TL;DR: conduction vs convection in one paragraph
A conduction vaporizer heats the chamber walls and cooks the herb by contact. A convection vaporizer heats air and draws it through the herb. Conduction is cheaper, smaller and gives thicker vapour from the first draw; convection tastes cleaner, cooks the bowl evenly and wastes less herb, but costs more and asks you to draw slowly. Hybrids do both. In our range, conduction starts at £24.99 with the Anix devices, convection starts at £78.99 with the XMax V3 Pro, and the hybrids are the Storz & Bickel and Arizer devices from £139.99.
On this page
Every product page on this site says "conduction", "convection" or "hybrid" in the first few lines, and it's the spec that decides more about how a vaporizer feels to use than any other. It also explains most of the price gap between a £27 pen and a £299 portable. This guide covers what each heating method does, how it changes flavour, technique and cost, and which of the devices we sell uses which. If you're new to dry herb vaporizing altogether, our beginner's guide to how dry herb vaporizers work is the place to start; this one goes deeper on the heating question specifically.
What is a conduction vaporizer?
A conduction vaporizer heats the chamber itself, usually a stainless steel or ceramic cup with a heating element wrapped around or beneath it, and the herb vaporizes where it touches the hot metal. It's the same principle as a frying pan. Heat moves from the pan into whatever is sitting on it, and whatever isn't touching the pan warms more slowly.
That has three consequences. The chamber can be tiny, because there's no air path to engineer, so conduction devices are the pen-shaped ones. The heater needs less power, so the battery can be small and the price low. And the herb nearest the walls cooks first, so the middle of the bowl lags behind and a stir halfway through makes a real difference. Conduction devices also keep cooking between draws, since the chamber stays hot whether you're inhaling or not, which is why they tend to be run in timed sessions rather than draw by draw.
In practice, a conduction device like the Anix Pluto (£26.99) gives you visible vapour on the first draw, thicker and warmer than a convection device at the same setting, with flavour that's good for the first half of the bowl and fades towards a roasted note by the end.
What is a convection vaporizer?
A convection vaporizer heats air, not the chamber. A heater sits upstream of the herb, and when you draw, air passes over the heater, picks up the temperature and flows through the bowl, vaporizing the herb as it goes. The chamber walls stay comparatively cool. It's an oven with the fan on, rather than a frying pan.
Because the hot air reaches every particle at once, convection cooks the bowl evenly, and because the herb only heats while air is moving, nothing happens between draws. That's what makes true on-demand vaporizing possible: press, draw, stop, and the bowl is untouched until the next draw. The flavour is cleaner, particularly in the first few draws at 175°C to 185°C, because there's no hot metal surface scorching the material.
The cost is that convection needs a more powerful heater, a bigger battery and an engineered air path, so the devices are larger and more expensive. It also needs technique. Draw too fast and you pull air past the heater before it's hot, so the vapour is thin. Draw too slowly at a high setting and you overcook the top of the bowl. A slow, steady eight to ten second draw is the habit to build. The XMax V4 Pro (£89.99) is the cheapest full convection device we stock, and the TinyMight 2 (from £299) is the most powerful, with a 70 W heater that gets to temperature in three to ten seconds.
What is a hybrid vaporizer?
A hybrid vaporizer heats the chamber and the air. The chamber gets the herb warm and starts extraction the moment you load, and hot air drawn through it finishes the job evenly. The idea is to get conduction's instant first draw and convection's even cook and flavour in the same device, and the trade is that you lose true on-demand behaviour, because a warm chamber keeps working between draws.
Hybrids come in different ratios. Storz & Bickel's Venty and Mighty+ combine full hot-air convection with a heated chamber, which is why they're so forgiving of technique and so easy to share. Arizer's Solo 3 is what Arizer calls roughly 80% convection and 20% conduction, so it behaves closer to a pure convection device with a little help from the warm glass tube. Hybrids are the reason the premium end of the market is dominated by session-style devices; they're the easiest to get consistent results from without thinking about it.
