PAX 4 Review & Owner's Guide (2026): Tested, 8.3/10

The Hook: The Smeg Toaster Argument

A Smeg toaster costs about eight times as much as a Russell Hobbs.

A perfectly good Russell Hobbs toaster does the same job. Same result. Bread goes in, toast comes out. If you're running spec-sheet comparisons — slot count, browning settings, defrost function — the Russell Hobbs wins on a strict cost-per-feature basis.

And yet Smeg sells thousands of them every month, and people who own one will defend the purchase to anyone who asks.

Because specs aren't the point. The point is that it sits on your kitchen counter and changes the room. The point is that when your mother-in-law walks in for tea, she clocks it and says "oh, that's nice." The point is that you actually enjoy using it — pulling the lever down with that satisfying mechanical click, watching the chrome catch the morning light, feeling like a person who has their life together. It toasts bread. It toasts bread with composure.

The PAX 4 is the Smeg toaster of vaporisers.

It doesn't produce the densest vapour at the price. The Mighty+ extracts more thoroughly. The Solo 3 v2 wins on flavour. The V3 Pro does eighty percent of the same job for under half the price. If you build a spreadsheet, the PAX 4 loses to most of the vaporiser shop.

But none of those vapes look like the PAX 4. None of them disappear into a jacket pocket and read as a generic piece of consumer tech when you pull them out at the bar. None of them sit on a coffee table without screaming VAPORISER at the room. Sarah owns the PAX Mini 2 in Greenstone. She's already eyeing the PAX 4 in Onyx for "when the Mini gets old."

I judged her for the Smeg toaster six months ago. We'd had a perfectly good Russell Hobbs for seven years. She bought the Smeg with her own money and put it on the counter and said "I'm not asking permission, I'm telling you it's there." Three weeks later I made my own toast on it for the first time and didn't say anything. We don't discuss this anymore.

Because the PAX 4 is what PAX have always been quietly trying to be. The PAX 3 was a flashy phone-app circus that didn't quite work. The PAX Plus was a nice-looking step backwards. The PAX Flow was the comeback that proved PAX could engineer properly when they tried. The PAX 4 is the mainline version of that comeback — same brand DNA, same minimalist design, same one-button simplicity, evolved one more generation. Better vapour than the PAX 3 (the floor was on the floor). Cleaner design than the Plus. Slimmer and lighter than the Flow. The PAX you'd actually buy if you wanted one PAX.

We stock the PAX 4 at HerbVape.co.uk — details and pricing up top, and the owner's guide for setup, temperatures and cleaning is further down.

Vapour Quality 7.8/10

Let's get this out of the way: the PAX 4 produces good vapour, not great vapour. It's a meaningful step up from the PAX 3 — denser opening draws, cleaner mid-bowl extraction, more even thermodynamics across the chamber. It's still conduction-leaning. The convection assist is doing more work than it did in the PAX 3, but you're not buying a Mighty+ and you'd be wrong to expect Mighty+ output.

It's not gonna give you clouds. That's the Reddit consensus and the Reddit consensus is correct.

What it will give you is a controlled, predictable, satisfying session — provided you sip it. Slow draws, gentle pulls, no aggression. The chamber needs time to do its work. Try to rip it like a bong and you'll get half-extracted vapour and a mouthful of warm air. Sip it like a cigar and you'll get four to six properly flavoured draws on Mode 2, and a complete bowl by the end of Mode 3.

It rewards patience more than power.

Compared to the PAX 3, the differences are real. The 3D oven screen distributes heat more evenly across the chamber, which means fewer hot spots and less stirring. The redesigned vapour path is shorter and stays cooler. The convection contribution — same architecture as the PAX Flow, scaled down — gives you cleaner opening draws than any non-Flow PAX has managed. If you've owned a PAX 3 for years and tolerated its eccentricities, the PAX 4 will feel like a generation-and-a-half jump in one move.

Compared to the rest of the field at this price, though, the PAX 4 is competing with vapes that beat it on raw output. The Solo 3 v2 produces noticeably better flavour through its glass path. The Veazy delivers denser clouds. The V3 Pro at less than half the price punches above its weight on density. The PAX 4 isn't trying to win those fights. It's trying to be the prettiest, most pocketable, most-frictionless vape in your collection — and it succeeds at that, with vapour quality that's now finally good enough that you don't have to apologise for the device.

The flavour profile is clean and slightly compressed. The short vapour path means you get the terps in concentrated form rather than expansive form — similar in character to the PAX Mini 2, but with more density and more bowl-life. Not as layered as a glass-path Arizer. Not as buttery as a Storz & Bickel. Honest, clean, PAX.

The Strain Test

Every toaster on this site gets handed the same bread: two jars, one grinder, one grind, cleaned between them as house protocol demands, so the loaf never varies and the machine always does. The question for the Smeg is whether a machine you bought for the way it looks on a counter can also tell you what you've put inside it.

Jack Herer — Sativa

The Flower: Same jar as every other device on this site. Haze × (Northern Lights #5 × Shiva Skunk), around 20% THC, terpinolene-led with caryophyllene and pinene behind it. Pale, spindly, hairy stuff that looks less impressive than it smokes — crack the jar and it's pine needles and lemon peel first, dry green herbs underneath, black pepper right at the back. Old-school in the way that means "aromatic", not "weak". It's the strain that shows you up: the top notes are fragile, and if a vaporiser can't hold them you find out in the first three seconds.

