The Sofirn comes with a battery and is a bit more floody, plus battery life will be reduced. If you care about modding, the D25 is far less moddable than the D10. Otherwise both are good.
No, my main issue is double click goes to strobe. Why? Who needs shortcut to strobe on a headlamp? I would say the majority would highly prefer 2C -> Turbo/High. Makes no sense to have strobe on such an easily accessible shortcut.
I vote for D25 Sofirn. I also don’t like strobe in headlamps. The bottom line is know your UI. I know better than to double click this light so it’s not a problem.
i second the D25. As I stated earlier I have a couple of the D25S. I could not be more pleased. And at the price it is a NOBRAINER to me.
Nice White light… no green.
Comes complete with battery also. What ia not to like??
Go for it….
Oh yeah, as far as being concerned about the UI… that is WASTED worry. It is simple & straight forward. I have NEVER EVEN ONE TIME gone into strobe modeby accident.
It’s not a matter of just knowing UI - it’s _too easy _to accidentally double click. It’s literally 2 clicks. The bottom line is that strobe shouldn’t even be PART of a headlamp’s UI. If you’re in a group, like a hike or camp-site for example, an accidental activation can be extremely disorienting and negatively affect those in your party. That’s all good and fine if you, like you say, ‘know better’, but for me it takes huge marks off the light if you’re concerned with any type of group activity. Maybe this isn’t relevant to OP, maybe it is, but for me it’s a big enough issue to take note of.
Having said that, I still agree that it meets all the criteria that OP asked for. I’m just throwing out my own personal experience.
A headlamp especially a small 18650 one will need an efficient buck driver to put out good sustainable lumens, and buck drivers aren’t cheap, sadly. Otherwise you’re going to top out at ~300-400 lumens (constant).
PL47G3 is meant to have buck driver, but it’s 21700 and not out yet.
In the aliexpress link , can anyone , please explain the differences between the Boruit D10 XM-L2
headlamps with the one & two LEDs in them ?—I’m obviously somehow missing something.
The D10 is a single led, D25 is dual led. The AE D25 ones have fake XML2 in them, the Sofirn-branded D25S has sst40s (superior). The Boruit D10 and every clone all have fake XML2 in them. Other than the 1 vs 2 led and a different lens/reflector setup, the driver is the same for both. I prefer the D10 because it’s so good for upgrading whereas the D25 is limited.
I think my Skillhunt H03 does a great job at half the price of a Zebralight. 8 levels and rated IPX8.
Around $40 for the new H04 series, more if you add charging but I have not issues removing the battery to charge it.
Three models with different spread.
I like the Wowtac A2s. $30 with decent battery on Amazon. I’ve seen them with a 20% off coupon.
I have the NW. Don’t know about the CW version.
Good tint for an XPL HD. Good, simple, UI. Good build quality.
Not as cheap as boruit, but UI does matter to me.
I have a few different Wowtac / Thrunite lights and am happy with all of them (some required a LED swap).