Review - Olight S1A

In the interest of complete transparency please know that Olight sent me this light to review. I’ve been through several AA, AAA and CR123 lights in the search for the best EDC light or lights. I settled on AA lights for the balance of battery life, function and form. My current most carried EDC light, out of the 25 or so I’ve tried is the Eagletac D25a Ti 2014 version. I was a fan of the Olight S15 and was a little disappointed when I read they were discontinuing it until I saw the first video that included the Olight S1A on YouTube. A single click of the soft rubber side switch turns the light on in the mode it was turned off in. When on, pressing and holding the switch cycles through low (5 lumens), medium (50 lumens) and high (220 lumens) modes. A Turbo mode can be accessed when using a rechargeable Li-Ion 14500 and is rated at 600 lumens but my battery of choice is the Eneloop Pro so I might never experience that, it isn’t something I need anyway. Olight includes a Lithium Iron non rechargeable battery with the light. From off pressing and holding the soft side switch will turn the light on in firefly mode (0.5 lumens). A triple click from any on mode or from off gives you instant access to strobe mode. This UI works great for me, I use medium mode the most so instant access to it is great. I also appreciate being able to access firefly mode without killing my night vision and the ability to jump to strobe mode pretty quickly from anywhere in the UI. The pocket clip is really only built to be installed with the light carrying lens up which took me a couple days to get used to but it is not a big deal. It is also folded over itself giving you the option of clipping it on your hat for instant headlight action. The built in tail cap magnet is an easy feature to forget until you need it and then you will be glad it’s there. I for one don’t use lanyards on flashlights but this one comes with a pretty nice lanyard that is ready to be threaded through the lanyard hole. The packaging is very minimalistic being not much bigger than the light which is something I like to see since I keep every box for every product I own. Overall this light is a great addition to my EDC rotation. It fits all my needs as being a source of usable light that I can access quickly with some sprinkled in features that I don’t need but that are very nice to have.

Cross-reference, for finding the other recent reviews of the S1A:
http://budgetlightforum.com/search?q_as=S1A%20review

I think this is the 9th

Is 10 too many? I was about to post mine….

Nahhh - go for it……

Go ahead… The more the merrier! :smiley:

We can expect 50 review threads, since that’s how many lights they announced here that they’d be giving away to people who would post reviews here.

Well, make that 49 — I posted my review of the free light they sent me in the form of a comment or two, which I left in David’s review thread.

So, as you mention being a fan of the S15, how does the S1A compare to it?

Can’t even read that, just a giant block of letters. May I suggest the use paragraphs and bullet points our something similar.

Also please, please, when you post an image, set a low percent size like 20-40 percent and preview.
Remember, anyone can click on the small image and get the huuuuuge image if they want to see it.
Doesn’t work the other way though, if you post huge, it clogs up small screens.

You can edit a post and reduce the image size during the edit.

Olight has “BIG Hands” here! :innocent:

how?

sorry: how on inline images?

That’s the image from earlier in the thread. Without the surrounding !! (/View/Source or something like that in your browser)
you see the code behind it looks like this:

{width:25%}http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii92/gtcobra302/6E1C9DDF-FDDF-4192-BE68-B0A691133D7B_zpsq5khxcvg.jpg

Thanks! I fixed my post.