The Pack: 0.35g, medium grind, firm and level tamp — full chamber, half-pack lid left in the drawer. A conduction oven wants to be full and evenly packed; half-fill one and the empty side scorches while the loaded side channels. The mode presets don't land on the site-standard steps, so I used the PAX 4's real-time manual adjustment to sit it on 180, 193 and 205 like everything else in the benchmark.

Low Temp (180°C): Draw one is better than any PAX has given me. Pine needles, proper lemon peel, a thin thread of fresh resin behind it — bright, legible, actually the strain rather than a suggestion of it. Draw two holds most of it. By draw three the oven walls have caught up and the citrus lift has thinned to a general green-herb warmth, and by draw five the pine is a memory with pepper starting to elbow in early. Five draws, two of them genuinely good, which is a better ratio than the Mini 2 manages and still a long way short of a glass stem.

Mid Temp (193°C): This is where the PAX 4 stops apologising. Black pepper arrives with real definition, dry spice underneath it, and a woody haze that carries the body of the bowl. Four draws, all of them consistent in density, no hot pockets — the 3D screen earns its place here. What you don't get is layering. Pepper and wood arrive blended together rather than stacked, which is the conduction tax and there's no getting round it at this price with this heating type.

High Temp (205°C): Earth and a light savoury roast, with leather at the back of the third draw. Three draws to finish it. The grip warms noticeably at this temperature — the PAX has always built heat in the body — and the ABV came out evenly toasted, which at least tells you the oven is doing what it claims.

The Verdict: Twelve draws, honest ones, and a strain that came through recognisable rather than resolved. The Smeg toaster analogy holds all the way down here: it toasts the bread properly, evenly, with composure — and it cannot tell you whether the loaf was sourdough. Jack's fragile top end survives about two and a half draws before the oven blends it away, and that is a physical characteristic of hot walls, not a fault in this particular unit. It's the best conduction rendering of this strain I've had outside the Flow. It's still a conduction rendering.

Wedding Cake — Indica-Leaning Hybrid

The Flower: Same jar as every other device on this site. Triangle Kush × Animal Mints, via Triangle Mints #23 — around 24% THC, caryophyllene first, then limonene and myrcene. Dense, squat, greasy nuggets that leave your fingers tacky and your grinder needing a wash. Nose is vanilla and cream over sweet raw dough, with a peppery earth underneath and a cherry-berry edge that turns up on the exhale more than the sniff. Modern dessert genetics doing exactly what it says on the tin. Where Jack exposes a device, this one flatters it.

The Pack: 0.35g again, same medium grind, same firm level tamp, screen and mouthpiece cleaned in between so nothing pine-flavoured was left in the path. Greasy flower packs denser than Jack's spindly stuff, so I eased off the tamp a touch to keep the airflow honest.

Low Temp (180°C): Vanilla and sweet cream on the first draw, thick enough that you notice the mouthfeel before you notice the flavour. Sweet raw dough underneath, a cherry edge showing up on the exhale exactly where the jar promised it would. Five draws and the sweetness doesn't thin out the way Jack's citrus did — dessert notes sit lower and heavier and hot walls don't hurt them. Sarah walked through the kitchen on draw four and asked whether I'd put something in the oven.

Mid Temp (193°C): The best thing this device does. Butter turns up alongside the vanilla rather than replacing it, warm dough behind both, and black pepper emerges late in the fourth draw without flattening anything. Four draws, and — this is the part that matters — I could name the components separately. Vanilla, butter, dough, pepper, four things rather than one undifferentiated sweet. That resolution is not what I expected from an oven at this price and it's the single strongest argument for the vapour score being 7.8 rather than 7.

High Temp (205°C): Toasted and nutty, caramelised sugar tipping towards a burnt edge on the last of it, the dessert character collapsing into generic warmth. Three draws and the bowl is spent, evenly browned, no green corners. Nothing gained up here — this stage is for finishing the load, not for flavour.

The Verdict: Twelve draws and the clearest result in the review: this is a dessert-strain machine. Both strains stayed apart until 193°C and converged into the same brown roast by 205°C, which makes the PAX 4 half a flavour device and half a delivery device — good enough to separate vanilla from butter, not good enough to keep hold of pine. If your jar looks like this one, the PAX tax buys you something real rather than just a nice object. If your jar looks like the other one, you're paying PAX money for the way it sits on the coffee table, and the Smeg toaster argument is the only argument left. Both are defensible. Only one of them is about vapour.

Design & Build 9.5/10

This is where the PAX 4 walks away from the field.

The body is anodised aluminium, machined to PAX's usual obsessive tolerances. Smooth pebble-curve. No visible screws. No seams. The kind of object that sits in your palm and reads as designed-not-assembled. PAX have always made the prettiest vapes in the category and the PAX 4 is the prettiest PAX they've made. It's a step on from the Mini 2's miniature elegance — denser, weightier, more substantial without losing the pocketability, and slimmer through the body than the Flow.

Universal agreement on Reddit: the PAX 4 has the best industrial design of any vape in its bracket. The forum truth is even sharper: "Looks better than it hits." Both statements are correct, and the PAX 4 leans into both of them.

The colour options matter. Onyx is the default professional choice. Charcoal is the matt-finish stealth option. Sage Green and Burgundy are the design-led colours that turn the device into an object rather than a tool. Sarah picked up the Sage Green review unit and held it for thirty seconds before asking what it was. That's the test.

