The Arizer Solo 3 dry herb vaporizer makes everything bigger – bigger hits, bigger flavor, bigger size and bigger price. It’s the most expensive Arizer portable vaporizer, but given that it hits like vapes that are even $100 more, it’s still a good value. If you ever wanted a bigger session from an Arizer vape, or just want one of the strongest hitting portables in the vaporizer industry, the Solo 3 is the answer.
Arizer retained the look and design of the incredibly popular Arizer Solo 2, but made it bigger to handle bigger demands. The Solo 3 comes with Original Arizer glass aroma tubes, and the new XL glass aroma tubes with double the herb capacity. Paired with a stronger hybrid heating system, the XL stems pack a huge punch that’s hard to match. Or use the Original stems and have a bright and tasty session like on other Arizer vapes, but in half the time.
The Solo 3 is a little too big for around town. It’s technically a portable vaporizer, but really excels around the house, where I can take desktop-sized rips without being chained to the desk. If you want a little more freedom to move around the house or yard with your vapor, this Arizer Solo 3 review is for you!
Arizer’s strongest portable vape yet!
We’re in a new age of dry herb vaporizers that hit really hard, and the Arizer Solo 3 vaporizer is near the front of the pack. It’s a vast improvement on past Arizer portable vaporizers, with massive hits that still taste great with that glass vapor path. If you can get around the larger size and higher price, the Solo 3 can take you to new places!
| Pros ? | Cons ? |
| Fast heat up time | Large size |
| On-demand and Session modes | High price |
| Massive hits | Confusing controls |
| Big bowl option | Can overcook herbs – some technique required |
| USB-C Charging | Fragile glass stems |
| Lots of custom settings | |
| Long battery life | |
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Bottom line
With super fast heat up times, massive hits and a double-sized bowl, the Solo 3 vaporizer smacks so hard you’ll forget about its large size and clunky controls. |
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Strong and tasty vapor
That’s right, I just referred to an Arizer portable vaporizer as strong! While they’ve been flavorful for years, Arizer’s portable vaporizers are usually on the lighter side when it comes to potency. But not the Solo 3 – it brings the muscle, and is a strong contender for Hardest Hitter in the portable dry herb vaporizer space.
The Arizer Solo 3 comes with two different bowl sizes and two different heat styles, and together they offer a lot of versatility. There’s something for everyone here, from light sippers to heavy rippers.
When I want to settle into a slow and tasty session similar to other Arizer portables (like the Arizer Air MAX) , I can use the smaller bowl and turn the heat way down – lower than with other vapes. I found incredibly tasty and effective vapor quality at 300℉ in Session mode.
If I want to have a fast, potent session with thicker vapor I use the XL bowl and turn the heat up to IV in On-demand mode. Here I can tear through a large bowl in just two long hits. The herbs get dark and the taste gets roasty on the second hit, and I know it’s done.
Those are the extremes, and you can dial in anything in between. You can even take it far enough for the herbs to combust. The Arizer Solo 3 is that powerful and unbridled. I typically lean towards the lighter and tastier side of vapor quality, but with this vape I discovered that I liked the roasty stuff, too, thanks to the massive punch that comes with it.
Blazing fast heat up time
From a cold start to the end of a session, the Solo 3 dry herb vaporizer is one of the quickest on the market. The hybrid heating chamber reaches temperature in 10 to 20 seconds, depending on your set temperature and battery charge level. That’s crazy fast, and combined with a strong heater and extra large bowls, it can really chew through your dry herbs in record time. If you want to get in and out of your sessions quickly, the Solo 3 is one of your best options.
On the test bench, the Arizer Solo 3 took 15 seconds to reach 390℉, until the battery was half full. From there it slowed down as the battery level dropped, but never took more than 20 seconds, even when set to the highest temp of 428℉. In On-demand mode the Solo 3 reached the highest temperature in 20 seconds.
Strongest Arizer ever
The Solo 3 is easily Arizer’s most powerful portable vape ever. It uses a balance of conduction and convection heat to quickly and thoroughly vape through a full bowl in just a few hits. Heat builds in the bowl, and what might have taken six or seven hits to finish a bowl with the Solo 2 now only takes three or four.
I’ve always wanted a bigger oven with my Arizer vapes, as the bowls are a little on the smaller side. The Solo 3 XL stems have twice the herb capacity of the original stems that come with other Arizer portable vapes. But the Solo 3 still works with all my old Solo and Air stems! Arizer increased the depth of the oven in the Solo 3, but kept the diameter consistent with older Arizer vapes. The Solo 3 comes with standard sized bowls and the new XL sized bowls in the box.
