I received the XTAR MOON RC2 from GearBest the review.
XTAR specs for the MOON RC2:
The RC2 comes in a cardboard box, which was seriously manhandled by the couriers.
The RC2 is available in blue and black colors, my sample is black.
Being not so tiny, is easy to keep in the hand and use it
The switch on top, it is covered by translucent plastic, and it does protrude a bit.
On one side there is a micro USB port for recharging the RC2. The port cover has a really snug fit, to me it takes multiple try to get in place.
The wide clip on the back of the light has some bents and some intents to improve gripping.
The thickness of the plastic and of the metal springs. The clip is easily operated by one hand
UI
Click once to turn the RC2 at medium mode.
Each click will advance modes: low, high, medium, moon, off.
A long click will give you strobe mode (either when the RC2 is on or off), click again to turn the RC2 off.
Under the switch there is a led that works as a battery indicator (green: >45 minutes, red<45 minutes, red flashing<15”) as well as a charging indicator (red: charging, green: charged).
The RC2 can be safely used at all levels while charging.
Beamshots
1 meter from the wall
Here is pointing at the floor (the RC2 is just above the upper margin of the pic). The spot at the center of the beam is the reflection from the floor.
As you can see the beam is very wide and without artifacts.
It can be used attached to the belt or to a shirt and enlightening your path.
Runtime
Flat regulation on all tested levels.
My thoughts
The light is well built and easy to use.
The tint is excellent, I haven’t red the technical specs of the RC2 until after I got it, and I was afraid to have a cool tint. Not only the tint is a very pleasant neutral (a bit on the warm side, which I like), but according to the manufacturer also has a good CRI (Samsung 5630 80+ CRI).
The UI is fine, although I’d like to be able to turn the RC2 off without passing through all the modes.
I like the integrated charging feature.
The clip gives a good range of possible application spots, and the range can be further widened attaching the clip to a lanyard (using the provided lanyard hole) or to a magnet (either connecting it to a lanyard or gluing it to the RC2).
15 minutes after I took the first pics of the RC2, the belt of a rolling shutter broke and I used the RC2 to shine light inside the rolling shutter box. The RC2 worked very well for that purpose.
How does the Moon RC2 compare to a headlamp? The RC2 can be substituted by a quality headlamp with similar beam (Zebralight H602 mainly, and other floodier lights) and better output, however the RC2 is first of all cheap, has a more versatile clip than most lights, is easy to use (it can be given as a gift to a non flashaholic) and rechargeable with an integrated battery.
The RC2 has a great runtime and you can forget it in a toolbox, or keep it in a dark place where you usually need courtesy light (as my father suggested: “put it in the wardrobe, your mother complains about being too poor lit”). At 120 lumens it can enlight a medium room without problems.
The great runtime could be further improved from XTAR by using a hi capacity 18650 battery (moving from 2200mAh to 3500mAh).
I’d like some “real tailstanding” capability for the RC2, since it can rest on the switch but only on a flat surface and it wobbles even so.
Thanks to: AntoLed for lending me the camera and luxmeter, P.P. for the clamp and Zampa for the tripod.
Thanks for reading.