Olight M2R Warrior - Dual switches, magnetic charging, XHP35 HD

Olight M2R Warrior

MSRP: $100

Olight Store link: https://www.olightstore.com/olight-m2r-warrior

eBay link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Olight-M2R-Warrior-1500lumen-Most-Powerful-Pocket-Tactical-Flashlight-w-Battery-/162302385320?ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT

Imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/fVMIN

Reddit post link: https://www.reddit.com/r/flashlight/comments/77bkbu/review_olight_m2r_warrior/

This flashlight was supplied by Olight for this review. As always, I've tried to be as unbiased as possible.



TL;DR

Olight recently came out with a dual switch 18650 light, the M2R Warrior. The body tube is double-walled and the tailcap still works with Olight's magnetic charging even though it has a switch on it. It's also the first Olight flashlight that can use Olight's magnetic charging to charge a non-proprietary battery! The UI isn't very good though.



Packaging

The M2R Warrior comes in a premium package. The outside box is matte black with an image of the flashlight on the front and detailed specs on the back.

Inside of that box is a plastic display box that congratulates you on your purchase and tells you how to unpack your flashlight the rest of the way. The packaging does a great job of presenting the flashlight. Opening the M2R's packaging is like unboxing a smartphone. It just has that sort of feel to it.

Contents

Once you get everything unpacked, you'll find...

  • An Olight M2R flashlight
  • A manual
  • A holster
  • A lanyard
  • A magnetic charging cable
  • A folded insert with information on a few select Olight products

Build

The Olight M2R Warrior is a medium sized 1x18650 light. It's slightly longer than a Convoy S2, and a little bit wider. The body and tailcap are one inch in diameter, and the area around the button is 26mm in diameter. The flashlight sports Olight's classic blue-accented black color scheme. You could take off all of the silkscreening and it would still be easily identifiable as an Olight flashlight.

The anodizing is jet black and silky smooth. Machining marks are visible, but you have to look *really* hard to see it. The knurling is rectangular, and the threads are square.

The M2R Warrior has two switches, one on the side of the head and one on the tail. They're both electronic switches, which is very unusual for a flashlight with this switch positioning. More on that in the UI and Modes section. The tailswitch is forward clicky and it's magnetic, but due to the length of the M2R it can't stick the flashlight to a wall, just hang it from a magnetic surface.

The main advancements displayed by the Warrior are that it can still use Olight's magnetic charging system even though it has a tailswitch, and that it doesn't catch things on fire! Olight accomplished this by constructing the tailswitch out of metal, cramming a whole bunch of tech in there, and using a double-walled body tube. I can't imagine how much work went in to designing this thing.


Inside the tailcap and the head (not inside inside, I couldn't figure out how to take them apart) there are spinning disks that the inside tube contacts. In the center of both of these disks are doubled-up gold plated springs. The inside tube and the outside tube aren't connected. There's about 1mm of wiggle room between the two. The inside tube doesn't wiggle when the light is tightened up though, only when the tailcap is off.


On my M2R the head was glued on, but with glue, not with thread locker. I was able to remove it without using a strap wrench. When I did, I discovered that the inside tube can be removed from that side. It uses an o-ring to stay positioned inside the outer tube. The flashlight does work without the inside tube, but it works differently. More on this in the Battery section.


The head of the light bulges out a bit around the button. The bulgy bit has heat fins on it. The button is small and rubber, with a red indicator light in the middle. The side switch makes a good click. It isn't loud, but it's audible, and it gives great tactile feedback. It protrudes from the light slightly, but I haven't had any issues with it coming on in my pocket after EDCing it for a week. The tailswitch is concave, and flush with the tail of the light. It's silent, but still provides tactile feedback.


The bezel is crenulated, but the crenulation is very fine. It's obvious that that's more for looks than for bashing bad guys. It does serve a practical purpose though, it makes it a lot easier to remove the bezel (this will probably void your warranty)!

Inside the head you'll find an orange peel reflector, an AR glass lens, and an absolutely brilliant o-ring. It wraps around the lens, making a superb seal between the bezel, lens, reflector, and head. I've never seen an o-ring like this before, and I love it.

Clip, Lanyard, and Holster

The clip included with the M2R Warrior is Olight's two-way clip, the same one that comes with the H2R Nova. It's a great clip. It's thick and grips the light firmly, but it's still easy to clip on to the edge of a pocket. It can be clipped onto either end of the body tube, which allows for head-up deep carry, tail-up deep carry, and tail up super-deep carry. It's a 10/10 clip. Olight should make this clip available to buy by itself.


Olight also includes their usual lanyard. It's a puffy cloth lanyard with one of those slidey-buttons on it. It also comes with a little bent piece of wire that makes it possible to thread the lanyard through the hole on the tailcap. If you lose that, you'll have to make one yourself. The lanyard hole is too small to thread the lanyard through by itself.


Because this is marketed as a tactical flashlight, Olight included a holster. It's actually pretty nice. It isn't Maxpedition quality, but it's miles ahead of the flimsy holster I got with a Fenix flashlight. It's made of some sort of synthetic fabric, with a softer fabric on the inside. It's held closed by a plastic clip in the front.

This holster can be attached to a belt or a backpack in a few different ways. The strap on the back is layed out so that you can thread something behind the strap (like a belt) or thread the length of strap with the snap on it through something else (like MOLLE). There's also a D ring at the top. I guess you could secure the holster with that, but I can't think of a scenario where I'd want to do that rather than use the straps. There's a grommet on the bottom of the holster, probably to allow water to drain.

