Hi all,
GearBest gave me the opportunity to review their ON THE ROAD X5 Standard LED Flashlight. So they sent me one for free and I´d like to present you my personal opinion and findings after using it a few days.
Right now you can get the flashlight for a lower price with the following coupon codes here:
X5 XP-L HD V6 1A (cold white) edition Code: OTRX5 USD 38.10
X5 XM-L2 U2 5C (Warm white) edition Code: OTRX5 USD 39.16
To begin with I´d like to say that this will not be a very “technical” review because I lack all the fancy equipment like a lux meter or stuff like that. I´m also not a modder so don´t expect any modification tutorials to tune this light.
I really like single 26650 flashlights - there are not too many available on the market and they really have a nice balance of size and power, with a high capacity 26650 you´ll have almost twice the power and endurance than a standard 18650 flashlight. The X5 is intended to be a “workhorse”, not a high lumens pocket rocket that will empty your cell in a breeze. So you´ll find a standard 3 volts LED inside, either the cold white XP-L or the warm white XM-L2, both state of the art Cree LED types.
First some specs:
- LED flashlight made from Aerospace-grade Aluminum Alloy powered by a single 26650 (5.300 mAh cell included) or 18650 (with adapter, not included)
- two available LED variants: XP-L HD V6 in 1A 6500-7000K (cold white) oder XM-L2 U2 5C 3800-4000K (warm white, unfortunately no neutral white version around 5000 K available)
- Maximum brightness is 1050 lumens (CW) resp. 1000 lumens (WW)
- battery can be loaded inside the light via USB cable, charger with 0.6 A is included, but only with US plug, and I live in Europe so I couldn’t´t use it)
- one hand operation with side clicky, full click switches on/off, medium press changes modes
- 4 brightness modes: Ultralow (20 Lumens), Low (160 lm), Medium (470 lm) and High (1050 lm) - no moonlight or firefly!
- Low Voltage Protection, Reverse Polarity Protection, permanent charging indicator
- 2 selectable mode groups: 4 brightness modes + 2 blink modes (Strobe and SOS) or 4 brightness modes only with now blinky modes
- standard tripod mount in the tailcap
- IPX-8 certified(water proof up to 2 m)
Presentation
The X5 comes in a stable cardboard box:
Here you can see what´s inside the box: X5 flashlight, 26650 battery (5300 mAh, most likely protected), lanyard, 2 spare O-rings, chinese manual, charger and mirco USB cable:
The X5 comes in a flawless anodization in slightly brown/bronze metallic color. It weights around 190 gramms empty, 285 gramms with battery installed. The finish is a bit on the slippery side of smooth, but it has a nice grip and is very comfortable to hold:
The design of the X5 (at least for my taste) is classy and the stainless steel bezel with the small markings are a nice addition to that appearance. Around the central side clicky switch you´ll see the colored power and charging indicator. The light itself is 14,4 cm long:
A view at the USB port, protected by a rubber clip that completely seals the light. It happened several times that when I inserted the battery and screwed the tailcap on the rubber seal popped open because that´s the only way the air can escape 
USB port open, you see it´s a standard Mirco USB port like on most smartphones. You can also use your smartphone charger to charge the battery:
When laying on the side, the slightly protruding cooling fins protect the light from rolling away easily:
A look at the tailcap with the lanyard hole and the tripod mount:
Closeup of the head an bezel: The head seems to be glued, at least I was not able to open the head or bezel to take out the reflector or examine the LED and board. The lens is stated to have a anti reflexive coating, but to be honest I cold not see the typical color tint of a coated lens:
The cold white Cree XP-L HD V6 1A sits perfectly centered in a smooth reflector, that is not completely free of flaws, some small blotches and scratches are present, but nothing to worry about. The reflector diameter is around 42 millimeters:
Size comparison: Shadow JM-35 XHP50 (another single 26650 Lampe), Astrolux S1 and a NiteCore MH20 that has almost the same cold white XP-L inside, but in a slight lower bin (V6 vs. V5):
Reflector comparison:
The X5 can be disassembled into 3 main parts: head, battery tube and tailcap. Everything is build rock solid and there are no wobbly parts anywhere:
A closer look at the battery tube: you can see that on the one side the threads are anodized and nicely lubed. That´s the side that goes to the tailcap and is normally used to open the light if needed since most of the user might never open it because they always charge via USB. The threads going to the head are “raw”. The square threads run fine though. You can also see that the one side has two O-rings to ensure the better waterproofing:
A view at the driver and driver spring:
Due to the two spring design, all kinds of batteries will fit: protected and unprotected, flat or button top, long or short:
Charging level is always indicated by a color led around the side switch as long as the light is ON. The light will indicate charging level 100 to 10 percent with blue, 9 to 5 percent with red, below 5 with blinking red light:
The light is also used as a USB charging indicator: red means charging, blue means full.
