I really wonder how the E07V2 will compare to the Sofirn at like 3 times the cost. I also prefer the form factor of the Sofirn and Fenix, but the specs on the original E07 are impressive.
The original E07 was one of my all-time favorite 21700. It has insane output for the size, nice looks, and high CRI with good tint options. It also had a very thick shelf and hefty copper mcpcb that gave it better heat sinking than all other lights of its class. The V2 should double the throw distance, have new high efficiency buck driver with regulated output, and 2A usb-c for fast charging. It’s going to be the best 21700 EDC on the market. I am super excited for the upcoming FF lights and I already own over 300 flashlights.
Sofirn makes great lights in its price range though. They are competing in a completely different league.
Perhaps, but comparisons between Sofirn SC31 pro to Olight warrior mini and baton pro make the Sofirn look much nicer for less money… They seem to have sort of found a sweetspot where they offer fairly crazy performance for the cash.
This seems to be my assessment and experience as well.
I have the SP40 and the SP70 and am awaiting the SF11.
That new e07 sounds awesome, I’m just not sure it’s worth like 3 times the SC31 (to me anyway). Now, if there were a groupbuy promo with battery included for the right price? I’m probably in!
The only thing pro-Sofirn is better tint. Other than that it’s just worse and the single switch operation is something I personally truly detest, one milion clicks in either direction, press and hold to change modes is extremely annoying because you have to focus a lot and if you miss - you have to start again. Fenix has much simplier and much much better UI.
I think you got this completely flipped around. I’ve had many conversations in the past with Sofirn and I know they don’t care about tint and don’t understand what tint is. They only know what color temperature is, which is not the same as tint. I’ve been trying to get them to use Cree NW A and D tint but I think they just don’t understand what that is or more likely it’s too expensive to buy binned tints for the super low price range they sell their lights at.
FF on the other hand cares about tint and always strive to obtain below the bbl tint bins. The SST-20 4000K FA3 is the rosiest SST-20 4000K used by any flashlight manufacturer by a good amount. They were also the first to use the SST-20 2700K JA3 below the BBL tint in flashlights. They were also the first non-custom flashlight manufacturer to use the legendary Nichia 219B sw45k that was though to be discontinued and unobtainable.
In terms of Cree emitters, they have the very rosy 5A and 3A tint bins. Compare those with any XPL used by Sofirn that are generally above the BBL and you will see how green the Sofirns are. The only decent emitter Sofirn has is the 5000k LH351D which is not too much above the BBL and I’m pretty sure that was a matter of luck that they got a good bin and it wasn’t because they sought a batch with binned tint, which is more expensive and harder to find than random binned batches.
There are a lot of pros with Sofirn lights but tint is definitely not one of them and I own over 2 dozen Sofirn lights. The non-custom flashlight company that cares about CRI and tint the most in the flashlight word at the moment has got to be Fireflies.
‘one milion clicks in either direction’ Not sure what you mean
Anduril UI is 100x better than Fenix. Fenix has no short cuts, so if you miss you have to cycle through every output again……
Anduril - Hold to moon light - double click to high. ramping output that goes up with hold or down with click hold.
You cant do any of that with fenix.
I would also have to agree that Anduril is a great UI and a strength rather than a weakness. As an EDC the UI and the output choices are a clear win for the Sofirn over the Fenix. The Sofirn goes noticeably lower and noticeably higher in output and you can set your own number of steps between the two. Plus, shortcuts. Plus, you can see the voltage of your battery any time you want. Serious positives for EDC IMHO.
Anduril is much better than Fenix’s standard click and hold for off UI in their single button lights. However, their dual switch lights and rotary lights are awesome and very user friendly. The issue I have with Anduril is that my non flashaholic friends always accidentally find themselves in the blinky or programming modes. It is just not user friendly for muggles. Anduril 2 is supposed to solve this issue.
You ain’t kidding. 3click from off vs 3click from on still gets me batty if I don’t constantly remind myself which is which. And then you set manual memory (more insidious, only rears its ugly head when you turn the light back on, and then “it’s broken” because it doesn’t remember you had it cranked down to near moonlight or cranked up to turbo and it keeps on “forgetting” what it was last set to) and have to remember that 3click and hold is what undoes it.
