My vote goes to Noctigon K9.3 SST-20 4000/2700. Plenty bright and small enough to carry it with me. The second place is WildTrail WT1M, but recently I noticed high parasitic drain and won’t use it until I fix it.
Astrolux FT02s for having a good balance of flood and throw. Also pretty powefull with 4xXHP50.2 leds. Ergonomics also great with 3 types of battery. Well balanced weight. Heat dissipation is also better than on smaller Astrolux EA01s. Comes with Anduril that we all love.
I think for me, for new releases, it was the Lumintop FWAA but the little Wild Trail WT3M was a very nice surprise. If I were to judge based on the number of new cells I bought, it would have to be the FWAA.
Not new, but I also picked up a Noctigon KR4 and like that one an awful lot. Given that I had three extended power outages this year, the most useful light by far ended up being the Convoy M3C simply due to its output and fantastic run times at low-but-useful light levels. Least impressive to me were a couple from Wurkkos and Olight but they’re both still good lights.
Lumintop FWAA. It has hardly left me since I got it. It's beyond smaller than I could have imagined them making. It's not really an EDC due to the flood but it hasn't prevented me from taking it everywhere.
Astrolux EA01 (Mateminco MT01). Bought 3 TIR throwers in 2021 and the EA01 is my favorite. Or at least by far my most used. The others are fun but not practical. The EA01 has a usable beam up close and I've seen some IF22A posts as well so there's a lot of fans of TIR throwers with larger hotspots than Osrams produce. And it has the benefit of Anduril that none of the others have, until the DM11 debuts.
Update: Yep, the Mateminco MT70 Mini SFN55.2 easily makes my list.
The beam is flawless (no dark rings, crosses or halo’s. I have the Black Bezel, OP reflector) and it throws really well.
It’s balanced when you’re holding it, and the 26650 body size feels good in your hand.
If they come out with nice warmer tint’s, that would be the icing on the cake for me.
Despite that it has half the throw that I hoped for, my favourite and coolest flashlight is still the Lumintop Ant Man. I wanted a pocket-sized LEP light since LEP started and Lumintop did make one . It looks great, 77 kcd is still amazing for a small pants-pocket-size light (40% more than the Jacob A60, my thrower reference of old), the beam is the nicest of the 3 LEP lights that I own (and a relief compared to the distracting square beams of my aspherics), and because of the underwhelming output/throw, the current is under 1 amp which gives it more than an hour runtime.
Astrolux EA01. Wanted to try the TIR. Now, the shorty 26350 version is my most used light. It just feels right in the hand. Even ordered a couple more.
I replaced the very cold green XP-G emitter with a 219b sw30 and now it’s an amazing AAA sized light. A couple of days runtime on low and decent output on high, and its absolutely tiny.