Build quality is genuinely excellent. Solid in the hand, weighted properly at 125g, machined cleanly enough that the seams between the lid and body are invisible to the eye. The matte finish on the Onyx and Charcoal resists fingerprints; the gloss finish on the Sage and Burgundy doesn't (worth knowing).

The 3D oven screen redesign is the genuine engineering improvement. Same approach PAX used in the Mini 2 and refined for the Flow — three-dimensional mesh that distributes heat across the chamber rather than concentrating it on a flat surface. You'll notice it in two ways: more even extraction (less stirring required) and easier cleaning (residue doesn't bake into a flat circle, it sits in a contoured mesh that brushes out).

Heat management is the one design quirk worth flagging. Like the Flow, the PAX 4 builds heat in the grip during longer sessions at the top mode. After six or seven minutes at 220°C I shifted my grip twice. PAX sell a silicone grip sleeve separately, and at this price point it really should be in the box. The fixes are in the troubleshooting section below.

The half-pack lid is included — proper PAX move. The Mini 2 made you buy it separately. The PAX 4 ships it as standard. Genuinely improves the device for solo users.

Battery & Charging 7.5/10

USB-C, finally. Properly, mainline-product-with-a-USB-C-port USB-C, not the proprietary magnetic dock that made every previous PAX a liability if you forgot the cable. Welcome to the rest of consumer electronics, PAX. Took you long enough.

Battery performance is the weaker side of the PAX 4. About five sessions per charge in real use — up to fifty minutes of continuous runtime, depending on temperature and session length. That's adequate for an everyday-out vape — comfortable for a normal evening — but it's not class-leading. The Solo 3 v2 gets twelve to fifteen bowls on a charge. The V3 Pro gets six to eight, plus you can swap the cell in twenty seconds. The Mighty+ gets six to eight. The PAX 4 sits below all of them.

Charging is reasonably quick — full charge in about 100 minutes from flat, with a 50% charge in roughly 25 minutes. Enough for a top-up while you're eating dinner before going out. Not as fast as the PAX Flow's headline 20-minute half-charge, but close enough that the difference doesn't matter in real life.

The Sealed Battery Reality

The PAX 4 has a sealed battery. PAX's argument has always been that the body design wouldn't survive a removable-cell architecture and they're not entirely wrong — a slot for a battery door would compromise the seamless aesthetic that's the entire point of the device. But the practical consequence is that in 18-24 months of daily use, the cell will degrade, and at that point the device is either a paperweight or a paid mail-in service through PAX.

The warranty is two years, three if you register within 30 days, and it covers a lot of failures — but battery degradation is specifically excluded. PAX's policy is that you can ship them a degraded device for a discounted refurbishment. Some users have reported good experiences with this. Others have ended up buying the next generation instead.

For users who depend on the device daily — medical users in particular — the sealed battery is the spec sheet line that should give pause. The Air MAX and the V3 Pro and the Legacy Pro 2 all use removable cells — a 26650 in the Air MAX, 18650s in the other two. They'll outlast their first battery and their second. The PAX 4 won't.

The Auto-Shutoff Frustration

The PAX 4 inherits PAX's signature 3-minute session timer. The device heats, you draw, after three minutes it shuts down. For a Stealth Mode microdose this is fine. For a proper session at Mode 2 or Mode 3 it's mildly annoying — you'll wake the device once or twice per bowl by tapping the power button. The Flow does the same thing. The Mini 2 does the same thing. PAX consider it a feature (battery efficiency, accidental discharge prevention). Most owners file it as a minor irritation.

Ease of Use 9.5/10

This is the PAX 4's home territory.

One button. Four modes. Haptic feedback. Twenty-second heat-up. Lip-sensing temperature management. Motion-detect standby. There is genuinely nothing to learn. Hold the button to turn it on. Tap to cycle modes. Wait for the haptic buzz. Draw.

You don't learn the PAX — you just use it.

This is the entire pitch of the brand and the PAX 4 delivers it as cleanly as any PAX has ever delivered it. There is no temperature dial to overthink. No on-demand technique to master. No airflow window to adjust. No replaceable batteries to manage. You pack the chamber, you pick a mode, you draw. The device handles the rest.

For first-time vape buyers, this is a genuine selling point and probably the strongest argument for buying the PAX 4 over a Solo 3 v2 or Legacy Pro 2. Both of those produce better vapour. Neither of them is as foolproof. The PAX 4 will do exactly what you expect, every time, with no input from you beyond the basic operation. That's worth the money to a lot of people, and it's worth more than that to people who don't want to think about their vape.

The fixed heat modes are the trade-off. PAX have never used a proper temperature dial in their non-app devices. You get four presets, plus a real-time manual adjustment that nudges within them rather than replacing them. If you've used any vape with proper 1-degree control, this feels like dropping from a thermostat to a guessing game. If you haven't, you'll never miss it.

The four presets are Stealth (190°C), Balanced (200°C), Boost (210°C) and Max (220°C). What each one tastes like, when to use it, and how to nudge between them is in the temperature settings section of the owner's guide.

Loading is straightforward — medium grind, firm level tamp, half-pack lid for solo use (the loading rules are below). The chamber opening on the PAX 4 is slightly larger than the Mini 2, which makes packing easier and reduces the number of "Tom incidents" (loading too much, complaining the flavour is weak, refusing to read the manual). The included multi-tool handles ABV cleanup neatly.