The Muggle has zero chance.
That’s why it’s probably for the best to have all those weirdo options stuffed into a programming mode. This way, The Muggle can’t easily get into all those modes and get into trouble, while the “pro” can still tweak it to his heart’s content.
Thing is - you can’t miss with Fenix. With Anduril you can, very easily.
If it’s not user friendly - it’s not better.
How exactly can you “miss” with Anduril? You can easily go past the mode you’re looking for with a Fenix and have to cycle all the way around. If you ramp a bit too far in Anduril, you release and hold again until the brightness comes back down a bit.
User friendliness is not the be-all end-all for “betterness.” If that was the case, all we’d have are single switch, single mode lights. To me, dual switches is a terrible design and highly frustrating. I haven’t touched my Fenix PD35 V2 for a long time because of it. Yes, there’s a learning curve with Anduril (which V2 has attempted to and apparently has addressed). But if being user friendly is all that’s important, then a bicycle is better than a motorcycle, a fan is better than air conditioning, and a calculator watch is better than a laptop.
Bought the SC31 Pro. Probably will still buy the FF E07V2 if the price were right…
I’m talking about stepped modes, ramping is bad because you don’t know what brightness level you’re at and therefore you cannot estimate runtime. You can miss by not releasing the button in the right moment because cycling through modes is pretty fast. Also to perform the same operation (for example - change two modes up), in the Fenix flashlight, you need to click the button twice. That’s it. Quick, simple, muscle memory - you just program your brain to do two short clicks and you do it automatically, with zero distraction. With Anduril you need to press the switch, hold it, wait for it to start switching modes, stay fully focused to release the switch in the exact fraction of a second it’s in the desired mode. It’s extremely easy to miss, requires much higher level of concentration and it’s very frustrating when you miss (because you need to start all over). I did have one flashlight like that and I will never buy anything like that. Ever. I don’t know how I stopped myself from smashing it into the ground when I missed the mode again.
EDIT. If you’re so allergic to tail switches, there is a walkaround - two stage side switch. Nitecore used it in the MH series and it was great.
I’ve had plenty of times with Fenix lights (UC30, PD35 V2, E16) where the side switch registered two clicks instead of one, causing me to “miss” my mode and having to cycle around (they’re not the same switches, but they are similar enough to suffer from the same problem). The timing of switching modes by holding down the button can be learned as simply as muscle memory too. And if you “miss” by going one mode too far, you can simply release and hold again for it to switch down one mode, not cycle through all other modes. Besides that, with Anduril, you may set however many modes you want to switch through and not be locked into whatever levels the manufacturer has chosen for you. That way, if you’re really so worried about run-time, you can choose a slightly lower mode than you might normally use (or with ramping, just turn it down a little). So I still don’t see how Fenix’s UI is better. Not having shortcuts to moonlight (and on most Fenix lights, no moonlight at all) or turbo, and having to cycle through all higher modes to return to the lower modes offers much less functionality. If I last left my light in a middle mode and now need a low setting, I either have to ruin my night vision by changing through the high modes, or I have to cover the light while changing through the modes, hoping the button does not misfire and change two modes (or else I have to cycle through again), until reaching the low setting.
Not sure if you ever used Anduril but you’re still not understanding how it works. If you miss a mode you release and hold again it goes the opposite way.
With Fenix you wonder if your in high mode? 1 more click your at the bottom clicking intensifies 1 million clicks later there’s another smashed flashlight 
Yes, you release, and the story repeats - press the switch, hold it, wait for it to start switching modes (this time in other direction), stay fully focused to release the switch in the exact fraction of a second. Nothing like that is not necessary when onle click = one mode change.
With well spaced modes there’s no doubt what mode you’re in at the moment.
