Should I Buy the Ghost MV1 Vaporizer ? A Quick Look and Assessment

A Quick Look at the  Ghost MV1 and Some Reasons Why You Might Want to Wait to Purchase the Ghost MV1 Vaporizer Now

*** This Review contains some outdated information, thus the reason we updated the title. Please also check out our new comparison review here for recent updates on the Ghost MV1 

The Ghost MV1 is a Thing of Beauty (Packaging and Design) 

From packaging to the unit itself, Ghost really got the aesthetics down pat. I like to say it looks like a spaceship vaporizer. If Uncle Rick owned a vaporizer, it would be this one. Besides just looking great, the Ghost MV1 is built well. The body is constructed of metal alloy and the herb chamber is ceramic. The glass mouthpiece also retracts meaning you won’t have to worry about busting that off on the move. An issue I have personally faced with the Arizer Air.

Where  the Ghost MV1 wins in design, it’s learning curve remains difficult. The Ghost MV1 is no breeze to prep for use. Myself, an avid vapor enthusiast, had to read the directions with a good amount of detail to get going out of the box. One aspect which makes using the Ghost MV1 hard at first is the loading and unloading of the herb chamber. The herb chamber comes out of the unit via the crucible, like a suicide door on a sport car. The herb chamber does not attach to the crucible and the herb chambers cover screen, guess what ? Doesn’t attach either but rather sits atop the filling chamber. I would imagine trying to load this thing on the pier or in the back of a moving car would be pretty difficult. With some practice loading and unloading becomes no task. The biggest issue I see is not the difficulty of loading and unloading but the high probability of losing the herb chamber or top and not being able to vape with your Ghost MV-1 until you pick up a new one.

Heat settings 

Finding the temp setting best suited for you is another problem. Given the Ghost MV1 has only a one button interface (until the app becomes available) for powering on, checking battery and changing temp, getting the operation down out of the box is a bit more difficult than other vaporizers. I am uncertain what temperature I am vaping at and what the unit is currently operating at between draws.

When using on the highest herb setting, I did encounter overheating. I like hot vapor and on the highest herb setting or the lowest concentrate setting am getting overheating signals where the unit flashes red three times quickly (and has nothing to do with battery). I found the overheating to occur faster than I would like, many times as early as the 6th draw with the higher heat.

The MV1 does have a total of 6 heat settings – three for herb and three for concentrates. However on Ghost’s official website it says there is only one concentrate setting. I know on mine I have three herb settings ( orange lights) and three concentrate settings ( red lights) I can choose from. Depending on the type of herb I am using I can also get minor combustion which is no fun. This seems to be a common theme with on demand convection vaporizers at higher temps, as this is also experienced when I milk my Firefly 2 before pulling.

Chamber

The Ghost MV1 Chamber is ceramic and  will hold about .1 – .15 grams of herb, roughly the equivalent of what you  can pack in the Storz & Bickel dosing capsule. With that fully packed into the Ghost MV1 Herb Chamber you will get a good 6-7 draws, with the first draw being faint with great hints of flavor and the third draw and fourth draw being the trifecta with great flavor,smoothness and body. Mind you, you will get more draws on a lower heat setting and not pulling for 7-10 seconds. Another thing I should mention about filling the Ghost MV1 is the optimal results you get if you fill it loosely and full to the brim. I have found with little half packs the sessions are not the greatest.

Dimensions

It is not a vaporizer easily concealed and brought with you. At only 5 inches tall and 2 inches wide It is very possible to take it outside the house say on a camping trip,  but given it’s relatively heavy weight for a vaporizer at 12.2 ounces, not something you can throw in your pocket and be out the door.

Drawing

Drawing your pulls from the ghost is incredibly easy once you cross of the pre-flight checklist. An issue I faced across multiple sessions and eventually figured out was that I did not have the heat sink seated correctly. On hits 3 and 4 I was getting absolutely no vapor whatsoever. Once I disassembled, reassembled and put the heat sink back into the unit it was night and day. These high end vaporizers are just like any other tech gadget and feeling out the unit you eventually are able to troubleshoot user errors such as this one.

The Ghost MV1 was engineered internally to extend the air flow distance, kind of like a maze through the device. This creates low draw resistance and produces and cools your draws at the same time. I can pull easily on the Ghost for an extended period of time without using too much lung capacity and these longs pulls give the of the best vapor.

No Need to Stir Mid session

Another engineering aspect  Ghost prided themselves on was the diffraction of the MV1’s heat wave. The heat hits a stainless steel plate ( with holes in it) which then separates into multiple heat waves hitting the herb across all its surface area. This causes no  need to stir my herb mid session. If you do want to stir your herb to get every last drop, this is where the removable herb chamber and screen cause even more headache. You can’t remove an herb chamber that just had 400 degree heat shot through it without waiting for it to cool down. However you won’t get much after stirring and the not needing to stir as you would with other vaporizers is nice.