18-22 second heat-up. Faster than the PAX 3 (40+ seconds), and faster than the Flow, which takes 25-35 seconds to settle. Genuinely competitive. The haptic buzz is firm enough to feel through a jacket pocket.

Cleaning & Maintenance 8.5/10

PAX cleaning has historically been the device's weakest point. The Plus required ritual maintenance. The Mini 2 fixed half of it with the 3D oven screen. The PAX 4 inherits that fix and adds proper access to the airpath, which makes it the cleanest PAX cleaning experience yet — though still firmly behind glass-stem devices like the Solo 3 v2 and capsule-based devices like the Legacy Pro 2.

Not hard. Just often. That's the whole story.

The full daily/weekly/monthly schedule and a step-by-step strip-down live in the owner's guide cleaning section below. The short version: brush after every session, a screen-and-mouthpiece soak every 15–20 bowls, a full strip every 30-plus.

The PAX 4 wants attention more often than a Mighty+ wants attention, and rewards it with consistent flavour. Skip a clean and the vapour goes flat and slightly resin-y within two or three sessions. Stay on top of it and it produces clean, controlled vapour for as long as you own it.

The Process

The good news: the 3D screen pops out cleanly with a fingernail. The mouthpiece comes off magnetically. The half-pack lid lifts straight out. The airpath is accessible with a dampened cotton bud through the oven cavity. None of this requires tools, force, or the PAX 3's notorious internal disassembly.

The less-good news: you'll be doing it once a week if you're a daily user. PAX cleaning is high-frequency-low-effort rather than low-frequency-high-effort. Whether that suits your brain depends entirely on whether you'd rather do a quick clean every few days or a proper deep-clean every two weeks.

Buy a PAX maintenance kit and the routine becomes trivial. Skip it and you'll improvise with stationery and feel slightly dim about it.

Portability 9.5/10

This is why people still buy PAX.

At 125g and roughly the size of a roll of mints, the PAX 4 disappears into a jacket pocket, a clutch bag, or a pair of skinny jeans without making its presence known. Less obvious in the pocket than the Mini 2 (which is genuinely tiny but obviously a thing). Slimmer than the Flow (which is itself excellent on portability). The flat sides sit flush against your leg. No brick-bulge. No outline. It reads as generic consumer tech.

Real-world test: Took it to a Friday night at the Northern Quarter. Front jeans pocket, no case. Used it twice — once at the bar between drinks, once on the walk between venues. Nobody clocked it either time. Stealth Mode produces minimal visible vapour, the matte Onyx finish reads as a phone or an MP3 player to anyone glancing at it, and the haptic buzz is firm enough to feel through the jacket without making a sound. This is the PAX use case. This is what the brand has always been good at, and the PAX 4 is the cleanest expression of it yet.

Compared to the Flow, the PAX 4 is a shade thinner through the body, ten grams lighter, and feels slightly less premium in the hand (the Flow is denser). Compared to the Mini 2, the PAX 4 is bigger and chunkier but still pocketable, and produces meaningfully more vapour for the size penalty. The half-pack lid means a half-load can deliver four useable solo draws — efficient enough to make the small bowl size a non-issue.

For nights out, concerts, gigs, festivals, and anywhere the device needs to be invisible: the PAX 4 is the answer. Possibly the answer. Almost certainly the answer.

Sarah's take: "Better than the Mini for going out — looks like an iPod when I pull it out." That's not nothing.

How I Actually Use This

My Default Setup: Mode 2 (Balanced — 200°C) for normal sessions. Half-pack lid for solo use, full chamber for shared sessions. Medium grind, firm level tamp. Mode 4 if I'm at home with the water piece.

When I Reach For It: Going out. Pubs, gigs, the cinema, dinners where I want a discreet top-up between courses. Days when I want the vape in my pocket and out of my mind. The PAX 4 has earned a permanent spot in the going-out rotation alongside the PAX Flow — the Flow when I want stronger vapour, the PAX 4 when I want lighter pockets.

When I Don't: Home sessions. The Mighty+ extracts more thoroughly, the Solo 3 v2 tastes better, the Legacy Pro 2 has the on-demand flexibility. The PAX 4 doesn't compete on raw output and isn't trying to.

The Honest Cleaning Reality: Once a week if I'm using it regularly. About 8-10 minutes for a proper screen-and-airpath clean. Buy the PAX cleaning kit and don't improvise.

Session Frequency: Three or four sessions a week through the PAX 4. It's earned its slot. It hasn't replaced anything. Sarah's tried to claim it twice.

Medical Use Notes

For Pain Management: Mode 2 with a full chamber delivers a slow, controlled session that builds effects gradually over six to eight minutes. Onset is slower than a hybrid like the Mighty+ — closer to ten minutes for noticeable effect — but the controlled extraction means the dose is predictable and the session is repeatable. For sustained low-grade pain management throughout a day, the PAX 4 is genuinely workable. For acute breakthrough pain, the TinyMight 2 or Solo 3 v2 on demand is faster.

For ADHD/Focus: Stealth Mode is properly useful. Two or three short draws delivers a microdose without committing to a full session. The auto-shutoff (which I've otherwise complained about) becomes an asset here — it limits the dose for you. The lack of true 1-degree temperature control is the trade-off; if you've found a specific temp that works for your focus dosing, you're stuck with the nearest mode.

