PAX 3 review: the conduction trade

What the PAX 3 is

A pocket-sized dry herb vaporizer in an anodised aluminium shell with no buttons on the outside, a magnetic oven lid underneath and a mouthpiece you press to switch it on. It is lip-sensing, so there is nothing to hold down while you draw, and it buzzes when it has reached temperature.

Conduction, and what it costs

The oven is a metal chamber that heats the flower by contact. That is why it warms up in seconds and why it is nearly impossible to break, and it is also why the flavour is good rather than excellent. Convection devices taste better. None of them will take the treatment this one will.

How fast it actually heats

PAX quote about fifteen seconds and our own timing put it nearer twenty from cold, which is still three times quicker than the PAX 2 and quick enough that the wait stopped registering. The haptic buzz when it is ready is a small thing that turns out to matter, because the alternative is watching a light.

The temperature range in context

The PAX 3 runs from 360 to 419 °F, which is 182 to 215 °C. That upper figure is worth holding on to: the controlled work on vaporizer efficiency was run at 210 °C, so this device at its hottest is sitting essentially at the laboratory benchmark. In that study, four electric vaporizers at that same temperature recovered between 54.6 and 82.7 per cent of their total THC. The dial is not what separates devices.

Five settings, four of them fixed

Four presets are stepped across that range and the fifth is a custom setting, which you can only reach through the phone app. Without the app you have four temperatures, and for most people four is enough.

The app, and what it unlocks

Bluetooth, and a reasonable argument that half of what you paid for lives behind it. Without it the PAX 3 is a faster PAX 2 with a bigger battery. With it you get the custom temperature, the four modes below, a battery readout in numbers rather than lights, and the ability to name the device, which nobody needs.

Boost, Stealth, Efficiency, Flavor

Boost

Reduces the auto-cooling between draws. The oven runs hot, and the device gets noticeably warm in the hand if you leave it there.

Stealth

Dims the lights and cools faster. Effectively the battery-saving mode.

Efficiency

Steps the temperature up gradually through a session, which is the closest this device gets to the way a convection unit behaves.

Flavor

Heats harder at the start of each draw. Better than it sounds on a conduction oven, and the mode we left it in.

Battery, in real numbers

A 3500 mAh cell, around 90 to 110 minutes of heating per charge depending on the mode, and roughly 110 minutes to charge from empty on the magnetic dock. Shake the device and a row of LEDs shows what is left. Those are good figures for the size, and PAX increased the capacity over the PAX 2 without making the body any larger.

The battery is not replaceable

This is the real limit on a device sold with a ten-year warranty, and the warranty does not cover batteries. A sealed lithium cell is good for a few hundred cycles, so the PAX 3 that outlives its battery is a repair job rather than a swap.

The oven, and the half-pack lid

The full oven takes about 0.3 g. There is a half-pack lid in the box, added after PAX 2 owners asked for it, which drops a raised plate into the chamber so a smaller load still sits firmly against the walls. On a conduction oven that is not a convenience, it is the difference between a half-filled chamber working and not working.

Grind finely, pack firmly

Because contact is the mechanism. A coarse grind in this oven gives you scorched pieces beside pale ones, and a loosely packed oven gives you very little at all. Grind finer than you would for a joint and press it down.

The concentrate insert

The complete kit includes a small metal canister that drops into the oven for extracts. It is the one component we would tell you to ignore, and it is not a matter of taste.

Why it leaves a mess

Infrared thermography of extract hardware found cartridge coils running between 246 and 543 °C depending on the system, with a temperature-controlled pod holding 420. The PAX 3 oven stops at 215 °C. It is not close, and it was never going to be: the insert warms an extract to roughly half the temperature the purpose-built hardware uses, so a good deal of it stays in the canister as residue you then have to soak out.

What is in the box

The complete kit carries the device, a magnetic charging dock and cable, two mouthpieces — one flat, one raised — two oven lids including the half-pack, three spare screens, a multi-tool, the concentrate insert with a spare o-ring, and a maintenance kit. The basic kit drops the spare screens, the multi-tool, the concentrate insert and the second oven lid. Given what we think of the insert, the basic kit is the better buy for most people.

Using it, day to day

Press the mouthpiece to wake it, hold the same button to open the temperature menu, short presses to step through the four settings, hold again to select. It heats, it buzzes, you draw. There is no screen and nothing to read, which after a week stops feeling like a limitation. Shaking the device shows the battery as a row of lights, which is the one interaction that never quite becomes second nature.

Build, finish and fingerprints

Anodised aluminium, no visible seams, no buttons. The original gloss finish showed every fingerprint, which PAX answered with a matte option, and the matte is the one to have. It survives pockets, drops and years in a way that almost nothing else in the category does.

Cleaning is not optional

The screen design makes the chamber awkward to get at, and performance falls off measurably once resin builds up. Flower left in the oven between sessions goes sticky within a day or two and makes it worse. The maintenance kit in the box does the job; the discipline is the hard part.

The ten-year warranty

Ten years against defects, which is extraordinary in a category where two is generous, and it is the strongest single argument for buying this device over a better-tasting one. Read the exclusions: batteries are not covered, and neither is neglect.

PAX 3 against the Firefly 2

	PAX 3	Firefly 2
Heating	Conduction	Convection, on demand
Heat-up	About 20 seconds	Per draw, near instant
Flavour	Good	Better
Battery	90 to 110 minutes, sealed	Shorter, two cells supplied
Durability	Exceptional	Ordinary
Warranty	Ten years	Two

The Firefly tastes better and the PAX survives. Which of those you want is the whole decision.

Who it suits

• Anyone who wants one device and does not want to think about it again for years.
• Anyone who will actually use the app, where most of the PAX 3 over the PAX 2 lives.
• Anyone who values a pocketable, robust thing over the last ten per cent of flavour.

Who should look elsewhere

• Anyone buying primarily for taste, who wants convection.
• Anyone buying it for concentrates, which is what the insert implies and the oven temperature contradicts.
• Anyone who will not clean it, because this one punishes that more than most.