The Nitcore Tini is seriously small but has a pretty impressive output.
This is designed as a keychain light and size wise fits that nicely in my opinion. Thanks to NitecoreStore.com for sending this to me to review. Let’s take a closer look.
Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/znwaf
Video Review: https://youtu.be/cXxNQgZjUI0
Size and Weight
The Nitcore Tini is seriously small, here it is next to a quarter and dollar coin.
It’s one of the first lights that I actually want to use on my keychain. Weight comes in at 13.4grams. I measured the length at 40.10mm, width at 23.88mm and thickness (lens) at 15.06mm.
Construction is similar to the Nitecore TIP,
it’s a metalized body held together with a plastic seam and screws. This does have a microUSB dust cover
Which is a nice feature I wish the Tip had. It’s IP54 rated, so don’t submerge it, but light moisture is ok… The buttons 
don’t take much force to press but this isn’t a problem for accidental activation on your keys or in your pocket. I will cover why in in a few minutes.
The bad is the color. I ordered a Red model and from the photos on Nitecore’s website I thought that would be great. However when I received it, it was much more pink then the photos showed. Here are some photos I took next to very red objects, everything was white balanced to show proper color and as you can see it’s not red
it’s actually pretty pink. I understand the Nitecore TIP had similar problems. It’s disappointing Nitecore continues to make this mistake. Nitecore store has adjusted their photos a bit now after I emailed them to better reflect the real color.
LED, Battery, Runtime
I was pleasantly surprised by the output of this light. It uses a Cree XP-G2 S3 in Cool white. The light has a diffused reflector !
https://i.imgur.com/yf3vbHp.jpg!
which creates a pretty diffuse beam, It’s more intense in the center but no real definition. I think it’s good for general tasks up-to about 15ft. Turbo is listed at 380 lumens for 15 minutes, high @ 145 lumens for 1 hour, medium @ 38 lumens for 4h, and Low @ 1 lumen for 60h. The battery is only rated for 280ma which is small, but so is this light. That said It ran starting in High down to no light for 68 minutes in my test 
which is pretty decent. For 50 minutes of this run time it was within 80% or greater of the full output. I was expecting it to ramp down sooner. Charging is done via microUSB. Nitecore says it will fully charge in an hour and 45 minutes which is quite a while for a small battery. The light can operate while charging so if you had a stiff usb wire you could use it to illuminate a laptop or something like that. The light does have a battery level indicator that you can access by tapping the mode button when the light is off.
UI
The UI is reasonable for this type of light. It ships with Demo mode enabled meaning it will only run for a maximum of 30 seconds. Lucky Nitecore store includes a tip guide 
which covers how to disable this, the manual does too. The UI on this light is decent. So to get around the sensitive buttons to turn the light on you press and hold the power button and about 1.5 seconds later the light responds. Once it’s on the mode button works instantly as does pressing the power to turn it off. I like this and its a more practical solution then using lockout. Mode. This light does have memory mode and will return to the last mode used. Turbo is not accessible in the normal rotation. Instead you press and hold the mode button for 0.6 seconds when the light is on or off to activate it. Keep pressing to keep turbo engaged.
Pro’s
- A practical size for actually using as a keychain light
- Logical UI that seems to start on low when memory times out.
- Impressive output for such a small size
Con’s
- Don’t order Red expecting actually receive red. It’s anodizing is actually pink. * Ships in demo mode which isn’t my favorite.
- Same price depending on where you shop as the Nitecore TIP.
- Micro USB cable isn’t included, it should be for the price.
This is a nice size for a keychain light with an impressive output. It’s runtime ramps down quickly but it maintains a useable output for a good amount of time. Overall I am impressed with this little light and can recommend it for keychain use. Check it out at the Nitecore Store.