Session Timing: First draw to noticeable effect: 4-8 minutes depending on mode. Effects build over the session. Duration is strain-dependent but typically 1.5-2.5 hours from a full bowl on Mode 2.

The Medical User's Concern: The sealed battery. 18-24 month degradation timeline with no swappable cells. For a medical-grade dependency on the device, this is the spec sheet line that should give pause. The two-year warranty doesn't cover battery degradation. Plan for replacement or service in two years — the charging habits that slow it down are in the battery care section.

Value for Money 7/10

The PAX tax is real and the value calculation is the part of the review the design-led PAX user will skip and the spreadsheet user will linger on.

At this price, you're competing with:

• V3 Pro — far cheaper, denser vapour, removable battery, two-thirds-of-the-experience
• Solo 2 MAX — cheaper, better flavour through glass, session-only
• Smono 4 Pro — about half the price, Dave's blind-test winner, better extraction
• Veazy — dearer, denser clouds, S&B reliability, similar size
• Solo 3 v2 — dearer, meaningfully better vapour, glass path, session AND on-demand
• Legacy Pro 2 — similar money, wider feature spread, hybrid heating, removable battery

The price-per-performance maths don't work. They never do for PAX. They never will for PAX. If you're running a spreadsheet, the PAX 4 loses to the V3 Pro, the Smono 4 Pro, and the Solo 3 v2 at minimum. That's not a controversial statement — it's the reality of a PAX purchase, and PAX have always priced their products knowing it.

What you're paying for is design, pocketability, brand cachet, the warranty cover, and the easiest user experience in the category. If any of those things matter to you at the markup over the V3 Pro, the PAX 4 is the right purchase. If none of them do, the V3 Pro is the right purchase.

The PAX 4 vs V3 Pro question is the same question as the Smeg toaster vs the Russell Hobbs. You know the answer before you walk into the shop. Don't let me talk you out of it. Don't let r/vaporents talk you out of it either.

The Verdict

Three weeks in, the PAX 4 has earned a slot in the going-out rotation. Not the top slot for vapour quality — the Solo 3 v2 holds that for portables, the Mighty+ for sessions, the TinyMight 2 for on-demand. But the pocket slot — the device I take out the door when I want to stop thinking about vapour quality and just have a good evening.

The Smeg toaster argument holds all the way down. The PAX 4 doesn't win the spec sheet fight. It's not trying to. It's trying to be the prettiest, most pocketable, most-frictionless device in the rotation, and at that specific brief it succeeds with composure. Sarah's already eyeing the Sage Green for "when the Mini gets old." She's not wrong to.

This is the PAX you'd actually buy if you wanted one PAX. Not the cheapest (Mini 2). Not the most ambitious (Flow). The mainline. The everyday. The vape that disappears into your jacket pocket and doesn't come out until you want it.

I publicly said the PAX Plus was overpriced. I publicly said the PAX 3 was a flashy disappointment. I was right both times. The PAX 4 is neither. It's a quietly competent design-led pocket vape that finally produces vapour you don't have to apologise for.

Sarah pulled it out of my hands at the kitchen counter. "I'm taking this one to my mum's at the weekend."

"What about the Mini?"

"The Mini's in my work bag. This one's nicer."

She's not wrong about that either. Just one more bowl.

Score Breakdown

Category	Score	One-Line Summary
Vapour Quality	7.8/10	Best non-Flow PAX yet — meaningful step up from PAX 3, still conduction-leaning
Design & Build	9.5/10	The prettiest vape in its class — anodised aluminium, satisfying haptics, looks like consumer tech
Battery & Charging	7.5/10	USB-C finally, mid-pack capacity, sealed cell with the standard PAX degradation timeline
Ease of Use	9.5/10	Zero learning curve — one button, four modes, haptic feedback, foolproof
Cleaning & Maintenance	8.5/10	Best PAX cleaning yet — accessible airpath, magnetic mouthpiece, 3D screen pops out cleanly
Portability	9.5/10	This is why people still buy PAX — disappears into any pocket, reads as generic tech
Value for Money	7/10	The PAX tax is real — the V3 Pro does 80% of the same job for far less
Overall	8.3/10	The Smeg toaster of vapes — pretty, premium-priced, design-first, just works. Defendable for the right buyer, indefensible to a spreadsheet

Category average is 8.5. The overall sits below it because vapour quality and value are the two categories that decide whether you keep using a vape, and they're the two the PAX 4 scores lowest in.

An 8.3 puts the PAX 4 level with the PAX Flow (8.3) and the Veazy (8.3) — the same overall score for very different reasons. The Flow earns its 8.3 with hybrid power. The Veazy earns it with reliability. The PAX 4 earns it with simplicity, design, and the most foolproof user experience in the bracket. Three different routes to the same number, and the right one for you depends entirely on what you're optimising for.

Vs the Competition

PAX 4 vs Veazy

The Veazy is the sensible answer to the same brief — a small, simple, sealed-battery session vape from a company that has been building ovens for twenty years. It delivers denser clouds and better battery life, and it costs more. What it doesn't do is look like anything. The Veazy is a competent plastic wedge in one of four colours; the PAX 4 is an object people pick up off a coffee table. If you want vapour per pound, take the Veazy. If you want the thing you actually enjoy holding, that's the whole PAX argument in one sentence.

