Anytime somebody says ‘best’ I cringe a little, but ‘very good’ at a very affordable price would be a standard S2 Convoy with an inexpensive smooth reflector and an XP-L Hi emitter in the flavour of your choice.
Pot it well with some of those squishy little cubes from Intl-Outdoors, drive it at a humble 3 amps or so, and you’ll see it everything you need to see this side of an actual foot long, two pound light sabre.
Slightly better, a bit more bullet proof (but a bit less pocketable), might be a hot-rodded Solarforce P60.
Bottom line? Everyone’s ‘best’ is different, and subject to a whole lot of variables.
Something I have not seen mentioned , that to me is a great little thrower for the size (310 meters ANSI rated and 2100 lumens) and also serves as a headlamp / EDC (comes with a clip as well as headband) is the Thrunite TH10 V2. It is a single 18650 with XHP 35 HI emitter and smooth reflector.
My full review with charts , beamshots and live outdoor comparisons …… HERE
It is the same size as the Convoy M2 different emitter, the M2 will have a better throw with the XPL-HI also has a little deeper reflector great light, head is larger than S2+
I’ve dithered around on this topic myself for a while, but haven’t bought anything new yet.
GT Mini, Emisar D1s, Thrunite Catapult V6, C8+ and other Convoys, various Sofirns, etc… All look like nice lights, but I’m not sure any of them would get more use than the S2+ (I have 3,) especially in terms of being pocketable.
I do already have a couple of Sofirn SF36’s. Fantastic budgets lights for the price I paid and fairly throwy, but even those are a little bulky for a pants pocket.
Also have the ss BLF X6, which is a gorgeous light, but mainly a shelf queen. A lot of that is the weight, which is why I keep thinking about another compact thrower, but I haven’t been completely sold on anything to this point.
So if you were looking for an unhelpful ramble, there you go.
25mm is squarely tube-light territory. Nitecore P12GT is a nice but pricy option (a thinner sibling of the MH20GT). I’m working on a review of the Sofirn SP31 V2.0 - a tube light with XP-L HI. It seems to be a great light so far… smaller than the P12GT, much cheaper, and has 90% of the throw of the P12GT (I measured 17,900 vs 20,150 lux).
From afar, basically the differences are not big, considering they have similar-sized reflector/heads. The Sofirn SP31v2.0 is a bit brighter (confirmed when I use a basic lux meter and do a ceiling bounce test at the same distance).
For instance, using a fully-charge battery, and doing the same ceiling bounce tests, I get these lux readings:
Sofirn SP31 v2.0 (XPL-Hi) : 115 lux
Convoy S2+ XPL-Hi NW (7135x8) : 90 lux
Convoy S2+ SST20-4000K (7135x8) : 60 lux
(lux readings when on max brightness, at the start)