A ThorFire representative contacted me asking if I’d like to review one of their EDC lights. I don’t turn down anything flashlight related whether it be to criticize or praise. I’ve been carrying this light for about two weeks now at work and in my everyday. Starting off lets look at the nice and simple box.
The box contains the amply padded flashlight, strong pocket clip, two spare O rings, and user manual.
When I first handled the flashlight I was surprised. We all know about flashlights ending in “Fire” and their questionable quality. The light has a good solid feel, smooth square cut threads, even adonization, aircraft grade aluminum, a glass lens with an anti-reflective coating, and a well centered Cree XP-L2 LED. I’ve handled cheaply made lights and this one does not reflect any characteristics of those.
Size wise it fits in a jeans pocket very well (though I prefer not to use clips). Per the manual the light is 5.197” x 0.94”. Here is a comparison to some other popular lights of similar size.
From the left is a Thorfire 3000mah 18650 battery (used in the testing, but not included in the package), Convoy S2+, ThorFire TK15S, and Thrunite TN12.
I do like the dual button system. The rear rubber clicky turns the light on, and the metal button on the head cycles through the modes. Speaking of modes I absolutely love the spacing and the mode fade in. When cycling trough the different outputs the light ascends from moonlight to high and as it does this it gently but quickly fades into the next mode rather than all at once. After you’ve reached the high output any additional click of the mode button brings the output to the next lowest level rather than starting back at the beginning.
ThorFire’s stated lumen ratings are as follows.
Moonlight-1 lumen for 360 hours (15 days)
Low-100 lumens for 5 hours
Medium-500 lumens for 1 hour and 45 minutes
High-1050 lumens for 50 min
The light also has two hidden blinking modes
Srobe-1050 lumens for 45 min
Bike light-500 lumens for 2 hours and 45 minutes
To access Strobe the light must be turned on and the mode button pressed twice quickly. To activate the bike blinking mode simply hold the mode switch down while the light is turned on. The light does have a mode memory.
ThorFire states that only 18650 batteries are to be used in the light. No CR123’s. They do have their place but not for me, I use my lights daily.
The light is rated to be safe at an impact of up to 1 meter. I accidently tested this and can attest if you drop it from four(ish) feet onto a kitchen floor it’ll be just fine. One thing I love to do is test real world waterproofness of my lights. No simply placing it in a few inches of tap water. This light is IPX8 rated (submersion up to 2 meters). No clue about the time rating. So just for poos and grins I went out to one of my many muddy Missouri lakes, tied the light to some Para cord, and dropped it into 9 feet of water for 20 minutes on turbo.
Just in case you ever wondered what 1050 lumens in 9 feet of dark, murky water looks like.
After pulling the light out of the water I dried the outside off and removed the head and tail to check for water leakage. No leakage at all. The threads look wet on account of the lube I put on them (they did come lubed, but I added some of my own for good measure).
Beamshot time! This light has a bike blink mode so I feel I wouldn’t do it justice if I didn’t take it out for some trail riding. I took some pictures with my wife’s Nikon camera but no matter what settings I set it to the pictures looked brighter than in real life. I want to keep this honest so I’m posting pictures that I took afterwards with my Galaxy S6 Active camera. Not as fancy but the pictures are closer to what my eyes actually saw. The tint is a bit warmer in the following pictures. In reality it’s on the cool side of neutral. Possibly 6k.
Low mode.
Medium mode (ideally what you’d actually use most of the time on a ride like this)
High mode
I’ve an actual dedicated bike light for my night rides, but if I didn’t I could actually see using an EDC light like this for a commuting or light trail illumination tool. With it’s smooth reflector the beam does reach out a bit but has a very nice spill on top of the medium sized hotspot. I could easily see my front tire and all that was ahead of me for many yards primarily using the medium setting.
Distance is rated at 120 meters (131 yards). Google maps, I love you.
From the shore to the tree across the lake was a measured 137 yards and I could clearly see the tree on the high setting.
As well on the medium setting, but just barely.
For a light that costs less that $30 this tool is a very good value. Not only does it work well in the pocket it works well with a rubber wristband mounted on a bike. We all like to show off our fancy and expensive lights but sometimes the budget fairy bites you and it feels great.