PAX 4 vs PAX Flow

The Flow is the more powerful PAX — hybrid heating, denser vapour, side-loading oven, fast-charge USB-C. The PAX 4 is the simpler PAX — slimmer, lighter, cheaper, easier. The Flow is the going-out vape if you want PAX and performance. The PAX 4 is the going-out vape if you want PAX and pocketability. Both earn 8.3/10 for very different reasons. PAX 4 vs PAX Flow, head to head →

PAX 4 vs PAX Mini 2

The Mini 2 is smaller (89g vs 125g) and a good deal cheaper. The PAX 4 produces more vapour, better cleaning access, and a longer session life. The Mini 2 charges over USB-C too, though through a magnetic dock rather than a port on the body. If you specifically want the smallest possible premium vape, the Mini 2. If you want a better-rounded everyday vape that happens to also be pocketable, the PAX 4. PAX 4 vs PAX Mini 2, head to head →

PAX 4 vs XMAX V3 Pro

The PAX vs V3 Pro question is the question every PAX review has to answer. The V3 Pro produces denser vapour. It has a removable 18650. It costs about half as much. On a spreadsheet it wins. On a coffee table it loses. On a Friday night out it loses. The PAX 4 is a pretty vape that does its job with composure. The V3 Pro is a good vape that does its job more. Choose your priority. Don't let the other side's argument guilt you. PAX 4 vs V3 Pro, head to head →

PAX 4 vs Arizer Solo 3 V2

The Solo 3 wins on vapour quality, flavour clarity, battery life, cleaning, and on-demand mode. The PAX 4 wins on design, portability, ease of use, and the fact that it doesn't look like a chunky Canadian portable. The Solo 3 costs more. If vapour matters most, Solo 3. If pocketability and design matter most, PAX 4. If you want both, you need two vapes — and that's a defensible answer too. PAX 4 vs Solo 3 V2, head to head →

Side by Side

Owner's Guide: Getting the Most From Your PAX 4

That's the review. This is the part for when it's already in your pocket — the temperature control almost nobody knows the device has, the one loading rule that decides whether your vapour is good or rubbish, the weekly clean, and the fixes for the things that go wrong. It comes from my own unit, owner emails and the forum threads. Where the PAX 4 is annoying, I say so. It's annoying in three places, and all three have workarounds.

The golden rule for the PAX 4: pack it full and level, sip it like a cigar, step the temperature as the bowl ages. This device has no ceiling you can reach by trying harder — only a floor you can hit by rushing.

First Use & Setup

1. Charge it fully before the first session. USB-C on the body — any phone charger, any cable, no proprietary dock to lose.
2. Run one empty burn on Mode 4 (220°C). Oven empty, screen in, mouthpiece on, let the three-minute timer run out once. It clears the machining oils and saves you a metallic first bowl. Crack a window.
3. Register it the day it arrives. Registration within 30 days is what takes the warranty from two years to three, and it only completes on a genuine serial. Nobody remembers on day 29.
4. Treat the first three bowls as break-in. Make bowl one a full chamber on Mode 2 with something you don't mind wasting, then clean the screen and mouthpiece after bowl three — the first few bowls shed more particulate than later ones. Still tasting hot metal after bowl five on a unit from an authorised retailer? That's not break-in, that's a fault. Raise it.

Is yours genuine? PAX are one of the most counterfeited names in the category, because the design is the product. Genuine is anodised aluminium with no visible seams or screws; it feels dense and cold in the hand; the mouthpiece snaps on with one firm click and sits dead flush; the haptic is a short, firm, single pulse (fakes rattle); and the oven screen is a contoured stainless mesh. A flat circular screen means it isn't a PAX 4 screen.

Storage and flying. Day to day, anywhere — that's the point of it. Keep it off radiators and out of direct sun, because heat ages the sealed cell fastest. Putting it away for a fortnight or more? Empty the oven, brush the screen and park the battery at roughly 50–60%, not full and not flat. For flights: the cell works out at roughly 10 Wh, far inside the 100 Wh cabin limit — carry-on only, never the hold. Empty the oven first, not for the regulations, for the smell.

Loading & Technique

The one loading rule: full chamber, or half-pack lid fitted. A conduction oven heats from the walls inwards. Half-fill a full chamber and the empty side scorches while the loaded side channels, and you get vapour that is weak and harsh at the same time — which shouldn't be possible, and is. It's the complaint that fills the forum threads, and it's a loading error, not a design fault. With the lid in, a half load gives you four genuinely useable draws and an evenly browned ABV. Fit the lid before you load, not after.

Tom picked mine up at the kitchen counter last month, dropped the half-pack lid on top of an already-full chamber, and asked why it wouldn't sit flush. I explained. He nodded. He will do it again.

1. Grind medium — cracked peppercorn. PAX's own guidance leans fine, and fine is what clogs the 3D screen and turns the airpath into a resin trap. Too coarse and the middle of the load never touches the heat. Skip electric blade grinders and pre-ground bagged herb; our herb prep guide covers reviving a crispy jar.
2. Load about 0.35g, level, and tamp firm — a thumb into soft butter, not an espresso puck. Ease off for greasy dessert strains, which pack denser than dry spindly sativa.
3. Hold the button, tap to pick a mode, wait for the haptic buzz — 18 to 22 seconds.
4. Sip for five to eight seconds. Long and soft. If you can hear yourself drawing, you're drawing too hard. Pull faster than the oven walls can warm the air and you get warm air and a bowl that's still half green.
5. Tap the button between draws to reset the three-minute timer before it shuts you out mid-bowl.

