stop you using a device on a bad day, this section is the comparison.
Portability
Winner: Solo 3 v2, narrowly. 7/10 against 6.5/10, and neither number is worth celebrating.
The Solo is the smaller object and the heavier one — 280g against 227g — but 130mm of cylinder disappears into a jacket pocket in a way that 140 × 84mm of rectangle doesn't. It needs something to protect the glass; a £4 pencil case from Ryman's does it. The Mighty+ fits jacket pockets, bags, and the kind of cargo shorts your dad wears on holiday, and nothing else.
Neither has any stealth. Both produce visible vapour and look like equipment — one like a torch, one like something a nurse hands you in a corridor. If pocket carry is genuinely your priority, both reviews point you elsewhere, and so do I.
Value for Money
Winner: Solo 3 v2, and the price gap runs the same way as the score. 9/10 against 8/10, £38 apart, with the cheaper device also being the higher-scoring one.
At £217.99 the Solo is the best value-per-quality ratio in the £200–300 portable bracket: two vapes in one body, all-day battery, trivial cleaning, glass-path flavour, and a lifetime warranty on the heater.
The £255.99 Mighty+ is defended by its own review on grounds that have nothing to do with the spec sheet: twenty years of S&B making medical-grade machines, a mature accessory range, solid warranty support, held resale value, and a knowledge base where every trick has already been worked out by somebody else. "Best value" and "safest choice" aren't the same thing, it says, and that's fair — but you're paying £38 extra for the safety, not receiving it as a discount.
Score Comparison
| Category | Solo 3 v2 | Mighty+ |
|---|---|---|
| Vapour Quality | 9.5/10 | 9/10 |
| Design & Build | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Battery & Charging | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8.5/10 | 9/10 |
| Cleaning & Maintenance | 9.5/10 | 5/10 |
| Portability | 7/10 | 6.5/10 |
| Value for Money | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Overall | 9.2/10 | 8.7/10 |
Five categories to one, with one draw — and the single category the Mighty+ wins is the one that decides a great many real purchases. Worth noting how the two overalls are built: the Solo's category average is 8.8 and the Mighty+'s is 7.8, and both overalls sit above their averages for the same stated reason — vapour quality and everyday usability matter more than portability on a device that mostly lives indoors. The Mighty+'s 5 for cleaning is the only thing standing between it and a 9.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the Solo 3 v2 if you want the best portable on this site under £300 — which, on these scores, is what it is. You care about terps, or you suspect you would if you heard them properly. You want on-demand micro-hits between tasks and long session draws in the evening without owning two devices. You'd like your maintenance to be a thirty-second job rather than a fortnightly appointment. And you're willing to spend one week learning not to overpack.
Buy the Mighty+ if you've never owned a vaporiser, or if you want to stop thinking about vaporisers. It's the right answer for first-timers, for medical users who need identical dosing on good days and bad, for households where other people will pick it up, and for anyone whose hands aren't reliable enough to trust with borosilicate. It asks nothing of you except patience and a button press.
The wrong buyer for the Solo is someone who wants zero learning curve and zero fragility — that person will be happier £38 poorer with a brick. The wrong buyer for the Mighty+ is the flavour chaser who'll spend the next two years wondering what the glass sounds like, and the person who already knows, in their heart, that they won't do the cooling-unit teardown.
How I Actually Choose
The honest version of this section is that the answer changed, and I can date it.
The Mighty+ was 60% of my total usage before the Solo 3 v2 arrived. It's about 30% now. The Solo sits at roughly 35% — up from 30% when it landed — and the difference came out of exactly one device's share. Evenings for pain management, days for on-demand micro-hits between tasks, 185°C stepping to 195°C, Dave's beloved 3D Flow stem attached whenever I'm home. That's a change in habit, not a change of opinion, which is the only kind of evidence I trust from myself.
What the Mighty+ kept is the part I didn't predict. It's still on the counter. It's still what gets used when I'm too tired to be careful, and there's no version of a bad pain day where I'd rather be handling glass. And it's still the one I hand to other people — four friends tried mine and bought their own, a conversion rate the Solo will never touch, because the Solo needs a conversation first.
Dave is the case study nobody planned: five Mighty+ units in two years, pure error-code lottery, all replaced under warranty inside a week. That's a genuinely poor look for S&B QC and simultaneously a demonstration of why people put up with it. He tried a TinyMight 2 for a month and came back. Too much faff, he said. He just wants to press a button and vape.
When I told Sarah the Solo 3 v2 had gone top of the best-of lists, she looked at the kitchen counter and said: "So the brick's been demoted." Then she moved my mug and left the brick exactly where it was, which is roughly the correct summary of what's happened here.
The Verdict (The Bookend)
Nobody has ever knocked down a civic centre because the glasshouse down the road was prettier.
