Klarus G20 review (26650, XHP70)

Thanks for your lengthy reviews and pics!

The disappointing lumen reading tells me to stay away from klarus.

Very useful, thanks.

nice review. I have one now since last year. it turned on in my pocket twice, (and burned my hand once from heat) so i modded mine with a tail clicky. The most i measured from mine was roughly 1750 lumens in the light-sphere, not any where close to 3000 lumens. (The dual electronic switch on these is pointless.) Mine also came with a eye-searing ice-cold white (with greenish tint) XHP70, and swapped it with a MT-G2 4000K & much happier with it now after the mods.

Yeah, it seems the side button is super easy to activate. I’ve seen a few video reviews and everyone keeps turning it on by accident. :person_facepalming:

the side button protrudes way to far. a poor design for an e-switch. I didn’t like its so-called lockout, so i gutted the second pointless tail E-switch and modded in a micro clicky switch to turn it off as a real lock out. ( and now with a clicky it eliminates the parasitic drain risk.

Good point. I haven’t had the light activate in my pocket once, but I can totally see how the protruding switch might accidentally activate. Thumbsup on the MT-G2. My favorite big Cree as well.

Lock it off when in the pocket!

Man, the neutral tint on the Acebeam is awesome. I must be super impressed with a floody light to get it cool white…

Great review man! I’ve had this light for months and was waiting for a professional review for a hot second but figured it wasn’t gonna happen at this point. Glad to see that I was wrong.
The overall lumen output wasn’t exactly as billed, but I’ve known that for a while now, as mine tested at right around 2,400 lumens in my lightbox. Either way, 500 lumens for nearly 5 hours is pretty impressive, especially considering the price we paid in the GB.
I agree with the comments regarding the side switch. It’s very easy to activate! Lock out should definitely be used if you plan on putting it in your pocket or storing it in anyway at all.

Here’s an idea, what if you added a plastic ring around the switch to protect it?
Maybe make it just shorter than the switch height and just around the sides and top. Exact height would be owners preference.

If you can’t make the switch lower, raise the sides. :slight_smile:

I like a form factor of G20 but the tint is too cold to my taste.
Any chance to see the inside (pill, wires, driver)?

its why i swapped it for a MT-G2, now mine as a perfect smooth tint, and has a better smother flood beam.

Did you do anything to the reflector? Does it fit just like that? Thanks.

no reflectors mods needed, MT-G2 had lots of space.

Thanks for the review.

Did anybody compare it to the DQG Tiny 26650 3rd?

Dumb clarification question - when you say “Cooled” (vs uncooled), is this just pointing a household fan at the light while it is on? Or is there some kind of cooling attachment that is actually put on the light?

It’s a small usb fan.

Lately there has been some worry over the electronic lockouts increasing parasitic drain. I left the battery into the G20 for 4 weeks (28 days) with the electronic lockout activated. After sitting on the shelf the battery read 4.08 volts and during recharging it took in 420 mAh which averages out to the 5100 mAh battery discharging completely in about a year (5100mAh/420mAh*28d=340d). Of course the standby current may increase on lower battery voltage to keep power draw constant, but in practice the lockout mode doesn’t have a meaningful effect to the parasitic drain. You should remove the battery if left unused for longer periods.

I highly suggest dedoming and possibly swapping the emitter to a bit warmer and higher CRI one if you decide to get the G20.

The emitter is on a small copper MCPCB. The thermal sensor seems to be attached to the shelf, which explains the ringing in the output when the light adjusts its output. The temperature changes are faster than if it was positioned on the driver for example.

With the change the beam becomes very consistent, the hotspot and spill are almost identical in tint and there’s no artifacts either.

I swapped a CRI80+ 4500 K XHP70 onto mine (Cree part XHP70A-01-0000-0D0HM245G). Here’s the results with the stock LED, the 4500 K LED and lastly the new LED with a sliced dome (I used a razor blade).

I wasn’t happy at all with just the emitter swap, since the huge tint shift (greenish yellow to blue) was still there. Slicing the dome fixed that right up and the beam is now excellent!

Since my original G20 had pretty much identical tint and tint shift to my sample of the Olight R50 Pro Seeker, here’s beamshots from that and the newly modded G20 with a sliced dome using the same camera settings (with a slight desaturation of the R50 image to make it look more realistic).

CRI Data reveals that the new emitter is actually CRI80, but the hotspot was terribly tinted towards yellow/green (duv 0.009). It was also much warmer than specified (4000 K vs. 4500 K), but this seems to be often the case when measured from the hotspot in a flashlight with a reflector.

First, the new emitter with the dome intact.

And with the dome sliced off things look much better. More neutral (duv 0.004). And as expected, a slightly warmer hotspot at 3900 K. CRI dropped by one at that particular position of the beam, no worries, it was back to 80 on the next spot I measured.

Output at 30 sec changed as follows:
Stock: 2200 lumens
4500 K: 1990 lumens
Dedomed: 1760 lumens

A sacrifice I’m more than willing to make for the prettier beam. I didn’t measure lux, but the hotspot was clearly brighter after dedoming the 4500 K LED. Getting more throw wasn’t the goal of this exercise. Now the light quality is actually superb and Klarus should offer it with a dedomed XHP70 (like every other manufacturer). I hoped Cree would also manufacture XHP50/70 with no dome, but I guess flashlight industry isn’t big enough. In my opinion the beam quality always improves after dedoming when using these.

The finished mod.