Regular and jumbo bowl sizes cook differently
The Solo 3 comes with Original and XL sized glass aroma tubes for radically different sessions. XL bowls are double the size of the original bowls. You can finally go big with your Arizer vape, but you don’t have to. All of the aroma tubes have a glass screen for an all glass vapor path. In the box are four total bowls:
- 1 Original sized bowl with long stem,
- 1 Original sized bowl with a 14mm water pipe adapter (frosted glass aroma tube),
- 1 XL size bowl with long stem,
- 1 XL size bowl with a 14mm water pipe adapter (frosted glass aroma tube).
The Original glass aroma tubes are exactly like previous stems, and hold between 0.1 and 0.2 grams of ground dry herbs, depending on how you pack them. These stems insert deeper into the Arizer Solo 3 and completely submerge into the oven for an aggressive cook that finishes off a bowl in half the time of a Solo 2. If you want a slower cook and flavorful vapor that feels more like a Solo 2, turn the heat way down, by as much as 50℉ to 80℉ degrees.
Sessions with the XL glass aroma tubes feel like a different vape with incredibly potent vapor and massive clouds. With all that extra heat and double the herbs of the Original bowl (I can easily pack a quarter gram with room to spare), sessions can have a strong taste-bite in the beginning with a punchy, roasty finish. But they’re still fast – most of my sessions were done in six hits over just three minutes.
The XL bowl has one more hole in the bowl screen than the Original bowls for better airflow. It cooks the herbs a little unevenly compared to the Original bowl, but not enough for me to stir. The top of the herbs didn’t scorch until I had sessions over 370℉. After enough hits, the roasty taste told me when to stop, and if I didn’t, I only had myself to blame for the poor vapor quality that followed. This effect was exaggerated by higher temperatures. My favorite single-temperature setting for the Solo 2 is 405℉, but on the Arizer Solo 3 it was 333℉ (because 333 is more fun than 330).
If you like smaller load sizes, use the Original stem. It holds the herbs closer to the oven for a more satisfying cook. If you partially load the big stem the herbs will be further from the heat and won’t cook as fully.
Session and On-demand modes!
The Arizer Solo 3 has a Session mode for longer sessions and to finish off a bowl with precise temperature controls, and an On-demand mode for when you just want a quick hit. I did a double-take when I saw it had On-demand, because that doesn’t fit the classic Arizer style, but they figured it out and it pairs really well with the massive power and all glass vapor path.
Session mode works like just about any other vaporizer, only faster. Turn the vape on, set the temperature to between 122℉ – 428℉, wait for it to reach temperature, and hit it until the vapor fades. The vapor is tasty with thick clouds from the first hit, and the Solo 3 extracts everything in about half the time/hits it takes on a Solo 2. At lower temperatures, say below 350℉, I could take all the hits I wanted until the vapor waned, and the herbs were cooked to an even tan. Once I set the temperature to 370℉ or higher, the later hits would roast the top of the herbs when they were done, warning me to stop.
On-demand mode works a little differently and offers some clues as to what’s going on inside. You still press a button to start heating, wait for it to reach temperature, and hit it until you’re done. But once the Solo 3 reaches one of the pre set temperatures in On-demand mode, it starts an adjustable hit timer (15 seconds long by default) and turns the heat off once time runs out. At this point I could put the vape away until I want another on-demand hit, but there is still so much residual heat inside that I like to hit it until the bowl is done. One or two more long hits will usually finish off the bowl and cool down the heater, but without as much roast as I would get with Session mode.
Press the “Up” button to start the heater. Once the yellow bars climb to the top, it’s ready to hit.
I recommend you play with both modes and different hit styles to find your sweet spot. My favorite sessions went like this:
- XL glass aroma tube
- On-demand mode
- Third temperature (Roman numeral III)
- 20 second timer.
After three long hits and a single heat cycle, the herbs were cooked to a nice, even tan without any bad taste. That’s the way I like it!
Clunky Controls
It’s not a deal-breaker, but my biggest complaint about the Arizer Solo 3 is the clunky controls. It takes a lot of different button presses to start a session. And while I love the flexibility of custom session settings, it’s hard to find and navigate them. I understand Arizer’s safety concerns – they don’t want the Solo 3 to turn on unintentionally. But this feels like overkill. While most vapes require between one and five quick presses of a single button to start the heater, here’s what the Solo 3 needs:
- Hold the Middle button for three seconds until three dots appear.
- Release the Middle button and the lock will appear. If you don’t release the center button, the Solo 3 will stare at you and go blank.
- Press Left.
- Press Up.
