Klarus G35 review by Texas_Ace - A Powerful Compact thrower

Well, time for another review.

FlashlightZ reached out to me asking if I would like to review a Klarus light. I have never tried one before so I said sure, they look pretty good.

So they sent me a Klarus G35 to review.

You can see the G35 on their site here: FlashlightZ

They also have an amazon store here: https://www.amazon.com/s?marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&me=A1BN9Q9763VY8I&merchant=A1BN9Q9763VY8I&redirect=true

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072C8Y214

They are a USA based flashlight supplier and the shipping was extremely fast because of this.

Now onto the Light itself.

I selected the G35 as I really like the XHP35 LED and compact throwers.

It is well packed and secure in the box and the translations are all done pretty well. It comes with a spare tailcap o-ring and a pretty nice padded wrist strap in the box.





Included were 3x 2600ma protected button top Tenergy cells, they were tested here: Test of Tenergy 18650 2600mAh (Silver)

All testing was done with these cells as this light is not designed for un-protected cells and these are the only protected cells I own. an unprotected cell in the single cell slot seems to work fine but not in the other slots.

So first thing I did after opening the box was try to pull it apart and quickly found that the light is glued the heck together and will remain that way. Not sure what kind of glue is used but it won’t budge. So this is not a host light, which is sad, I was hoping to swap the LED out for something else and I wanted to bump the driver power up some. Sadly those were not meant to be.

Once I sucked up the fact the light would not be modded I then set about testing it as it came from the factory lol.



Here are some shots of the manual in case someone ever losses the manual and wants to see it, plus I don’t feel like repeating what is already said in the manual





First impressions were “it has a very tight beam”, surprisingly tight for the reflector size. I love the xhp35 for this.

The next thing that hit me was tint was actually pretty good, somewhere around 5500k if I had to guess, something even I could live with, although I still would prefer a warmer tint myself.

It has a unique design with both a side e-switch and a tailcap e-switch. Sadly I could not take it apart to see how it actually works but it does work.


Both switches do pretty much the same thing with the exception of mode memory. The side switch does have mode memory but the tailcap does not. It always starts in low.

The mode spacing is pretty good, no complaints there.

Overall the UI is average, I have no major complains but besides the dual switch design nothing really stands out either.

I am a bit spoiled by Narsil in all my other e-switch lights though, so take that with a gain of salt.

The biggest things I would change is make the double click turbo instead of strobe.

The driver is a Boost driver that can be used either either a single cell with about half the power or 3 cells with full power. I would really love to see how it works but like I said before, it is glued tight.


If you only use a single cell it must be inserted into the slot with the red sticker:

The tailcap also has some circuitry in it for the tail switch.

The threads are square and smooth, no complaints:

The Ano is good quality and feels pretty durable:

Now to the business end. The reflector is focused very well. It has a very very slight texture to the surface but that helps with the smooth beam, I like it:


Here it is next to some of my other lights that are in the same class and the GT for scale.

Fromt left to right:
G35
D01 with XP-L HI and TA driver
Convoy L2 with XHP35 HI and TA driver
GT “Giggles” with shaved dome XHP70.2 and resistor mod

I could not take my normal current and voltage readings due to not being able to get to the driver and not wanting to risk shorting it out because of that.

Here are the Lumen and throw readings I got with all 3 protected cells installed:

Low - 31
Med - 133
High - 428
Turbo - 1925

Here are the Throw and Lumen readings with 1 cell installed:

Turbo - ~1300lm

DB tested this light and got around 225kcd for ~950m of throw, my throw numbers never seem to match others so I don’t post them much anymore. Most likely due to me living in a city and all the dirty air that goes with it.

So the modes are generally a bit higher then stated with turbo and the throw readings being a tad lower. Overall pretty good ratings for a China manufacture and close enough that the exact measurement method would play a larger role then the output numbers themselves. I don’t trust any home made lumen sphere to be more then ~10% +/- accurate at best.

Now for some basic beamshots, I will try to get some outside shots later when I take the XHP70.2 GT out for a spin.

First here is a comparison shot between the above lights:

G35
D01 with XP-l HI 3D
Convoy L2 with XHP35
GT prototype with XHP70.2 sliced dome 4000k

All on the same manual settings.

G35 left - D01 center - Convoy L2 right

G35

D01:

Convoy L2:

GT with slightly defocused centering ring:

Same GT shot except with a faster shutter speed so you could actually see the beam:

Here are some outside beamshots as well, really good results for the size:



Ok, now for some personal impressions.

In the factory setup it is a potent little thrower that has a pleasing tint and impressive performance for the size. It is very usable and I have no real complaints about it other then the fact it is glued together.

The lights I have that match the performance costs me about 2/3’s the price to build + the time involved.

I would have no problem recommending this light as a compact thrower.

How long can you run it on turbo before it steps down ?

I have not had time to do runtime tests yet, I like to make the review while I still have it fresh on my mind and was not sure when I would get a chance to do those tests since they take a long time.

I will update the thread when I do some runtime tests, I might go turn it on now and see what it does.

Ok, I just did a turbo test, it ran for 20 minutes while slowly dropping from 1900 lumens to ~1400 lumens (due to battery voltage drop it looked like) and heating up. With no apparent thermal throttling, just voltage drop in the cells.

Then a little after 20 minutes it dropped to around ~1100 lumens all the sudden. At first I thought it thermal throttled but after letting it cool back down and doing some more checking I found that didn’t see to be the case.

It seems to actually use the cells in 2 “batches”. First it uses the 2 cells that are in series to give you the full turbo output.

When the output has dropped to about that of the single cell it is like it then switches to the single cell. I checked the cell voltages and the single cell was still almost full yet the other 2 were both around 3.6V.

I have it running now to see what happens as it keeps running. Kinda curious to see what happens as it keeps draining. I will report back as I learn more.

Ok, I let it finish the runtime test, it kept steadily dropping output as the cells drained, so it doesn’t appear to be a regulated driver as I first assumed since it is a boost driver. Which could also explain my low numbers on turbo since it was using the low drain protected cells.

I also have no idea what is going on with the cell usage. it does use the series cells and the single cell differently that is for sure, they always had different voltages when I checked during the discharge test.

The final voltage it shut down at was still safe for all of them, so no worries about damaging a cell but it is a very strange way of setting up the driver. It must be because they want it to be able to use a single cell.

Personally if this is what happens when trying to do that I would just go with a 3P cell setup and a more powerful boost driver. Much simpler and more consistent results.

All that said, while it is a very strange way of doing things, it still works. Although sad to see it is not a true regulated boost driver as I had hoped but pretty much par for the course to not have it.

I added some outside beamshots to the OP

Thanks for the review mate!

Klarus are pretty big on there boost drivers they have a lot of lights with XHP35’s.

If you ever mode this light maybe you can break some copy right infringements and clone the boost driver for us :stuck_out_tongue:

lol, no need, there is an even better boost driver in the works as we speak for us BLF guys. I am super excited about it but don’t want to spoil it for the developer, I will let him announce it once he is finished.

Sounds good can’t wait to see the end result!

I’ll do a review on how much abuse they can take before something fails or breaks! Tell them to send me two! :smiley:

I noticed that the centering ring in the G35 has two types, one is smooth and reflective (saw it in a Youtube review) and the other is a black plastic like the one shown here. Does this mean that Klarus released more than one “generation” of the G35? I wonder what effect the smooth centering ring has on the shape of the hotspot and/or the corona and the throw.

It is possible although more likely they simply used a different supplier for the centering rings.

Since you can’t really open it up it is hard to know if there are any other changes.