Why draw speed matters so much: the PAX 4 heats mostly by contact with the oven walls, with a small convection assist. The material has to be touching heat, so your draw is the biggest lever you have — and a hot, loaded oven keeps working whether you draw or not, which is why the three-minute timer is less of an outrage than it sounds. If conduction versus convection is new to you, that page is worth ten minutes. The 3D screen spreads heat through the load, so stop stirring out of habit; if the ABV comes out patchy, fix the tamp before you reach for the tool.

Three more ways to use it well. Stealth as a dosing tool: Mode 1 gives minimal visible vapour, and the timer caps the dose for you — two or three short draws and it shuts itself down. Water piece sessions: the only context where Mode 4 is a flavour setting rather than a housekeeping one; water takes the edge off 220°C, but it also puts the most heat into the grip. Back-to-back bowls: give it ten minutes between them, or the second bowl runs hotter than the setting and tastes toasted from draw one.

PAX 4 Temperature Settings

The best temperature for the PAX 4 is Mode 2 (Balanced, 200°C) for everyday sessions. For more flavour, use the real-time manual adjustment: draws one and two around 180°C, the body of the bowl around 193°C, and finish around 205°C or Mode 3. Save Mode 4 (220°C) for clearing a spent bowl or a water piece.

Here's the thing the manual doesn't tell you: the PAX 4 is not stuck on four temperatures. The interface pushes the four presets at you, but you can nudge the setting in real time between and below them. It isn't 1-degree control, and it's a great deal more than the spec sheet implies — it's how I ran the strain test above at 180, 193 and 205°C.

Setting	What you get	When to use it
Manual low — ~180°C (nudged below Mode 1)	The brightest top notes — pine, citrus peel, fresh resin. Low density, clear-headed	Draws one and two, especially on a fragile, citrusy strain
Mode 1 — Stealth, 190°C	Light, thin, restrained vapour; gentle, microdose-scale effect	Daytime, focus dosing, anywhere discretion matters
Mode 2 — Balanced, 200°C (or manual ~193°C)	The full body of the strain — spice, wood, dough, butter; functional head-and-body	Normal sessions. Where most bowls should live
Mode 3 — Boost, 210°C (or manual ~205°C)	Earth, savoury roast, leather at the back; heavier and more sedating	The second half of the bowl, evenings
Mode 4 — Max, 220°C	Toasted and caramelised, tipping to burnt; more of the above, nothing new	Clearing a spent bowl, water piece sessions

The three-stop routine I actually run:

1. Draws 1–2 at ~180°C. Your only window for fragile top notes.
2. Draws 3–7 at ~193°C, or Mode 2. The body of the bowl — consistent density, no hot pockets.
3. Draws 8–12 at ~205°C, or Mode 3. Earth, roast, and the last of it. The grip warms noticeably here; that's normal.
4. Stop when the ABV is evenly brown. Twelve draws is a complete bowl on a full chamber. If you're getting eight, you drew too hard or you half-filled the oven. One or two draws on Mode 4 will clear a pale middle, but they add nothing in flavour.

By strain: limonene- and terpinolene-led citrus and sativa strains need the manual nudge, because the presets start at 190°C and those top notes go early. Dessert genetics are this device's home turf — the sweetness sits low and heavy and hot walls don't hurt it. Myrcene-heavy indicas are easy: Mode 2, stepping to Mode 3 by draw six. Dry or older herb wants a full chamber, a notch lower, a lighter tamp and a slower draw. The theory behind all of it is in our temperature guide.

Battery Care

The cell is sealed, so how you charge it decides how long you keep it. The habits that help are boring and they work: don't store it at 100% for weeks, don't leave it plugged in every night, don't charge it hot straight off a Mode 4 session, and don't run it flat as a routine. Daily users should expect meaningful capacity loss at 18–24 months; at three or four sessions a week you'll get a good deal longer. Degradation isn't covered by the warranty — PAX offer a discounted mail-in refurbishment instead — so if the PAX 4 is your only vape and you use it daily, diarise a service for two years out.

How to Clean the PAX 4

To clean the PAX 4, let it cool, lift off the magnetic mouthpiece and pop out the 3D screen, soak both in 90%+ isopropyl alcohol for 15 minutes, run a dampened cotton bud through the airpath and oven, then rinse, dry fully and run one empty burn on Mode 4. Brush the oven after every session and do the soak every 15–20 bowls — roughly weekly for a daily user.

Not hard. Just often. This device punishes neglect faster than a big session vape does: skip a clean and the vapour goes flat and resin-y within two or three sessions.

When	What to do	Time
Daily — after every session	Brush the oven floor while it's still warm	10 seconds
Every 5–7 bowls	Brush the screen, wipe the mouthpiece	1 minute
Weekly (every 15–20 bowls)	ISO-soak the screen and mouthpiece; cotton bud through the airpath	15 minutes, mostly waiting
Fortnightly	Dry cotton bud on the lip-sense contact	5 seconds
Monthly (every 30+ bowls)	Full strip — mouthpiece, screen, half-pack lid, oven — and a fresh 3D screen if soaking no longer restores the airflow	About 12 minutes

The full clean, step by step:

1. Let it cool completely. Warm is fine for brushing; cool is required for anything involving isopropyl.
2. Strip it. The mouthpiece is magnetic and just lifts; the screen pops free with a fingernail; the half-pack lid lifts straight out. No tools.
3. Soak the mouthpiece, screen and lid in 90%+ isopropyl for 15 minutes, in a glass jar rather than plastic.
4. Airpath: a dampened cotton bud through the oven cavity. The mouthpiece airway builds resin fastest and it's the part that kills flavour first.
5. Oven floor: brush, then a dampened bud, held so nothing runs into the body. Lip-sense contact: dry bud only.
6. Rinse in warm water and air-dry fully. Don't reassemble damp.
7. Run one empty burn on Mode 4 to drive off any residual solvent.

