REVIEW - Olight S1A Baton

They sent me one that arrived today.

Funny, I never would have imagined a $50 flashlight would impress me. I can’t think of any reason I’d have gone out of my way to get one even to try out.
But … wow.

This one does impress.

I was thinking, if I’d been with friends and been pulling out any of my usual tube lights that I tend to carry — you know what they are — and someone had pulled this little flashlight out, I’d have been all ready to mock it.

Boy, that would have been embarassing. This is … yeah, I said wow, didn’t I?

Lithium primary provided gives a plenty bright high; li-ion cell dropped in gives what they call ‘Turbo’ which is somewhat brighter.

I wonder how it will do with a NiZn high drain cell — trying that next, because this needs the higher voltage and I really don’t want to burn through a lot of primary cells. Yeah, I’ll see how it does with NiMH as well.

If I stayed with lithium primary this would have to be a car/quake/emergency kit light.

And I don’t think I’m going to want to let go of it for a while.

It’s as pocket-friendly as a #3 zoomie. Which is darned small.
Its TIR gives a broad bright area, right in the sweet middle in between flood and spot.
Three quick clicks for a strobe — making it darned good for crossing streets getting the attention of drivers — had it out for a long fast walk today in Friday PM rush hour traffic when our local drivers are darned near oblivious. It worked noticeably faster and better to get drivers’ attention than my usual walking light — (an amber S2+ I modded with an XP-E2 and qlite 5x7135s, usually carried with a shorty battery). And that has always been quite good at getting drivers’ attention).

Aw heck. Me, a fanboy?

I promised I’d be honest. I didn’t think, before I had the light, that I’d be giving an honestly enthusiastic review.

Give me a few more days, I’ll try to find something not to like or figure out how to break it in normal use.

And, oh, it doesn’t seem to come apart for modding. There’s that.


EDIT — two additions.
First, I commented that the “return to China for warranty service” made the long warranty less valuable.
They’ve responded to that: I got email saying they have a warranty service address in Atlanta now (I don’t have the specifics, but watch for that)

And, twice now, I’ve had the light go unresponsive while carrying it and using it — so I had to unscrew the tailcap to break the battery circuit.

Once while carrying it walking, just turning it on at strobe (3 clicks fast) at each street crosswalk.
Once after setting the 3-minute “off” timer and letting it run.

Both times, I suddenly had no response at all from the button.

I recall this has happened before with some other flashlight that had firmware bug issues, some kind of corner where it locks up ignoring the button until the power is completely removed.

Cross-reference for another review at: Olight S1A review (TIR,600lm,XM-L2,AA)

just need a copper option! :partying_face:

Nice review bud. I have the S2A… and this looks like a more pocket able version of that light

Hey Hank,

Have you contacted our warranty department for the model that you have? We do all of our warranty work out of Georgia now so the turnaround is extremely fast for USA customers. Send us an email to techsupport@olightworld.us and we can help you out. Thank you.

Right, like I said in my review, they now have warranty service in Atlanta, so, if anyone needs it, contact them.

I contacted them yesterday via email and have already had an answer with suggestion about fixing the S15R that had stopped working. Their suggestion fixed the light and I am very happy. Expected a long wait to hear from them and it was just the opposite - very fast reply. Want to say I am very impressed.

Nice review, Thanks!

Gah! I just noticed I had an invitation to sample and review one of these back at the end of July too. Do you think I would be wasting my time to respond now?

I reckon you’re wasting your time. This was (mainly) a USA invite, although I was lucky enough to get one. As it happens, I have also just taken delivery of their upgrade to the S1 Baton, the S1R. I haven’t given it a full going over but it is a cracking evolution with quite a few nifty new features.

As an aside - does anyone know how this torch would fair on long-term strobe as a bike light? What sort of cell life could be expected out of AA, AA Lithium, NiMH and 14500’s respectively?

TIA,

SP

You are probably correct. I remember now why I did not respond. The contact address came up as being suspicious on my works computer so I think I thought it was a scam and forgot to check for sure.

I love this little light and it instantly became my favorite EDC. But I noticed that it wasn’t remembering the mode I last used even though it’s advertised as having memory mode. I assumed it was defective and wrote to Olight in the US. I received a quick response that stated: “The S1A will remember the mode just for 9min and then it will automatically change to medium.” So it has 9 minute memory mode only. Not terribly useful. A minor inconvenience.

Please don’t stalk all S1A threads

good review! I like the S1a as much as my S1 Baton and S15r. Olight is always doing a good job in manufacturing little edc-flashlights!

S1A continued to be a very pleasant little flashlight.
Eventually someone in need must have picked it up, used it and pocketed it, and I never got it back.
Sigh. Another reminder to keep flashlights on a lanyard. Or a leash.

EDIT found it under the bed.

Aside — good warranty service from Olightworld.com. I’d bought one of Olight’s little chargers !

and a single rechargeable 10440/AA li-ion cell from their web sales page last year.

The cell failed (protection circuit kept operating over-enthusiastically, so the charger cycled between 4.2v and 0v every second or so, and a flashlight would barely flicker with the cell in it) The warranty folks at the website just asked for a picture and said they’ll be sending a replacement. (Their site no longer sells the 10440 li-ions, so I’m curious what I’ll get in the mail as a replacement)


NOTE NEW STUFF AT OLIGHT’s WEBSITE

the site’s worth a fresh look — they now have magnetic charging on a lot of their flashlights with “R” in the name

https://olightworld.com/led-flashlights/rechargeable
https://olightworld.com/batteries-and-chargers/battery-chargers

And they have a retrofit kit for the H1Nova

(I have no idea what a “dual polarity RC” cell is, maybe they need their own proprietary cell for these rechargeable devices?)

I haven’t seen any of these, I”m just speculating from what’s on the website. — a little electromagnet on a charging dock or on a USB cable mates up with the base of the light to recharge the cell.

Update

The review light — serial number G07150647 — turned up dead today.
Checking for warranty support as suggested at the forum

The Olight user rep at the forum has not participated for over 4 years, after making the single post in this thread.

Well, Olight’s 4 year old email is defunct:

——- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —techsupport@olightworld.com—-
(reason: 550 Mailbox not found.

Their 4-year-old website doesn’t work:

Googled, found a new webpage:

Looked for warranty info, found nothing

Their page did recognize my login from their old website, and had a record of the lights I’ve gotten from them.

They have a FAQ link at thit website that gives two defunct links for warranty/service contacts.

Neither of those links works, they just default to search “not found”

EDIT, I found their customer returns link comes up valid:
https://www.olightstore.com/contacts/order_returns.html

I posted a pointer to this thread and will follow up if Olight responds.

Quick response from cs@olightstore.com
Didn’t understand my complaint, offered to send me a new battery (which was the problem I reported four years or so ago)
I replied verifying the flashlight is dead, and that it wasn’t a battery problem.
Looks like most of their support is done via Facebook now.
More news as I have it.

UPDATE == commendably quick response; Olight emailed me a RMA number and shipping address.
I don’t mind paying for shipping something this small. Off it will go, soon!