Dabs | Smoke or Vapor? | DabberDan

I've been smoking butane hash oil concentrates(dabs) for about 2 1/2 years now and I love the high, it's quicker, doesn't smell and is small and concealable, but the question always arises to me. I know the first perception of it was smoking but I've always noticed it doesn't have quite the same taste as smoking the buds do. So my question is, are dabs vaporized by the quartz/titanium nail or, are they smoked by the intense heat causing it to reach combustion. The only real differences I've noticed is that dab smell doesn't stick very much and disperse quickly but the smoke clouds are still thicker then any vaporizer pens or volcano vapes I've seen. So what do you guys think?

The way I understand it, its not burning, its vaporizing. The oil ends up not touching the Ti nail itself. Its so hot, it forms a vapor 'cloud' or pillow under the melting oil, and it vaporizes without burning...

In a G-Pen tho, I think its more of a burning than a vaporizing, but I cant back that up...