Let’s be honest though, on such a pencil beam thrower, the only mode we want is turbo. It’s not like it’s an edc or big bulky search and rescue light with a broader beam and more output.
True. On/off is enough.
Mike
Flashlights are a TINY portion of overall LED production, very specialized models like are common here are a TINY portion of that.
These are designed for very directional lighting, possibly for car headlights? Not all of these emitters are made to be adapted to every purpose like indoor lighting where warm white is common.
Not for me. I use my GT Mini for my nightly strolls. I have miles of unlighted sidewalks (the realtors now call sidewalks “walking trails”, but I’m old and will continue to call them sidewalks), running throughout my neighborhood. I don’t have to use the light all the time, and I use very low most of the time until I get to the lakes area and look for critters in the water or along the banks, then I use turbo. That’s what makes Anduril so great. I can long press to turn on the lowest level, single click to turn on at my own preset level, or double click to get full power. It looks like this new light will replace my GT Mini.
So according to the specs the WF2 throws 1483m and the WF1 does 1612m. Only 8.7% more throw. Wonder if the difference will be noticeable in real life.
Let’s be even more honest though. The difference between a flat “turbo” graph and a non-flat “turbo” graph is that one of the two is artificially limited. It could do more, but it doesn’t. So it’s debatable whether it should even count as “turbo” or if it’s just “100%”, since turbo kind of implies that it’s higher than what can be sustained long-term.
I see this point come up for every hot rod light, and it seems to be more about psychology than technology.
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Hot Rods……WOT…. 
visicology?
perscepticology?
uberception?
farcology?
Do I need it no. Do I want it yeah
pretty much all of us on this forum 99% of the time 
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If you are on this forum you hit that point very quickly 
I randomly hit up intl-outdoor’s website and what do you know, there’s a new product!
I scoffed at the GT because of the size and the astronomical price. This however is tempting because it suffers neither of those downsides - and I don’t particularly need a thrower.
I found a 21700 cell I had forgotten about — a Samsung 50E. It may not be much higher-amp than the 48G, but it should still be pretty good. So I’ll try to do runtime output tests with it instead.
In any case, even the weak 48G appears to get pretty flat output at all levels up to 7 (out of 7). It’s only turbo where it gets a more direct-drive-like curve.
High-amp cells like the 40T and 30T should stay pretty flat regardless of what level they’re running at. At least, until the battery is actually low.
You cannot always guarantee a clean environment, for example while camping in a small tent. Built-in charging allows to charge the flashlight on-the-go where you don’t have a fireproof, non-conducting space.
Wow!
What I wonder is if and when there will be a version of the D4 that takes 21700, has onboard charging and the switch that shows charge levels?
I share Sammy’s sentiment and your lube remark made it very clear that this style of charging is simply incompatible with one of my most important use cases.
I frequently charge things from powerbanks in tent. The item tends to lie on the tent floor together with 100 other things, some of which may be conductive. A flashlight, unless very small, is too heavy to be put in the tent pocket because it will pull the side wall. While moving around the tent stuff gets kicked around.
With such design a short would be unlikely but possible. Getting stuff dirty with lube would be certain.
I used to be a big fan of how Zanflare F1 did their charging. Now I like it even more.
Agreed. I seriously doubt that flashlights have played a dominant role in the LED industry’s design decisions since the original Luxeons were introduced circa 2004 and you’d pay dearly for anything capable of >100 lumens per emitter. Times have changed, Lumileds has shrank from their once-dominant position, and with Moore’s Law like leaps in performance some ~15 years later we’re seeing some ~10 times the performance at a fraction of the absolute price, which has opened numerous markets to LED lighting.
Mercifully, there’s still demand for LEDs convenient to flashlights in the larger market.
I would tend to assume so as well, given that Osram is a player in the automotive market. One of the vexing problems with automotive lighting is that of precise control over output, which is easier done with a point source than a 1D source (i.e. halogen filament) and especially a 2D source (i.e. LED die). LED headlights are indeed a thing, but they’ve not yet dethroned HID when it comes to tight control over light distribution since their cd/mm² is still lower and they’ve yet to emulate HID’s quasi-point source nature. Based on the throw that the K1 seemingly manages with such a small reflector, this LED has closed the gap significantly.
However, it’s worth noting that one of the more prominent application notes on Osram’s product page suggest that projectors (as in digital projectors like you’d see in a conference room) are a target market for this LED. The 6000K CCT is convenient for this application since that’s close to the typical monitor default of 6500K. Much like vehicle headlamps. projectors benefit from point light sources - and previously used xenon short arc bulbs almost exclusively, which are even closer to being a point source than HID.
I see your point but I don’t get your use case. You’d need a hell of a long camping trip to have to recharge this light in a tent, and charging over USB is way less efficient than just carrying a spare cell.
My remark was more general about this style of USB port in flashlights rather than this flashlight in particular. I did reference its size though I meant more size than the flashlight.
Unless a new emitter option shows up I’m not buying K1 simply because its beam is too narrow for my uses. And in most of uses flashlight is the source of power for other items. And sometimes I charge one flashlight with another simply because it’s easier for me to carry spares in one size. Though that doesn’t happen too often.
A small pouch should solve the tent-charging thing