GearBest's Entry into Flashlights, the zanflare f1! First Light from this manufacturer!

Pro’s and Con’s

Pro’s
Premium Cree XP-L V6 emitter on a DTP copper mcpcb.
Regulated constant current circuitry
Thermal step down to protect from overheating
3.5A in Flare mode
~1250 lumens
Good beam profile, hot spot easily fills a target 50 yds away
Built in USB Charger, well protected from dirt and water
Nice pocket clip
Metal clicky button in tail cap with good seal
All actuation is firm and positive
High grade anodization
Glass breaker point in tail cap

Con’s
Pocket clip is attached to tail cap, will scar up the battery tube with cell replacement (provided internal charging is not used)
Overall style is a bit eclectic
Head glued (sealed, in their words)
UI is slightly confusing, not difficult to get used to though

I don’t know the price point on this light, but from the feature set and quality of construction it should compare favorably to other lights in it’s class and come in at an affordable level. Will make a nice EDC with good moonlight and top tier common level, not sure I like how it steps down in thermal protection, it seems to go a bit too far and reset to moonlight instead of merely stepping down to High and then Medium if necessary. A better stepdown ramp would make the Flare mode much more useful.

Will be playing with it some more and get more shots of the light in use with beamshots later today.

Thanks for checking it out, and Thank You, May, for considering me to do this review/testing. :slight_smile:

not on their website :question:

The zanflare website is not active either. They just filed for the patent on the name last May.

The light is brand new, freshly made just in the last week or so it would appear.

Love how that ring protects and waterproofs the charging port.
Instantpy one of the best solutions! (Even better then the BD series that has excellent water proofing but has an external proprietary thingy.)
Well done gearbest!

are you able to use the usb to fully charge a battery then measure the battery voltage?

also i was looking at the IC near the push button , is it an 18231st? its a but hard to make out.

Hi DB Custom, thanks for your quickest and so detailed review

it will be listed in a few days, wish you could like it too

Sorry if I missed it, but which LED are they using?

Ah, it says XP-L in the manual. Cool.

Nice specs. It does look like they tried really hard to get it right. I’d love to love this light for its features. But, it’s so ugly. I really, really, REALLY don’t like the ‘spline’ look. :cry:

Too bad that they were unable to make a driver with low quiescent drain. It shouldn’t be this hard to do.
And time for a traditional question: can it fit triple?

Haha, but for me the spline look is a refreshing break from all the usual stuff we see…beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder.

Maybe because it’s also looong. This seemed off to me so I checked the specs and it’s actually almost 2 cm longer than S2+, which is already pretty long.

It’ long because of the triple board driver design. The driver cavity is deep by necessity. It’s done well though, with the internal slots for the vertical driver board to fit into, any hard press on the switch just doesn’t cause issue like so many others.

Another look at the switch side of the board… I wasn’t targeting specific’s so these are the only pics I have at this point. I can get back inside easily now though. :wink:

It seems a bit large but you can’t say it’s not rugged looking. I would not mind trying one of those during my upcoming winter night shifts. That would soon reveal any flaws it might have!

Scorpia, this should help…

Xoden, low quiescent drain is irrelevant with an on/off tail switch, yes? The light cannot be turned off from the side e-switch, so with the physical clicky switch at the tail quiescent drain does not apply here.

Some of the length is absolute, due to the USB charging port and the excellent cover design… threads are few but it still takes some space to have these threads with a physical dual o-ring cover to ensure the port is protected.

I measure 118.8mm on a Convoy S2+ and 136.2mm on the f1.

S2+ is 23.8mm diameter at the bezel, f1 is 26.3mm.

S2+ is 17.4mm at the reflector opening in the bezel, f1 is 20mm.

Reflector cup is approx 11mm on the S2+, the f1 reflector cup is approximately 20mm in depth.

Easy to see that the f1 is a larger more capable light with better throw characteristics and the built in charging system. A win as far as I’m concerned. More light than the expensive Nitecore P12GT with comparable features and still smaller than this class mate.

Very interesting light…very curious about the price!

On paper, the Zanfare F1 flashlight looks pretty good. The several styles of knurling/grip do make for an odd appearance, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.

No small tube light can hold a 1240-lumen output for very long, so the 30-second step-down in "Flare" mode is fine. The next highest mode, a 590-lumen "Turbo" mode, is a level that can probably be maintained without overheating.

Overall, the mode spacing is good. It would be better if there were a mode between the 1-lumen "Moonlight" mode and the 50-lumen "Low." Something like 10 or 15 lumens would be nice. Adding another mode, however, might create user interface issues. There are already five different constant modes, four of which are on the "main sequence." Inserting a new mode would make the main sequence longer. My opinion is that flashlights that have that many modes need to have mode switching in both directions, brighter and dimmer.

The recharging port cover is ideal. I have a general mistrust of the tiny rubber flaps used by most rechargeable flashlights. Zanfare has chosen my favorite design, a screw-on sleeve, sealed with O-rings.

The driver is said to be a constant current design that has both a low-voltage warning and cutoff (at 2.6 volts). Nice!

The User Manual does not describe recharging in detail. I presume that 1x18650 is the only battery configuration that allows recharging. Trying to recharge 2xRCR123 is probably not going work, but the User Manual fails to point this out. In addition, it looks like there is a typo in the User Manual. It describes CR123A as having a nominal voltage of 3.7 volts and RCR123 as having a nominal voltage of 3.0 volts. I think those are reversed.

Can the F1 flashlight can take 2x18350?

Based on the specs, I would say Zanfare has done a good job with it initial entry. I hope to see more from it. Models with neutral tint, CCT near 5000K, and high CRI would be of particular interest to me.

By repeatedly resetting the Flare mode, I’ve managed to get it pretty hot! Once it’s warmed up it won’t run as long in Flare but it does still go like 18-20 seconds which allows it to build heat over a period of 4-5 resets.

I tried engaging Flare from a medium mode to see if it would return to that mode on step down but it goes back to the lowest level.

I agree that mode spacing seems off, pretty big jump from moonlight to low. From Medium to High (Turbo?) is not very much of a visible jump, so it would be nice if they could pull back the middle modes to allow for a 10-15 lumen low, maybe a 60-80 lumen medium, then the high of 580 or a bit more. That would allow for 3 nice low levels for general use, a semi-Turbo mode that would stay engaged and Flare for those scenario’s when you need all that’s available.

Strobe is pretty fast, seems quite bright and of course I have zero use for any SOS level.

Edit: I know the manual says switching out of strobe is easy, but it’s not. It takes that 3 second press to get it to go back to moonlight, which is difficult to detect after being in strobe.