You are at the counter of a licensed dispensary. Two boxes sit side by side on the glass. One is a slim pen that looks like a marker. The other is a small cartridge with a separate battery next to it. The budtender asks what you are after, and you realize you are not sure what to say.
That is a fair place to be. "Vape pen" covers several different devices, and the lists you find online are mostly written for people who already know which kind they want. This guide helps you pick the one that fits how you shop.
Which kind of pen are you shopping for?
Start here, because the results you find online mix three different devices.
A dry herb vaporizer heats ground flower. You load it yourself, and it has nothing to do with the pre filled boxes on the counter.
A concentrate pen, often called a dab pen, heats wax or other thick extracts that you load by hand. It suits people who already buy concentrates in jars.
An oil vape comes filled. It holds cannabis oil in a sealed chamber, and you buy it at a dispensary ready to use. If you are looking at boxes on a counter, this is the one you mean, and it is the rest of this guide.
Say which of the three you want before you compare anything else. It cuts the options fast.
Cartridge or all in one: which format fits you?
Oil vapes come in two shapes, and the difference is mostly about what you carry and what you have to match up.
A cartridge holds the oil and screws onto a separate battery, usually through a standard 510 thread. You can keep one battery and swap cartridges. The catch is that the cartridge and the battery have to work together, and a mismatch is the usual reason a new cartridge seems dead.
An all in one, also called a disposable, puts the oil and the battery in a single body. There is nothing to match and nothing to screw together. You carry one thing. When it is finished, you are done with it. Many models have a charging port, and some do not, so the packaging is the place to check.
If you already own a battery you like, cartridges make sense. If you want one object with no setup, an all in one is simpler. Neither is better. They answer different habits.
Honey King makes its vapes as all in ones: the 1 gram and 2 gram all in one disposables, a 1 gram Sweet Edition line, and a 2 gram Live Resin disposable. You can see every flavor on the products page.
Does the size of the oil chamber matter?
Size is stated in grams, and it tells you how much oil is inside. A 2 gram device holds twice what a 1 gram device does, so it lasts longer for the same use. It is also a bit larger in the hand.
Think about where it lives. A small 1 gram pen slips into a jacket pocket and gets forgotten there. A 2 gram device is something you notice. Neither is a flaw.
The gram weight is a size, the way a coffee cup comes in small and large. It says nothing about the quality of what is inside.
What is actually inside the oil?
This is where boxes start to look alike, and where two words are worth learning.
Distillate is oil that has been refined into a thick, pale liquid, with flavor added back in afterward. Live resin is oil made from cannabis that was frozen soon after harvest, which keeps more of the plant's original aroma in the extract. Both are common, and the box should say which one you are holding.
You can ignore most of the other words on the front of a box, which tend to be adjectives. Look for the type of oil, the size in grams, the flavor name and the brand. That is enough to compare two boxes honestly.
How do you check a pen before you buy?
Any pen sold in a licensed shop should come with a batch you can trace. This is the step most buyers skip, and it is the one that matters most.
Honey King tests every finished batch with an independent licensed laboratory before release. The certificate for a batch sits on the lab results page, so you can open it on your phone while you stand at the counter. The certificate lists what the lab found in that batch of oil. Matching it to the batch code on your box takes about a minute.
Counterfeit devices exist in this category, and they copy popular packaging. If a price looks too good or the box looks slightly off, read our guide to spotting fake cartridges before you decide. Buying from a licensed dispensary is the simplest protection, and the store locator lists Honey King shops across New York by borough and region.
What should you ask at the counter?
A short list works better than a long one.
- Is this a cartridge or an all in one?
- Is it distillate or live resin?
- How many grams is it?
- Can I see the lab certificate for this batch?
If you are newer to all of this, our guide to cannabis vaping for beginners covers the basics in more detail. If a device you already own stops working, the guide to fixing a clogged vape cart or disposable is the place to start.
Once you have chosen a format and a size, the flavor is the last decision, and it is the fun one. The lab results for any Honey King batch are on the lab results page.