Beam and Tint

The Olight M2R Warrior uses a Cree XHP35 HD emitter, and comes in either cool or neutral white. I got the neutral white version. It has a pretty standard beam profile for a 1" tube light. It anything, it's on the floody side due to the domed emitter and the large die. As to be expected with neutral white domed Cree emitter, there is noticeable tint shift. The center of the hotspot is around 4500K. It's surrounded by a yellow ring, and then cooler floody area that gets cooler as it goes out from the center. I can't help but wonder if this beam would have benefited from an XHP35 HI. I'm snobby about beams; this stuff is much less noticeable if you aren't shining the flashlight at a white wall.

UI and Modes

The M2R's UI is very unusual (manual link).

You can turn the light on in two ways, by either the side switch or the tail switch. From off, a single press of the side switch will turn the flashlight on to the last mode used (excluding high and strobe) and pressing and holding the side switch will turn the light on in moonlight mode. From there, pressing and holding the side switch will cycle upwards through the modes, Low (15 lm) > Med 1 (60 lm) > Med 2 (250 lm) > High (700 lm), looping around from high. The only way to access moonlight mode is with the shortcut from off. A double press or triple press of the side switch will go to high or strobe, respecively, whether the light is on or off. From high mode, a double press will go to turbo. There is a three minute timed stepdown from turbo to high. A single press of the side switch from any mode will turn the flashlight off.
The M2R has two "operation modes", and depending on which one you're in the function of the tailswitch changes completely. By holding down the tailswitch and pressing the side switch (or by cycling through the modes three times), you can change the operation mode between "Standard" and "Enhanced Tactical".

Standard Mode

Partially pressing the tailswitch will momentarily activate an 1000 lumen turbo mode, and a full press will turn the flashlight on in that turbo mode. Another full click of the tailswitch will turn the light off. You can also use the side switch to change modes and turn the flashlight off. No mode changing is possible through the tailswitch. Because the tailswitch is forward clicky, using it to turn the M2R off will activate turbo until it's released, even if the light was in a lower mode.

Enhanced Tactical

A partial press of the side switch will momentarily activate a 1500 lumen turbo mode, and a full press will momentarily activate the strobe mode. This 1500 lumen turbo doesn't look all that different from the 1000 lumen turbo. There is no way to access the 1500 lumen turbo when in standard mode.

I don't like the UI. I think a dual switch light should have two switches that work together in harmony. The M2R's switches don't seem to get along very well. Why can't I take advantage of the forward clicky tailswitch and momentarily activate whatever mode I choose? Why are there two nigh indistinguishable turbo modes? Why put so much time into developing a tailswitch that works with your fancy magnetic charging system just to limit its capabilities with a crappy UI?

/rant

Battery and Charging

Olight's magnetic rechargeable lights don't have a great reputation among flashlight enthusiasts, and for good reason. In the past, their rechargeable lights used proprietary cells and had live contacts which could start fires. The M2R Warrior isn't like those older lights. By using a double-walled body tube, the Warrior can use the magnetic charging system to charge *any* 18650 cell, whether it be flat top, button top, protected, or unprotected. While the contacts on the tailcap still have voltage across them, some fancy electronics in the tailcap prevent shorts and steel wool fires.
The Warrior comes with a 3500mAh protected button top 18650 cell capable of 10A discharge. Can you guess what it is?


No, not that one, it's the other one, an LG MJ1.


When the battery drops to 3.2V, a red indicator light on the side switch lights up. It's a dim light, and it isn't mentioned in the manual, but it's there. At 3V the highest mode the light will go to is Med 1. There does seem to be LVP. I tested the Warrior with an unprotected cell, and it shut off completely at 2.5V. This is low enough to make me uncomfortable; I think 2.7V would be a better cutoff voltage.
I mentioned in the Build section that the M2R functions without it's inner body tube. If the inside tube is removed, the side switch functions normally, but the tailswitch doesn't do anything at all, and neither does connecting the light to a magnetic charger.

It's also worth noting that the battery has a lot of wiggle room without the inside tube. When the inside tube is removed, the inner diameter increases from 18.9mm to 20.9mm. The protected cell Olight ships with the M2R Warrior is 69mm long, and the springs don't depress all the way when it's in the light. I measured the length of the inside tube, and it's 73mm long. In case you haven't gotten my hint yet, I'm trying to say that **this flashlight will (probably) work with a 20700 cell!** I'm going to order one at some point to confirm this. I'll make another post about it when I do.

Modding

Disclaimer: Do this stuff a your own risk. If you mess up and break something, that's on you.

  • 7mm reflector hole
  • My calipers can't reach, but MCPCB is slightly larger than 16mm. it's probably 17mm. XHP35 footprint.
  • I can't get the head or the tailcap apart due to the weird spinny contacts for the inside tube.

You can do an emitter swap and maybe put a 20700 cell in it, but other than that, modding the Olight M2R Warrior is going to be very difficult.



Bottom line

Pros

  • Boost driver
  • Comes in neutral white
  • Excellent build quality
  • Can (probably) fit a 20700 cell!

Cons

  • Bad UI, could be much better
  • Noticeable tint shift


Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about the light I would be more than happy to answer them.


EDIT: It's occurred to me that my gripes about the UI were a bit unfair. For a tactical light, it's not bad. And that's what this is, after all, a tactical light.

The M2R tailswitch apart

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