The company Wuben was kind enough to provide me with the Wuben E05 free of charge for a review before it appeared on the market.
First of all, a brief summary of the most important facts.
During the processing of the lamp Wuben is as usual on a high level, so all laserings are cleanly applied, there are neither sharp edges nor anything else.
Only the Cree XPL-LED isn’t centered in the reflector, fortunately it doesn’t harm the light image.
The lamp can be operated with the included 14500 lithium-ion battery as well as with conventional AA batteries.
The included 14500 battery can be charged via the built-in Micro-USB port, the maximum charging current is 0.3 Ampere.
According to my charger LiitoKala Lii-500 the battery has about 850 mAh, the battery was discharged in 3 cycles with 1 Ampere.
The UI is constructed as follows:
To switch on briefly press the side switch
Press and hold the side switch for approx. 2 seconds to turn it off.
Short pressure on the side switch to switch through the 4 light levels
Double click to activate strobe, double click again for SOS (goes off as well as on)
Press the switch in the switched off state for approx. 2 seconds to activate turbo.
Triple click when switched off to electronically lock the lamp
Loosen tailcap to mechanically lock lamp
The lamp has also a memory mode and starts in the last light level, unfortunately there is no possibility to start the lamp from low.
I also miss a direct access to Turbo when the lamp is switched on.
In addition, the lamp has a battery level indicator in the side switch, this indicates the following charge states:
100-80% constant blue
79-30% flashing blue
29-15% constant red
15-0% red flashing
During a runtime test, the lamp switched off after approx. 1 hour and 20 minutes, the battery had a voltage of 3.08 volts after removal. Thus the battery is not deeply discharged.
The light image is all in all quite fluent despite the smooth reflector, all in all the lamp has a quite wide beam angle.
The spot is quite large and relatively neutral white with a slightly greenish tint, towards the capillary it becomes cold white without color cast.
Altogether I classify the light color as a neutral cold white, the S1R Baton II from Olight looks even colder to me.
On one meter I measured approx. 4300 Lux which corresponds to the manufacturer’s specifications, according to ANSI 130 meters range.
With the Wuben E05 I measured over Ceiling Bounce between 800-840 Lumen.
As reference lamps I took the new Olight S1R Baton II and the Nitecore MH20, both are specified with 1000 lumen according to the manufacturer.
If I take the Olight as a reference I get 800 lumens, if I take the Nitecore I get 840 lumens.
This shows that this kind of measurement is unfortunately not accurate and offers only approximate clues.
With a white eneloop I measure approx. 120 lumen, assuming that the E05 provides 900 lumen.
What I like about the E05 is the good workmanship, the light output of approx. 900 lumen and the strong magnet in the tailcap, and everything is included.
Neutral I see the light color, I would also like a variant in neutral white light color.
Negatively I see the light steps, between the 150 lumen and the 900 lumen is a too big jump.
A step with 300 lumen would be desirable.
Furthermore, I am annoyed that you can’t start the lamp on low and can only activate the turbo when it is switched off.
Everything else you can find in my video, who only wants to see beam shots jumps to minute 15:22.