The Jetbeam RRT01 I ordered showed up today. Here are some of my initial impressions / observations:
It’s smaller than I expected, which is good. It’s almost as small as a ZL SC52, maybe 2-3mm longer and the back end of the body is wider (same diameter as the bezel of the SC52). Because it’s short, one-handed operation requires holding the light with my middle finger (or middle+ring) and turning the ring with my index finger + thumb. The grip is similar to one-handed operation of my iTP A3 EOS 1xAAA twisty.
The clip is shorter than in the pictures I’ve seen online, which is also good. It doesn’t get even close to blocking the control ring. It also does not seem to rub the front half of the light when unscrewing the torch to put in a new battery; it stops just barely short of that. I’ll see if I can get pictures later.
The reflector is OP/LOP, and I see no rings in the beam aside from the usual mach bands at the outer edge of the spill.
The control ring works very well, though it’s a little bit sticky and could use some lube. It can be slightly difficult to move it by, say, half a millimeter, and instead it’ll want to move by 2mm. I mostly notice this near the high end of its range. Not really an issue though.
I’m pleased to report that the control ring seems to be a visually-linear brightness adjustment, so almost the entire range is useful (the ends seem to reach min/max slightly before the detent, but that’s okay).
It’s definitely not a 3-mode light, as one person suggested. I can get at least 50 visually-different levels out of it, and that’s mostly limited by the ring being a little sticky.
The dimmest levels are lower than the SC52’s dimmest mode, dimmer than a tritium vial, and actually so dim that I can barely tell the LED is on if I hold the light directly up to my eye in a totally dark room. In fact, I can’t even tell where it shuts off, because it fades so smoothly down to zero. You won’t be left complaining that it’s too bright.
I don’t have to turn it up and then back down to get to the dimmest levels. It comes on at the dimmest level my eye can detect when I hold it up to my eyeball in a dark room.
The brightest level (on a half-charged Nitecore 650mAh 16340 battery) appears to be about the same brightness as a ZL SC52 on turbo (Sanyo 840mAh 14500 battery, fully charged). I don’t have any meters or an integrating sphere though.
The body color is almost, but not quite, black. It’s a very dark, smoky grey.
The included materials say Jetbeam half the time and Niteye half the time. The torch itself actually says both on its logo side: “JETBeam ® // www.niteyelight.com”
Although the 16340 battery is loose inside the body, it doesn’t rattle when screwed together.
It tailstands easily, and the lanyard nub doesn’t stick out at all.
Aside from the poor runtimes (max ~4 days, compared to 3 months for the SC52), I’m very happy with this light. It looks much more attractive than the military drab color of my SC52, and will probably go into rotation for EDC use.
So, overall, this batch at FastTech seems to be better than the initial batches which were so highly reviewed at CPF. The only ways I’d like to see it improved are longer runtimes and maybe a bit of lube under the control ring.