Vapor Quality

The greatest thing about the Ghost MV1 is the on demand vapor and flavor. The convection heating through this device and the vapor quality produced is top notch. As mentioned above, the Ghost MV1 was designed internally to extend the air flows distance. Besides low draw resistance this maximizes vapor production and cools your draws at the same time. I can pull easily and the vapor production and quality is great – nice and cool and plenty of it.

The only other comparable convection vaporizer on the market now is the Firefly 2 and that will not get you pulls of the same quality with Ghost MV1’s ease; The Firefly 2 boats better flavor than the Ghost but  requires much greater user precision  whereas the ability to pull long and fast from the MV-1 with no need for much breath control and little draw resistance makes for greater consistency in quality hits.

The Ghost MV1 does require a pre-heat to get humming along. On your very first draw from the Ghost you will not get much. As you heat up, the Ghost will pump up vapor production along the way. I have found that the third or fourth hits are going to be the best. The first draw being faint if not anything and the third draw and fourth and fifth  draws produce the trifecta with great flavor,smoothness and body you have heard all the rave about.

Cleaning

The Ghost MV1 does have a decent  amount of moving parts, but they are easily cleaned. I do recommend cleaning the chamber and the chamber screen every 10  sessions. This can be done with a simple Iso soaked Q tip and then washed out with a water dapped q tip. For the deep clean soak the mouthpiece, and heat sink disassembled in some ISO and give it a quick wash. The removable parts are nothing too big to handle for cleaning. I see them more as a burden for losing them on the move.

If you do use the Ghost MV1 without regular upkeep  performance will suffer. I have not got mine dirty enough to know, but have heard some issues with poor vapor production from clogged up holes ,which leads to easy overheating as airflow is minimized.

User error

One last thing I do want to cover is the user error. As is life we can often place blame on the vaporizer being faulty when we just don’t have it down pat yet.  I found a few things which I was doing wrong out the gate. The first was not properly seating the heatsink. This only became apparent after using it and not getting any vapor at all with a full chamber. This is the beauty of the convection heating. Since I was not getting a proper pull air was not passing through the herb and when I did figure it out and reset the heatsink I didn’t lose a drop.

Upon repeated use the best results come from a clean screen, chamber and a full but loose pack. I had some very failed sessions initially when I was trying to only fill it half full or packed my herb down too tight.

This was very reminiscent about the Firefly 2 which required a “Je ne sais quoi” which you nail down after using it a handful of times and to be honest many other vaporizers. And what don’t you get better at with repeated use ?

Conclusion 

So the Hype behind the Ghost MV1 may have fallen short, but not by much and the initial reviews did set the bar pretty high. The vaporizer is not  yet in mass production and remains without an app.  With the units already in the hands of customers small fixes are still being worked out. This was the same occurrence  when vaporizers like the Crafty and Davinci IQ were released. Minor defects which can’t be detected until a large test group uses the device for a prolonged period of time. Since vaporizer manufacturers like DaVinci, Storz & Bickel and Ghost are not billion dollar conglomerates the R&D cannot be as extensive as other consumer goods and the first wave of customers for new vaporizers often serve as the test group.

The kinks do eventually get worked out and the manufacturers who have forged a relationship with the vaporizer community are always great about assisting. This remains one of the downsides of being first to shell out big money on a new vaporizer.

Currently Ghost Vapes is working with Beta groups to improve many aspects of the Ghost MV-1 and get the iOS app up and running. One thing which Ghost has already resolved was the glass mouthpiece which made a grinding noise when pulling and retracting into the heat sink. New glass mouthpieces and intakes were sent  and this minor issue is no more.

Should I Buy the Ghost MV1 ?

Absolutely do get a Ghost now if you have the money  and are a vapor aficionado, it is a great vaporizer and I am enjoying mine even with the small drawbacks. If you want to wait until all the kinks get worked out no one would blame you. When that does happen the Ghost MV1 will be a must have vaporizer. It certainly does have potential to be the best vaporizer out there, but it is not there yet.

I want the Best Vaporizer  NOW !!!!!!

Our rankings still have the Mighty by Storz & Bickel as the best vaporizer currently on the market. I have even been doing some extraction testing with a few other vaporizers including the Ghost MV1 where we took Already Been Vaped herb which I was unable to get anymore out of and put it in the Mighty. With the Mighty I could get another hit or two. The Mighty seems to extract the most vapor from your herb out of all the vaporizers out there. The Dosing capsules as well make it so you can use the Mighty with a very small amount of herb without sacrificing vapor and draw quality. If you want to know more check out our blog on why we choose the Mighty as the one vaporizer to own if you could only own one.