The ThorFire PF04 penlight is bright, very bright, on 2 AAA alkaline batteries on its highest setting. 210 lumens is believable. The beam is all flood with little observable hot spot. It lights up the entire corner of my backyard from 60 feet away. It is well made; the anodizing is without flaw and the greased threads are very smooth. The provided silver-toned clip seems strong and it would pass as a marker or pen in your shirt pocket. It’s thin enough to fit in a loose pants pocket with ease. The body is smooth with almost no knurling or texture which would have helped in holding it. It can’t tail stand because the tail switch sticks out but that is not a problem because you wouldn’t want to tail-stand something so tall and slender. It would be very unstable.
Now for the cons. The tail section is glued on and would take some effort to unscrew it. The reverse-clicky tail button is stiff and hard to press. It is impossible to work one-handed with your thumb. You can operate it with one hand by using your index finger and pushing straight down on the center. Once turned on you can use your thumb to change modes, which is a good thing because you will be switching modes every time you use it. There is no mode memory. It always starts in low. The mode order L-H-M, which might be usable if the low was more than 1 lumen. It could be used to read a map or star chart in the dark to retain your night-adapted vision but it is useless for anything else. It is not bright enough to use for nighttime navigation. Perhaps that is just my poor night vision and others may find a 1 lumen moonlight mode usable. The high mode is one you will use it in because, as I said before, it is very bright. The medium is good for navigation, but I never use it. H-M-L would be best or L-M-H if the low were brighter. The stiff tail switch, too-low low and weird mode order caused the PF04 to miss perfection by a little but for the price and the very bright high output it is a great and usable bargain.
ThorFIre PF04 and Lumapower Avenger RX in 2XAAA set up:
JetBeam WL-S1, ThorFIre PF04, Lumapower Avenger RX, BLF A6 SE:
Comparison of PF04 High(210 lm) and Avenger RX Turbo single 10440 (215 lm):
Comparison of PF04 Low (1 lm) and WL-S1 Ultra Low (1 lm):
PF04 1 lm low mode used to read in the dark:
