It could be worse than it looks I agree…
I had a lot of problems with glass lenses quality in a past(Dereelight, Tiablo, and Uniquefire) - it is very hard to convince factory that they have faulty lens…
Some factories really do have bad QC for lenses and it is terrible how glass lens quality can vary.
For example once I got whole batch of 1503 flashlights(100 pcs) and only 5 out of 100 were good… I almost loose my mind… Told my wife that I will have nerves breakdown… Does not matter… I survived
They had ultra low performance with a lot of artifacts in a beam plus almost each had some kind of pale double die projection (yes you heard that right)…
I am very happy that Uniquefire accepted my complaint for lens after I convinced them with video, pics, lux test etc…, and yes they investigated and told they had bad batch of lens. They have send me replacement lenses with strict factory quality control(mine shipping and customs costs for them of course - so they were not actually free for me). That lens were good but when compared to plastic B158 well Bee simply kills them in lux performance. The best UF 1503 lens(1 of 200) I found had very good throw about 10% less than B158 acrylic lens… So yes probably glass can be as good as plastic or better but not in a regular China manufacturing process… Premium glass lens costs money and I really doubt that China manufacturers will pay for such quality so it is better for them to stick to acrylic. But just can’t believe how some manufacturers are dumb and how they don’t see? All you got to have is cheap luxmeter and your eyes.
But! They do not want to listen when I am trying to convince them that acrylic is far better than glass. They also consider glass as premium and better to acrylic but it is not! Ok… I understand they should change their production process and everything. But they could release such model.
Imho zoomie no matter how small(edc) or big they are should have acrylic lenses, aluminum pill with retaining centering ring for mcpcb and driver, quality anodized threads and reverse clicky switch.
Glass lens with brass pill vs Acrylic lens with aluminum pill:
- heavy vs light setup
- higher production vs lower production costs
- production performance consistency variations vs no performance variations at all or
- lower lux performance vs higher lux performance (in flood and throw mode)
- fragile vs almost indestructible format
I am not engineer but I see that so it is really enigma for me why true engineers which do that work for living don’t see that issue…