If you wanted the best desktop vaporizer in 2019, the short answer was the same as it had been for years: the Volcano if your wallet allowed, the Extreme Q if it didn’t. But the gap between them had quietly narrowed, and a couple of cheaper units had started doing things they had no business doing at the price. So we lined the lot up on the counter and ran them properly.
A desktop vaporiser isn’t a portable you leave plugged in. It’s a different animal. Mains power means a beefier heater, steadier temperature and vapour you can produce all night without a battery going flat. The trade-off is obvious. It lives on a shelf and it doesn’t come to the park with you.
Here’s how the field looked at the close of 2019.
What we actually judged
Spec sheets lie, or near enough. So we kept it to the three things you notice in the first week of owning one.
Vapour was first. How thick, how consistent pull to pull, and whether it held up once the bowl was past its prime. Flavour was second, and it matters more than people expect, because a unit that cooks the herb instead of vaping it tastes like a campfire by the third draw. Value was last, but it carried weight. A grand is a lot to ask for a box that sits on a shelf.
We ran each one at a low setting around 180°C for taste and a hotter setting near 200°C for clouds, same herb, same grind, freshly cleaned. Forced-air and whip-draw both got a fair go.
The Volcano Classic, still the one to beat
Storz & Bickel’s Volcano had been the benchmark since 2000-something and it stayed there in 2019. You set a dial, you wait for the light, you fill a balloon. That’s it.
The vapour was the most consistent of anything we tested, full stop. First bag and last bag off a bowl tasted near enough the same, which no other unit managed. The bag system also means you’re not chained to the machine. Fill it, unclip it, pass it around. The Classic’s analog dial felt crude next to the Digit, but it heated just as well and cost less.
The catch was the price. It was the dearest thing on the table by a wide margin, and that’s before you factor in replacement balloons. If you can stretch to it, nothing else gives you that hands-off consistency.
The Arizer Extreme Q, the value king
The Extreme Q was the one everyone actually bought, and for good reason. It did forced-air into a balloon and whip-draw off the same unit, came with a remote, and cost a fraction of the Volcano.
Vapour wasn’t quite Volcano-thick and the fan was louder than we’d like, a low whirr you’ll hear across a quiet room. But the glass elbow and all-glass vapour path gave it cleaner flavour than its price suggested, genuinely. The whip is the way to use it for taste. The balloon mode is handy but the fan struggles to match a proper forced-air rig.
Build was more plasticky and the remote felt like a novelty, though you do end up using it. For the money, in 2019, nothing touched it on flexibility.
The rest of the field
The Arizer V-Tower was the Extreme Q with the fan and remote stripped out, whip only. Cheaper again, and if you never wanted balloons it was the smarter buy. Same lovely glass flavour, less to go wrong.
The DaVinci IQ and the Mighty turned up in a few “best desktop” lists that year, which was a stretch. They’re portables. Good ones, but not desktops, and we didn’t count them.
The Herbalizer and the original Vapir units floated around the conversation too. The Herbalizer vaped beautifully but the asking price put it in Volcano territory without the Volcano’s track record, so most people walked past it.
The verdict
Best overall was the Volcano Classic. Most consistent vapour, the simplest operation on the table, and the bag system nobody else did as well. You paid for it, but you got it.
Best value, and our pick for most people, was the Arizer Extreme Q. Two draw methods, decent vapour, clean flavour and a price that left money for a decent grinder. If you only wanted the whip, the V-Tower saved you more and lost you nothing you’d miss.
Buy the Volcano if hands-off, share-the-balloon sessions are your thing and the cost doesn’t sting. Buy the Extreme Q if you want one unit that does a bit of everything without the four-figure outlay. Either way you were sorted for 2019.
For the full lineup and how each unit fits, our desktop vaporizers collection lays it out. If you’re weighing a desktop against something you can pocket, the complete guide to cleaning your Mighty is a good look at how a top portable actually lives day to day.