Electriciggy: The battery-powered nicotine fix that helps smokers beat the ban

The new Electronik cigarette lights up, appears to blow smoke and satisfies the most desperate nicotine craving.

Yet it stays strictly inside the law banning lighting up in public buildings which, after just a week in force, is already testing smokers' willpower to the limit.

The battery-powered device - dubbed the Electro Fag - contains a cartridge of nicotine-based liquid which is converted to a fine mist that users breathe in and out to replicate the traditional smoking experience.

Video: Watch a smoker testing the electro cigarette

It is powered by a battery which also enables the fake cigarette to light up at the end, making it look like the real thing although it contains no tobacco or other harmful substances associated with real cigarettes, such as benzene and tar.

Businessman Greg Carson has begun importing them into the UK to get around the smoking ban. He found out about the product on the internet and tracked it to China.

Mr Carson, of Portsmouth, said: "At first I was highly sceptical, but I took a trip out there to see it with my own eyes. As a non-smoker it was difficult to form an opinion, but I brought some samples back with me. The reaction has been phenomenal. The product might look simple but the technology is astonishing."

The electronic cigarette contains an atomising chamber to convert a tobacco-flavoured liquid containing nicotine and water into a fine spray which the smoker inhales.

It also contains a microchip which regulates the flow of the nicotine and switches off the device if it is puffed too often - more than 15 times in 45 seconds.

And like conventional cigarettes it comes in four strengths. Smokers can choose from the megalight variety, which contains no nicotine, to the superstrength type, which has 0.9mg of the drug - the equivalent of Benson & Hedges Superkings.

The starter pack of the fake cigarette, battery and battery charger costs £35. Each cartridge costs £2.50 and lasts for around 300 puffs, said to be the equivalent of a pack of 20 cigarettes. The battery charge will last for up to 1,500 puffs.

Mr Carson has so far imported 1,500 of the fake cigarettes after a rush of orders through his website sparked by the ban.

Marlene Dietrich? No, I looked like a London girl inhaling a biro

ANNA VAN PRAGH roadtested the new invention on a night out in London...

Scroll down for more...

Like many people, I started smoking at school, where to do so was shorthand for being cool.

Many years have passed but I'm ashamed to say the habit has stuck. Enjoying a cigarette and a chat with friends is still a genuine pleasure.

So, with the ban in mind, I was delighted to road-test the new electronic cigarette.

Settling myself into a pub off Kensington High Street, I bought myself a glass of wine and took a drag.

Nothing happened, so I tried again. This time I definitely tasted a faint wisp of raspberry-flavoured air.

I pulled on the plastic mouthpiece a little harder and managed to blow out some smoke.

It tasted quite nice but nothing like a cigarette.

Before long, my new-fangled cigarette started to attract unwanted attention. "What's that?' laughed Gary Timms, 53, gesturing towards it in a way I couldn't help but feel was a little disparaging.

"It's my cigarette," I said defensively, trying to balance it a little more elegantly in my hand.

Unfortunately, it's rather heavy and difficult to wield in the way, say, Marlene Dietrich might a Gauloise.

I approached a few more drinkers for opinions.

"It looks silly," said Stephanie Carswell, 31. "Like you're smoking a biro. I think most people would be embarrassed to use it. I'm a smoker and I know I would."

Oh, dear. I quite like it. But, being a superficial London girl, if the look isn't a good one, I'd rather give it a miss.