How to Tell if Your Pax 3 is Fake! (23 Differences-Real Vs Counterfeit)

When sales for popular vaporizers like the Pax Vaporizer set record numbers, it’s expected for fake (inauthentic) versions to surface. Overseas manufacturers take this perfect opportunity to capitalize on the market share by producing near perfect replicas on a much cheaper price. Tons of fake Pax Vaporizers are now flooding eBay, Craigslist, and the underground market. So if you’re uncertain or just wondering if your purchased Pax is authentic or fake, maybe the next few slides will help you out.

As legitimate Pax resellers, we’ve seen hundreds of these come through our warehouse so we have a pretty good idea what to look out for. Updated July 2017, what we did is we place the boxes side by side to help you determine if your Pax 3 Vaporizer is authentic or a well-constructed knock off.

eBay Listing: Exhibit A

Red Flags: No bluetooth, and well below the usual price of $274.99.

eBay Listing: Exhibit B

Red Flags: Pax3 is in Quotes? Pricing 50% Off? That’s well below wholesale pricing not to mention the hefty eBay fees… How could they be making any money??

A: 1. The trademark “®” symbol appears almost microscopic vs the fake box where the “®” symbol which is much more prominent in comparison.

B: 2. These are a bit harder to catch but you’ll notice that the “© 2016” has a space in between.

C: 3. Here another small typo, the words “San Francisco, CA” is properly spaced while it is not on the counterfeit, a tiny but subtle difference here – but really important.

Note: keep in mind at the time of writing this, these are what we found. There may be newer iterations and corrections going forward (especially if they find this post) in which you’ll have to disregard these imperfections and look for new ones.

A: 4. Both the inauthentic versions of the Pax 3 and Pax 2 came in shrink wrap, however, authentic units never did.

B: 5. Looking closely at the image, you’ll notice a small circular clear seal on the boxes. Both the Pax 2 and Pax 3 come with 2 seals to prevent the inner box from sliding out of the sleeve.

A: 6. A larger “VOID” sticker exists on the authentic units.The fake contains a void sticker with more unclear lettering.

B: 7. This might be something to point out. While we only had one fake Pax 3 unit when testing we’ve noticed that the UPC on most of these come out to be the same on each fake unit. Our particular fake PAX unit's UPC reads: D10M9UXMGV6

A: 8. Another small typo here is the lack of spacing between these words: “options,check”
B: 9. More small spacing typos occur here at the trademark and patent. Fake: “®2016” and “Patent:www.pax” vs the real PAX copy which reads: “® 2016” and “Patent: www.pax”
C: 10. Another small “®” on the authentic vs. a noticeably larger “®” on the fake.

A: 11. The cut-outs on the fake box are very different. While both boxes are contoured to the accessories, the fake cut-outs also have a rectangular recess. I also noticed that the replacement screens like to move around much more vs in the real box.

B: 12. One of my favorite parts of the Pax 3 is the Multi-Tool, so needless to say I was excited to get another one for my second set of keys, but I digress. the superb quality of the authentic tool allows the metal piece to stay in place even while shaking it on your keys (at least when newish). The replica tool easily falls out of it’s rubber sleeve (our copy was a bit thin for the rubber recess). The replica also has excess rubber on the sides. If you feel we’re getting “pick-y” here, we are. But you just wait.

A: 13. This one's a dead giveaway. The recesses for the Pax unit, charger, and usb cable are simply sliced to fit, vs a clean molded look. This detail that would never fly at PaxLabs.

A: 14. Worth mentioning here: Fake Pax 3 Serial reads: “JC5FT89M”, please do comment below if you found yours has the same.

A: 15. While BOTH USB cables have the words “PAX” nicely engraved at the end attached to the charging base, However, the orientation of the logo is reversed once actually plugged in. Go figure.

B: 16. If you look very closely at the 2 metal charging contacts you’ll see that there is a small rectangular piece surrounded by the plastic. In the Fake, you can’t find this. The finish is also slightly different. More matte on the left.

A 17: The arrow pointing to the real charging base shows the case being made up of 3 plastic pieces, the smallest piece covering the AC adapter and micro USB holes is rectangular vs circular.

B 18: The bottom of the fake charger has “CE” printed on it while the authentic pax 3 charger has a shiny rubber finish. This was a bit confusing because authentic Pax 2 chargers also had the “CE”. It looks as though PaxLabs did away with the “CE” on the 3 but the imitators kept it.

PAX 3 PERFORMANCE:

While the 95% of the above details are regarding the box, packaging, serial, and appearance, we’ve noticed significant performance differences.

19: Charging issues: while we never had charging issues (except if you plug it into a low voltage charger) I had both units charging and after about 5 hours the fake pax was still trying to get past 1 leaf. I placed the fake pax on the real charger and after a few hours we were fully charged. I wonder if this was just a fluke while testing or a real issue. I’m going to run a few more tests and update here. You may or may not experience this.

20: Shorter Battery life! The fake battery life lasted nowhere near the real one. I had to recharge the counterfeit device after about 3 sessions, and this was brand new unit!

21: Shake to display battery life – So this KINDA works on the bootleg version. I had to give it a really good shake to activate this vs a quick single jolt would work on the authentic version.

22: Bluetooth does not work, well not yet. As I mentioned earlier counterfeit companies will have a new upgraded product with working bluetooth. Sounds good man can’t wait.

23: Overall performance: Honestly, I’m one to give a very fair chance to a generic or copied version of a product. Personally, I’ll take the Kirkland signature/Sam’s choice or the generic fruity O’s without thinking twice. I was excited to test out a bootleg device that replicated the real thing almost perfectly appearance-wise. I mean, ignoring tiny typos and small details, they did a pretty decent job. HOWEVER, when using the device I was disappointed to say the least. The device would heat up and vape okay, but it had a very strange initial taste, almost metallic and plastic flavored. After the first few draws I notice I couldn’t pull any more and the thing was supposedly to be on max heat. It was as if the temperature would not remain constant.

Final Thoughts:

While there is a place for low cost counterfeit products my major concern is that a customer would unknowingly buy one off ebay or craigslist because of all the awesome reviews about the device, take it home, and feel short changed. I know after every time I gave the fake one a shot, I always ended up emptying the bowl into the real pax and finishing off the goods.

Hopefully this guide will help if you or someone you know is unknowingly struggling with a fake pax 3.

If you stuck with me through that I thank you! And really let me know what you think by or if there are other notable differences you’ve found, please comment below!

How To Purchase Authentic PAX 3 Vaporizers:

Keep in mind not ALL eBay sellers are listing fake vaporizers. In fact, the majority are real. But if you find one that is questionable it is important that you REPORT them to eBay to help take the listing down.

The following was a guest post from slickvapes.com.

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