During Gearbest’s earlier cattle call for light reviewers I was selected to receive the Nitenumen E01 for review, with the promise to compare it to my Nitecore MH20. I consider the E01 a clone of the MH20. This isn’t a bad thing, but most of my review is focused on comparing the two lights since they are so similar. In most of my reviews I try not to focus on things you can read for yourself on the spec sheets but look for things that you have to get a light in your hand to notice.
I totally got this light for free. I’d like to keep the free lights coming so I must fulfill the terms of the agreement and drop the link and coupon code:
- Nitenumen NE01 http://goo.gl/cDed8A
- Coupon: NE01GB
- Price: $22.69
The coupon code takes a few bucks off the price of an already pretty affordable light. This is the link provided by Gearbest and not an affiliate link.
TL;DR up top
The E01 is a good way to get into that MH20 form factor (mini thrower?) for a lot less money. There are a couple small compromises in quality, but nothing major and a UI that you may or may not prefer to Nitecore’s. Probably not worth getting in addition to the MH20.
Obligatory Box Shot
Here are the cousins. Front & Back.
“Multitask Hybrid Series”… they should make a bunch of them
Inside is the standard junk:
The only difference is that the MH20 comes with one more O-ring. This almost stopped the review dead in it’s tracks. But I pressed on.
The sleeping bags are identical in every way, down to the buckle and the way I throw them in the box and never use them. Uncanny.
Close up of the spec sheets (E01 on the left, made for ants). Pretty closely matched except the E01 is slightly brighter in every mode. More on that in the UI section.
Only other thing I’ll point out here is that the clip that came with the E01 was extremely tight. Tight to the point that I thought it was for a smaller flashlight. The lack of the flared bits at the end make it even harder to put on. Needless to say that clip is going NO WHERE, but make sure you want it on because it’s not coming off without a fight.
Comparison
Frontsies:
Nitecore makes you choose whether you want the buttons to line up, or the logos, but not both. Do not review both flashlights if you are OCD.
Backsies:
Topsies (or bottomsies):
E01 has more aggressive knurling on the vestigial bump on the cap. More tactical.
Family:
From left: Nitenumen E01, Nitecore MH20 (neutral white), Olight S20R, Nitecore MH12, BLF A6 (regular and un-anodized mashup)
Earthquake:
(this always happens right after I line them up)
The E01/MH20 are much deeper, wider, throwier reflectors. Someday I’ll always have a bevy of relevant flashlights to compare, but for now these are all the compact 18650’s I have.
Externals
Without the logo the E01 is a dead ringer for the MH20. They are the same in every dimension. There are only a few trivial ornamental differences in the little tactical cuts and stylings. The biggest stylistic difference is the bright red ring around the E01’s button, which makes it go faster.
Anodization is good, and free of defects. It must be high quality because when I put that stiff clip on it didn’t scratch.
Threads are anodized for lockout, trapezoidal, came well greased:
I did notice a quality defect in the reflector:
Different angle:
The little hair or bur inside the glass (so I guess this should really go in the internals section). Luckily the bezel threads weren’t stuck on with loctite (unlike the MH20 which I can’t get to budge) so it was easy enough to unscrew and blow out. The inside of the lens had some other dust in there as well.
Internals
Not a lot going on in there:
Button tops are necessary (just like the MH20), that center brass stud is shallower than the bars on either side.
The spring (not pictured, but imagine any spring ever) could be a little stiffer. If you shake the light around you can hear the battery rattle inside the tube. It’s quite the nit to pick because that’s not really a valid use for a flashlight, but it makes it feel less premium for a light to be rattly. I have this same complaint for the MH20.
Aluminum star, not very big but that’s what you get in this form factor. Visible thermal grease pressed out from the side so it looks like they used enough. Easy to get to due to lack of loctite so a good light for modding.
Like the MH20 there are status LEDs underneath the switch. But the MH20 helpfully uses rubber that lets light through.