What not to do: never submerge the body (it isn't sealed); never use anything but isopropyl — no acetone, no white spirit, no washing-up liquid in the airpath; never scrape the anodising with a blade, because on this device the finish is most of what you paid for; and never skip the drying time. Cross-device principles are in our cleaning guide.

PAX 4 Troubleshooting

There's no app and no firmware layer to blame, so every fault on this device is loading, cleaning, heat, battery — or a warranty claim.

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
Thin, weak vapour	Drawing too hard and too fast	Sip for 5–8 seconds. The walls can't heat air you pull through faster than they warm it
Weak and harsh at once	A half-filled full chamber	Pack full and level, or fit the half-pack lid. The number one cause
Stiff, restricted draw	Clogged screen or resin in the mouthpiece airway; grind too fine	ISO-soak both for 15 minutes, grind coarser, replace the screen if soaking stops restoring it
Flat, resin-y flavour	Overdue a clean	Full strip: screen, mouthpiece, lid, airpath
Shuts off mid-bowl	The three-minute session timer, working as designed	Tap the button between draws. No setting disables it
Sluggish, unresponsive at your lips	Residue on the lip-sense contact	Dry cotton bud on the contact — fixes it nine times out of ten
Green patches in the ABV	Uneven pack, or grind too coarse	Level tamp, medium grind; if it persists, one stir at the mid-temperature stage
Battery well short of five sessions	Heavy Mode 3/4 use, or an aged cell	Compare against a couple of Mode 2 sessions. Degradation at 18–24 months is outside warranty; ask PAX about refurbishment
Won't charge	Cable or charger, usually	Different USB-C cable, wall socket rather than a laptop port. Still dead after 30 minutes: raise it
Metallic taste on a new unit	Burn-off not done	One empty burn on Mode 4. Still there past bowl five is a fault
Unresponsive or stuck on one mode	The electronics need a restart	Reset it — see below

"My PAX 4 is overheating." People mean two different things by this. The body gets hot in your hand after six or seven minutes on Mode 3 or 4: that's normal — aluminium conducts oven heat. Run most of the bowl at ~193°C or Mode 2, stop finishing on Mode 4, leave ten minutes between bowls, keep the airpath clean (a restricted airpath keeps more heat in the body), and fit a grip sleeve if you live at the top modes. It's too hot to hold on Mode 1 or 2, heats up idle in a bag, gets hot on charge, or cuts out mid-session with a warm body and a full battery: that isn't technique. Some early units were reported to overheat during long top-mode sessions — stop using it and raise a warranty claim. Quick triage: one full bowl on Mode 2 with a clean screen. Warm-but-holdable is the aluminium doing its job; swapping hands inside three minutes is a claim.

How to reset a PAX 4. Soft reset first: hold the power button for about ten seconds until the device buzzes and the lights cycle, then release. That clears most cases of an unresponsive button, a device stuck on one mode, or haptics that have stopped firing. If it doesn't take, run the battery down until it stops, then charge it uninterrupted to full from a wall socket — once, when needed, not as a monthly ritual. And before concluding anything is broken, run a dry cotton bud over the lip-sense contact and the charge port. A reset won't restore a degraded battery, clear a thermal fault or unclog an airpath; if both resets fail, it's a warranty conversation.

Warranty and claims. Two years from purchase, three if you register within 30 days, covering manufacturing defects and electronics failures — not battery degradation, wear, or accidental damage. The old ten-year PAX warranty covered the PAX 1, 2, 3 and Plus and does not apply here, whatever a 2019 thread tells you. To claim through us, email info@herbvape.co.uk with your order number, the serial and a short description — photos or video speed it up enormously. For everything else, our why isn't this working walkthrough covers the failure modes shared by every portable.

Parts & Accessories That Fit

• PAX 3D Oven Screen Set — the main wear item. A fresh screen restores airflow and flavour better than any amount of soaking a tired one.
• PAX Half Pack Oven Lid — one comes in the box, and one is exactly the number of small black components that end up under a sofa.
• PAX Basic Maintenance Kit — brushes, buds and wipes. The difference between a two-minute weekly routine and an improvised one with stationery, which I have done, in front of company.
• PAX Grip Sleeve — worth it if you run Mode 3 and Mode 4 regularly; on Mode 2, skip it. Check the fit on the product page before you order.
• PAX Official Grinder or the PAX 4-Piece Grinder — set for a medium grind rather than powder.
• HerbVape Smell-Proof Case (Small) — carbon-lined, if it travels with you.

Skip: concentrate inserts (none exist for this generation); aftermarket screens from marketplace sellers (unknown metal in your vapour path to save a few quid); and anything sold as a "PAX 4 battery replacement kit" — the cell is sealed, and that's a warranty-voiding disassembly kit with a nice photo. The flat magnetic mouthpiece is a big part of why the device disappears in a pocket, so novelty raised mouthpieces are a skip too. More cross-device picks are in our accessories guide.