You keep stressing the one click thing, but as I stated, it’s possible to accidentally trigger two clicks instead of one. What you fail to keep addressing is that, if you miss the mode you want, you have to cycle through all other modes to get back to where you want (the exact problem you’re trying to assign to Anduril). With the ability to go up and down the scale, choosing the mode you want becomes significantly faster, easier, and less likely to blind you. And you’re also ignoring that it isn’t a single click to change modes, as you still either have to hold the switch to turn the light on, or use a totally different switch to turn the light on. Unless you ALWAYS use the light in the last mode you wanted, you’re still fiddling with multiple steps of different actions to reach a desired level, most likely cycling through modes far brighter than you desire. If the light has the hold to on/off feature, the accidental double press from off will put the light in lockout mode.
Even Fenix including the ability to directly access the light’s lowest mode would be a huge improvement over their current setup. I have a Nitecore Tup that has two switches side-by-side, and has memory mode, and always progresses to the next highest mode. But the addition of instant access to moonlight and instant access to turbo (which is not in the regular cycle) is vastly superior to Fenix’s UI.
I will say it again, simpler does not equate to better. If you feel holding a button down requires all of your focus and can only handle single clicks (unless you need to hold for on/off), and if you feel like having direct access to the lowest or highest mode is not useful, and if you don’t mind always having to pass through higher settings to reach the lower ones again, and you cannot handle setting up modes to your preference on a light, and (if you prefer two switches) you don’t mind one button to turn the light on and a second button to change modes located in a position that forces you to change how you’re holding the light, and you don’t mind that the tail button on modern Fenix lights prevent the light from tail standing, then you may think Fenix’s UI is better. Those are a lot of hurdles to get past for the rest of the world who can distinguish small increments in time when holding a button down.
I love Anduril. Yes, you actually have to read and understand the instructions. That takes about 85% of everyone out of the picture. Once you do… it becomes the easiest UI there is. Press and hold for moon, double click to turbo, on/off and ramp to the desired output.
MY 10 YEAR OLD HAS IT DOWN PAT.
Seriously, except for the temp calibration, a simple demonstration and everyone in my household has no problems in basic operation. No blinkers or candle modes without greater understanding, but they EASILY operate the basic flashlight. So every time this discussion comes up I have to wonder if I have a brilliant 10 year old ’cause there are a whole slew of inept, clueless adults who can’t seem to figure it out.
I’m pretty sure your 10yo played with it while sitting on a couch in warm room. During the cold night when your flashlight is a tool while you’re doing something else ramping through modes (trough predefined stepped modes, we’re not talking about smooth ramping here) is not the best solution because it forces you to take your mind off of what you were doing and concentrate on your flashlight to release the switch in up to 1/3 of a second otherwise it will ramp/switch to the next mode. Anduril itself doesn’t help because it cycles through the modes really fast, faster than other UIs using similar method.
It never happened to me and I’m using my TK22 SE since I don’t even remember when (it came out in 2014 so probaly around that). That’s why there’s nothing to address, it’s impossible to go to the wrong mode (all Fenixes I owned worked flawlessly) unlike in Anduril where it’s inevitable. Going back means you have to perform the same procedure again and potentially - miss your desired mode again.
Wth Fenix if you are in the desired mode and you want to go back down with brightness I agree that you need to cycle through the modes. Which means 3 quick clicks and thing is - they still take much less time than press+hold+ramp+release,
Definitely not faster or easier. If you went from lowest mode to secong lowest and you want to go higher to medium - you need to press and hold - it will start ramping back down (since you were going up previously), then release, press and hold again so it will be ramping up again, observe the beam and keep your concentration to release the switch in the exact 1/3 of a second otherwise it will go past the desired mode. It is not faster than a single click.
I have no problem with a separate switch (both can be right next to each other) , also I usually leave my flashlights in one of the lower modes so no, they don’t blind me.
You’re too fixated on Fenix, I just used them as an example of one thing - switching modes by a single click which I personally find much easier than press+hold+ramp+release (because the latter does require much more concentration - obviously as it’s four steps instead of one). Nothing else. There are many more excellent executions like Nitecore and their dual switch: single click changes a single mode but there are shortcuts to lowest and highest mode and everything is operated with a single switch and it’s brilliant.
Thank you, you just confirmed it’s overcomplicated.