I have a purple Xeno E03 somewhere.
It was pretty good (many years ago.)
Still have mine 
It has that special shape, was current controlled w/o PWM 
and worked well on NiMh batteries, and I swapped the cool white XP-G2 for a 3C tinted one.
But the med-low-high sequence was annoying, it was fairly large, and that orange switch tended to fail.
Here it is next to my current EDC light.
Yeh, I got a bunch. Mostly E03s and ES1s.
Go crazy…
Is it a good light or just a old/classic one?
This was my very first "real" flashlight. A Fenix PD30 R2. It's a great flashlight and I still like it. :-)
this was my “gateway drug”:
(stock pic)
finally found out what real flashlights are for.
It was a good light, but it's been one-upped over the years.
That got used! Mine has some pocket wear, not as much thanks to the switch.
Beautiful design really. Exactly correct about the ui.
It’s bright enough, not sure how anything new is that much better. Everyone I know would still be impressed with it new in box.
Looks nice, I have some old lights that I don’t use that I don’t dare sell.
The E03? Built like a f’n tank.
Lookit the finger-grips on the body. The body’s that thick to be able to cut them in.
Only 2 things I’m not crazy about. First is the MLH-nomem UI, ie, it always starts in M. I treat it as a 1-mode light and rarely change modes as a result.
Second is that mode-spacing changes a lot when switching alkaleak ⇄ 14500. Spacing’s good with AA, but not as bright. Lots brighter with a 14500, but all modes are bunched pretty high.
The ES1 is AA-only.
I think it is very nice. I probably ruined some of the beauty with the gitd rings, but flat surfaces are a danger for my flashlights so I add flair.
I think it was 300 lumens on high? Pretty standard AA/14500 EDC aside from the finger grooves, colors, CC, emitter choices. I had never seen any options on a flashlight.
Now that I picked it up a,gain I can feel the warm white beam costing me money on new lights.
I was honestly confused by all the 2.7k and 4k lights that get sold. I thought I liked 5k, but I see the attraction now… If I went back to AA for edc this might do it.
This is 100% accurate, I couldn’t even remember those details until you reminded me.
No one ever commented on the warm light, but I could always tell they took notice.
Some of my “early days” flashlights:
Incandescent! But replaced with LED P60 drop-in.
Here's a flashlight that was popular on BLF in 2010, the Lumapower MRV SE.
It was one of my first 18650 flashlights, and it was also pretty darn good over a decade ago.
(not my photo.)
My first “real” lights were a pair of 80buk (!!) Quark 2AA-Xes. Loved the UI, but hideously green emitters.
After that, I bought a one-way ticket to Drop-In City. ’501s and ’502s, mainly, then C8s (pills, not integrated shelves), then a coupla ’98s for variety.
Kept me busy a while.
Haha, I was late for drop-ins, but I learned enough about them here to steer some friends.
This thread reminded me of this one I created for “”incandescent palm-sized flashlights”:https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/58401”!
I guess my “thing” with lights started with that one, although only in recent years I actually started my addiction with “not so old” flashlights!
Back then, before the race-to-the-bottom to shiite quality, all the above were quite good to excellent, even the “cheap” knockoffs. C8s were at least Convoy/Thorfire quality, and you had to pay extra for better stuff like from XinTD, etc.
Switches were good and solid, bodies were stout, reflectors were metal, front-glass was, well, actual glass, drivers were at least NANJG quality, etc.
Later, everything went to shiite, with plastic front “glass”, plastic reflectors, “drivers” of just PWMed parallel-resistors to feed the LED, and emitters not even LatticeBright caliber, so knockoffs of knockoffs, and thinwall battery-tubes that were easily deformed and threads stripped.
I still got quite a few of the good stuff, and a small pile of the shiite. The latter is good for throwing together a cheapcrap light to give to kids to annoy all the neighbors at night, shining into windows and such.
I’ve have a blue E03 T5 that I’ve had for about 8 years and I got a newer red 6 mode late last year, in cool white.
I love the little guys.
Had the red one out the other night playing with it.
Chris