- Press Right (this Left-Up-Right sequence is printed on the bottom of the vape).
- Once greeted by the menu, highlight Session or On-Demand mode using the Up and Down buttons.
- Press the Middle button to select the heat mode.
- In Session mode:
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- Use the Up and Down buttons to select your desired temperature.
- Press the center button to set the temperature.
- Press center button again to start the heater.
- In On-Demand mode:
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- Double-tap the left or right buttons to select between five temperatures.
- Press Up to start the heater.
That’s a minimum of six presses on four different buttons in a specific sequence just to start the heater, and even more if you need to change the temperature first. This is far from intuitive – I had to read the manual several times over a few dozen sessions, but I have it down now.
The custom settings are nice, but buried in the menu. You can change when the Arizer Solo 3 beeps, how loud it beeps, how bright the screen is, the session length, and turn the screen inversion on and off (for when the Solo III is turned upside down). To access this menu, hold down the Right button for a couple seconds once you’re in one of the heat modes. That’s right, you can’t access this menu until you’ve button-pressed your way into a heat mode. And get this – you have to do it in both heat modes to make global changes. The changes you make in Session mode don’t carry over to On-demand mode, and vice-versa.
The best thing about the controls is the screen inversion. When you turn the Solo 3 upside down for use on a bubbler, the screen and buttons invert! It’s automatic and seamless.
Do I like these controls? Not at all. Does it keep me from using the Solo 3? No – It hits so well I’m willing to endure it!
Excellent battery life
The Solo 3 has excellent battery life, and I never worry about it. Your battery life will differ from mine based on the settings you use and how you hit it, but it’s safe to say it’s always ready to go. Even if the powerful battery is dead, you can have a session with it plugged in, or charge it up to 20% in under five minutes with the included USB-C cable and three amp plug.
I ran my battery tests at 390℉ in Session mode, like I always do for consistency. At that temperature I was able to track the following through a single charge:
- 18 total sessions
- 119 hits
- One hour of total runtime
- 4.5 grams of dry herbs – I used the XL bowl.
I think most people will use the Arizer Solo 3 at a lower temperature than 390℉ and get even better battery life.
On-demand battery life is harder to compare. If you only use one heat cycle per bowl, you’ll probably get more bowls than you would in Session mode. But if you use multiple heat cycles, expect to get between ten and fifteen bowls per full charge.
USB C charging
You can quickly charge the Solo 3 anywhere with a USB-C charge cable, and your charge times will vary depending on the strength of the wall plug you use. With the included three amp plug, the Solo 3 charged from dead to 10% in 90 seconds, to half full in just 30 minutes, and to 98% full in an hour and a half. While you can charge the Solo 3 with any USB-C cable, it didn’t work at all with my Storz & Bickel Supercharger for the Mighty+…weird.
Built strong like a weapon
I would hate to be on the receiving end of a Solo 3 to the head. It’s built like a tank – big, heavy and made of metal. It feels like a self-defense vape, or an oversized kubaton. The shape is comfortable in the hand (same shape as the Solo 2), but its size makes it impossible to conceal.
Everything about the construction screams great manufacturing quality. From the color display to the metal endplates, this vape feels like it was built to last.
One of the largest portables you can buy
The Arizer Solo 3 is technically a portable vaporizer, but is not pocket friendly. It’s best for around the house, in the yard, or on long trips. Add a glass stem or two in their own travel tubes and you’ve got a full pocket dedicated to just the Solo 3, and you’ll feel the weight with every step. If I were to go places with it, I’d have a dedicated travel case and use it when I could sit down and work with all the pieces.
Without a stem installed, the Solo 3 is:
- 2” wide
- 1¼” deep
- 5⅛” tall.
Insert the included stem and it’s a whopping 7½” tall. That’s a big handheld vape! With the stem the Solo 3 weighs ⅔ of a pound, or 291 grams.
Made for dry herbs, but mod for concentrates
The Solo 3 dry herb vaporizer is made for, you guessed it, dry herbs. There are no concentrate pads or accessories for it because no one wants to see their extracts drip down into the heater below, forever messing with the flavor of your vapor. That being said, the Solo 3 has more than enough heat to do the job.
The best way to enjoy concentrates with your Solo 3 is to sandwich a little bit between your herbs. Pack a little bit of herb into the bowl, followed by some concentrate, and then some more herb to top it off. The concentrate will melt into the herbs, not your heater below, and vape for a long time! I recommend you vape this sandwich with the Solo 3 held upside down (like a hamster bottle). That way, if you pack too much, it will run into the glass vapor path (easy to clean) instead of the heater (nightmare to clean).
What’s in..