The light can be used normally when charging with the cable attached:
Runtimes
I made a simple runtime test. First I checked the included 26650 battery (came with 3,65 volts) and charged it inside the light until the X5 indicated it was fully loaded. It took nearly 5 hours with a 2A charger, so my guess is that the charging circuit can not benefit from higher charging currents that 1A. After that I measured the volateg inside my Xtar VP4 charger and it was exactly 4.20 volts - excellent!
So I switched the X5 on high mode in a clamp and tried to measure the brightness changes with a luxmeter app on my nexus 5 smartphone. I know this is not very reliable, but I measured around 17,000 lux at 1 meter. So I let it ran on high and watched what happened. Run time on high is specified with max 3 hours, in fact in my test it was even a bit longer, the light started to blink red after 2:50 and switched itself off after 3 hours and 10 Minutes. I again measured the 26650 voltage and it had 3.09 volts, so no undercharging.
Of course the brightness was not at 100% during the whole time. The temperature controlled driver dimmed the light a bit after 20 minutes, but it stayed then at 75% for nearly two hours before slowly decreasing brightness. The light was very warm, but never uncomfortably hot:
I did a simple PWM test and unfortunately discovered PWM in all modes except the high mode. That said, the frequency of the PWM is so high that I was not able to detect any flickering with my eyes:
Due to the rather large and deep SMO reflector, the X5 beam characteristics is that of a little thrower! The beam is quite narrow with a very defined hotspot:
A bit longer exposure time:
Beamshots
Last but not least some beamshots. I compared the X5 to it´s “little brother” the Nitecore MH20 which has a much smaller refelctor and thus giving a much floodier beam:
X5 on high:
MH20 on turbo:
A different target: the tree in the background is around 80 meters away:
Summary
The X5 really surprised me. It´s a flashlight that is build very solid as a work light, so it´s strength is endurance and performance, not maximum brightness. It´s more a thrower than a flooder though, so it makes a perfect search light, but may not be totally satisfying as an indoor light. I´d say the range is around 200-250 meters.
What I liked:
- endurance: more than 3 hours of bright light in high mode
- build quality: everything is nice and solid, feels good in your hand
- The side clicky feels good and works nicely for one hand operation
- good 26650 included, very reliable charging, “all in one” package for people who don´t want to handle Li-Io batteries or chargers
- tripod mount!
What I didn´t like:
- PWM flickering in all modes except high
- no holster included (could come handy with a light of this size)
- mode group change is a bit awkward: switch on in Ultralow, wait 120 seconds, watch for the blink, then click… why do I have to stare for 2 minutes on that light and then miss the blink ?!? 10 Seconds would have been enough
What I didn´t care for:
- no moonlight or firefly modes
- finish a bit too slippery
I would rate this light 7 out of 10 points, taking into account what is included in the full package, you´ll get a lot of light for your money!
Right now you can get the flashlight for a lower price with the following coupon codes here:
X5 XP-L HD V6 1A (cold white) edition Code: OTRX5 USD 38.10
X5 XM-L2 U2 5C (Warm white) edition Code: OTRX5 USD 39.16
Hope you liked this review, tried to be as neutral as possible!
K.