Conduction vs convection: the differences that matter
| Conduction | Convection | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it heats | Hot chamber walls, by contact | Hot air drawn through the herb | Both |
| Flavour | Good early, roasted by the end | Cleanest, especially at low temperatures | Close to convection |
| Vapour | Thick and warm from the first draw | Builds with a slow draw, cooler | Thick and consistent |
| Even cooking | Outside in, stir needed | Even throughout | Even, stir optional |
| On-demand draws | No, chamber keeps cooking | Yes, on devices built for it | Rarely |
| Herb efficiency | Lower, some is overcooked | Highest | High |
| Technique | Forgiving | Slow draws matter | Forgiving |
| Size and battery | Smallest, smallest batteries | Bigger heater, bigger battery | Largest |
| Price in our range | £24.99 to £39.99 | £78.99 to £349 | £139.99 to £384.99 |
Two of those rows do most of the work. Flavour is the one people notice first, and it's why anyone who has used a convection device for a month finds it hard to go back to a pen. Herb efficiency is the one people notice over a year. A convection device that extracts a 0.15 g bowl fully uses less material per session than a conduction device that overcooks the edges and undercooks the middle, and at UK prices for flower that difference pays for the upgrade sooner than you'd expect.
Which should you buy?
Buy conduction if you're spending under £50, if the device has to be pen-sized and discreet, or if you're testing whether dry herb vaporizing suits you before committing more. A stainless steel chamber and a glass mouthpiece, which the Anix Pluto has, are the two things that separate a decent conduction pen from a bad one.
Buy convection if flavour is the priority, if you want on-demand draws rather than timed sessions, or if you vape small amounts and want every bit of it extracted. Under £100 that means the XMax V3 Pro or V4 Pro. Over £250 it means the TinyMight 2, which is the purest expression of the idea and the most demanding to learn.
Buy a hybrid if you want consistent results without thinking about technique, if you share the device, or if you want a long session at a set temperature. That's the Storz & Bickel range and the Arizer Solos, and our Venty vs Mighty+ vs Crafty+ comparison picks between the three German ones.
Conduction, convection and hybrid devices we stock
Conduction: the four Anix devices, from the Pathfinder (£24.99) and Pluto (£26.99) to the Gemini Pro and Uranus (£39.99). All are in the dry herb vaporizers under £50 collection.
Convection: the XMax V3 Pro (£78.99, our review) and XMax V4 Pro (£89.99, our review) in the under £100 collection, and the TinyMight 2 (from £299) in the connoisseur vaporizers collection.
Hybrid: the Arizer Solo 2 Max (£139.99) and Arizer Solo 3 (£239), the Crafty+ (£199.99), Mighty+ (£258.99) and Venty (£298.99), and at home the Volcano Hybrid (£384.99). The best dry herb vaporizers UK guide ranks all of these against each other.
FAQs
Is convection or conduction better for a dry herb vaporizer?
Convection gives cleaner flavour, more even cooking and better herb efficiency, and it makes on-demand draws possible. Conduction is cheaper, smaller and gives thick vapour instantly. Above £75, convection or a hybrid is the better buy; under £50, every device is conduction and the question is build quality.
Is a hybrid vaporizer better than convection?
It's easier, not better. A hybrid is more forgiving of draw technique and more consistent across a session, which is why the Venty, Mighty+ and Solo 3 are so popular. Pure convection devices like the TinyMight 2 and XMax V4 Pro give the cleanest flavour and true on-demand draws, at the cost of a little practice.
Do convection vaporizers use less herb?
Yes. Hot air reaches the whole bowl at once, so the material extracts evenly and fully, and nothing cooks between draws. A conduction chamber overcooks the herb touching the walls and undercooks the centre, so more goes to waste per session.
Why do convection vaporizers cost more?
They need a more powerful heater, a larger battery to run it and an engineered air path to move hot air through the herb without melting anything. A conduction pen needs a heated cup and a small cell. The XMax V4 Pro at £89.99 is the cheapest point at which we've found full convection done properly.
Is the Volcano conduction or convection?
The Volcano Classic is pure convection; a fan blows heated air through the herb into a balloon. The Volcano Hybrid adds a heated chamber to that hot-air system, so it's a hybrid in the heating sense as well as in offering both a balloon and a whip.
Prices were checked on 29 September 2026 and are updated whenever this guide is refreshed. Browse all dry herb vaporizers, or start with the best dry herb vaporizers UK guide.