This took some major camera trickery to capture. Neither light is that bright and the room was dark. I had a high ISO and long exposure. The point is that the MH20 lights up the whole switch evenly. The E01 kind of lets some light out one side.
Charging:
The status lights are functional, but this is one area where the MH20 is a lot nicer.
UI
First off, the biggest difference is that the MH20 has a spiffy 2-stage electronic switch. Like a camera shutter you can half-press and full press for different actions. It’s unique, but in my use it hasn’t exactly redefined flashlight activation. The E01 has a regular one-trick-pony switch.
While there are one button interfaces that allow direct access to low and turbo, the E01 is not one of them (sad face). Do not despair, it’s not that bad. The light always turns on in low (aka “shimmery” in the manual, which I think we can all agree is what we need to start using instead of “moonlight”) and advances up through the modes like my much beloved BLF A6. It also offers a direct from-on-to-turbo double click. Strobes are available only from off only from a double-click. If you like strobes then they should probably be available direct from off. If you don’t like strobes these aren’t hidden well enough.
Off takes a 1.5 second press or one-click-too-many from turbo. The 1.5 second press feels a little sluggish to me.
Overall the UI is pretty good. There’s something to be said for simple and I’ll take simple, but not quite perfect over the downright awful UI I reviewed last time. The MH20 UI is cool and fun, but you have to learn it. You can hand the E01 to someone and they don’t spend any time figuring it out.
Beam shotz
Manual mode: f/3.5, 1/125 exposure, ISO800, least-crappy white balance preset. The tints are as close as a match as I can make my camera get without putting any effort into figuring out how white balance works. It’s just not a priority in my life. I’m only going to include the E01 and MH20 because the other 18650 lights are flooders, there’s not much value in contrasting them here.
E01:
Key features: Brighter hot spot than MH20, which makes sense due to the slightly larger throw specification. Much less spill and the spill is much cooler than the hot spot, this doesn’t show up well in the picture. My BLF Integration Sphere isn’t ready yet so I can’t measure the lumens. My totally uneducated opinion is it isn’t as bright as my MH20, but this could be an illusion caused by having a brighter hot spot and less spill. I’m satisfied with the tint, it seems on the warm end of the claimed 6500 - 7000k. Regular to maybe slightly-more-than-average tint shift across the beam for a cool white light.
MH20:
Key features: basically the same beam profile, but there is a lot more spill. Since the reflectors seem pretty identical I speculate that this is an XML-L2 U2 (MH20) vs XML-L2 U3 (E01). If you want the throwier thrower then E01 wins, but I prefer the more spill of the MH20.
I don’t have a beam shot of this because it is beyond my skills as a camera man, but I can perceive (just barely) PWM being used on the E01, on all modes except maybe turbo. It passed the traditional PWM test (shake the light real fast, see strobes), but not the enhanced badass-flashlight-reviewer test (shine it at water trickling from a faucet, see a string of beads). I didn’t notice this in practice over using the light for the last 3 days, I’ve heard some people are more sensitive to it. My BLF A6 claims “ultra fast” PWM and it passes the faucet test (water looks like a stream).
My last comment about the beam is that I wish the shimmery aka moonlight mode was lower. There is a noticeable difference between the 2 Lumens of the E01 and the 1 Lumen of the MH20.
Summary
What you give up choosing the Nitecore MH20 over the Nitenumen E01:
- Simple UI that always starts on low
- Three times as much money (at Gearbest’s list prices, as they sponsored the review)
What you give up choosing the E01 over the MH20:
- Two stage switch
- NW tint option, if that’s your thing
- Lower low mode
- Higher quality assembly (I’m referring to the dirt inside the lens of my E01)
- Current controlled output at all levels
The lights are the same in almost every regard and except what I’ve noted above plus some micro-differences in styling. If none of the above features is a deal breaker then the E01 is just fine and leaves you with more money for other flashlights. You probably don’t need both.
Notes: Imgur album of all pics, Same review submitted to /r/flashlights