The glasshouse is the better building. That isn't really in dispute — you go there to see something properly with nothing in the way, and you accept that it's made of panes and you must be careful near it. The Solo 3 v2 is the better vaporiser by five categories to one and costs £38 less: 9.2 against 8.7, better flavour, double the battery, thirty-second cleaning instead of a fortnightly teardown, and on-demand thrown in as a second device. If you're buying on merit, that's the end of it.
But the civic centre opens at nine. The Mighty+ is still the vape I hand to a first-timer, still the one that works identically on the worst day of the month, still the one with nothing on it that shatters. Its cleaning score is a 5 given by a man who has used it every day for two years — which tells you how much the rest of it must be doing.
The glasshouse if you want to see the thing. The civic centre if you want the thing done. And if you can't decide, buy the one you'd trust yourself with when you feel rubbish, because that's the day the decision actually gets made.
FAQ
Arizer Solo 3 vs Mighty+ — which should I buy? The Solo 3 v2 for most people: it scores higher (9.2 vs 8.7), costs £38 less (£217.99 vs £255.99), has better flavour, double the battery life and thirty-second cleaning, and adds on-demand mode. Buy the Mighty+ if it's your first vaporiser, or if you want zero technique and nothing breakable.
Is the flavour difference actually noticeable? Yes, and the control strains show exactly where. On Jack Herer the Solo gives you fresh pine on draw one; the Mighty+ gives you warm pine, because the chamber walls and cooling unit round the needle-point off the terpinolene. On Wedding Cake the gap almost closes — both render vanilla, butter, dough and pepper as four separate things — but the Mighty+ adds a weight to it that glass simply won't.
Which is easier to live with day to day? Mighty+ to operate, Solo 3 v2 to maintain. Two buttons and a minute's wait versus twenty seconds and a packing technique you learn in a week — then thirty seconds of stem care versus a cooling-unit teardown every 2–3 weeks. Pick whichever chore you'll resent less.
Which battery lasts longer? The Solo 3 v2: 12–15 bowls per charge against 6–8, roughly ninety minutes to full on a PD brick, and pass-through so you can vape it plugged in. The Mighty+ charges faster — 80% in about forty minutes — but only with the S&B Supercharger, which is sold separately; a phone charger takes four hours.
Which one for medical use? Both work, differently. The Mighty+ gives sustained delivery across 5–12 draws with no technique required and nothing to break, which matters on fatigue days — and its cleaning burden is heaviest exactly when you're least able to face it, so keep a spare cooling unit and rotate. The Solo adds on-demand top-ups when pain levels fluctuate, but glass stems on tiles are a genuine risk if your hands aren't reliable. Keep spares either way.
Can I use dosing capsules or a water piece? The Mighty+ takes S&B dosing capsules, though they only keep the oven cleaner and do nothing for the cooling unit. The Solo shares the whole Arizer glass ecosystem — Solo 2 and Air MAX stems carry over, water-pipe adapter options included. Standard stem beats the XL pod, incidentally: the pod's top layer sits too far from the heat to extract evenly.
Is the Solo 3 v2 worth it over the Solo 2 MAX? A different question, but a common one: yes if you want on-demand, because you're buying a second vape in the same body rather than a faster menu. If you only ever session, the Solo 2 MAX at £128.99 gets the same glass-path flavour for £89 less. Full breakdown in the Solo 3 v2 review.
About Dennis M.
Dennis M. has been reviewing vaporisers and vaping daily for the best part of a decade. He works in IT, has ADHD, and uses cannabis for chronic pain management. He lives in Manchester with his partner Sarah, who has accepted that the Mighty+ lives on the kitchen counter and has stopped moving it to the cupboard, and who has separately noticed that the Arizer shelf is getting crowded.
Dennis grew up in a city that spent forty years apologising for its concrete and has recently started listing it. He is aware this is also his entire relationship with the Mighty+, and he'd thank you not to mention it.
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: - Arizer Solo 3 v2 Review: Joy Division Became New Order → - Storz & Bickel Mighty+ Review: The Land Rover Defender →
More Comparisons: - All Head-to-Head Comparisons →
New to Vaping? - The Temperature Guide →
How I Score: - Review Methodology →
Get Either at HerbVape.co.uk {#shop}
Solo 3 v2 — £217.99 Buy the Solo 3 v2 → Worth grabbing with it: a spare 90mm glass mouthpiece, because tiles and borosilicate aren't friends.
Mighty+ — £255.99 Buy the Mighty+ → Worth grabbing with it: a second cooling unit, so you're never doing a teardown on a night you need a session.
Just one more bowl.
Last updated: 26 August 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. This comparison reflects eight months of daily rotation with the Solo 3 v2 and two years with the Mighty+.
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 comparison 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.