Very good news ! That mean we will see many outdated models for very cheap soon but its a bad news for the modders and their pricey maglite mods.
I bet they get the inspiration from the forums, like Thrunite did with the TN32.
Who’d thought that Mag would come out with a high-amp boost driver?
Good on them. They’ll definitely have a programmed step-down to achieve those ANSI runtimes but they should be regulated, unlike the Chinese big, bright, ’n cheap XM-L/2 lights inundating store shelves.
These almost definitely share internals with the LED MagCharger, so heatsinking AND focusing should be much improved over the traditional model. If so, they have a smaller focal adjustment range with no dark spots. Just a little Cree Rainbow 
Edit: By “regulated,” I mean this (courtesy Robin Wang at LED-Resource.com):
Mag uses switched-mode buck and buck-boost drivers with programmed stepdowns, whereas the cheap, bright (XM-L/2), 3-cell torches locally available to consumers today simply use unregulated drivers with PWM modes (no voltage conversion—just MCUs driving FETs, resistors, and capacitors).
The beauty is the design grants the user a period of full output (mostly) regardless of battery condition upon turning on while leaving enough juice for extended runtime. It’s also kind of a product of the ANSI specification game but I can hardly blame them.
Guess you didn’t see the first magled lights taken apart? Everything was in the bulbpost and the ‘heatsink’, about 8mm diameter,0.5mm thick. They compensated for heat by reducing current (to about 50%) which happened in a matter of two minutes.
Those runtimes I’m SURE are untegulated times.
Not even info on Mag’s home page about 3rd gen. These will still be bought by many with the new “higher lumen” ratings. Maglites after all are an American tradition so to speak.
I saw these yesterday at REI, $50. Kinda expensive for a light i would just tear apart, maybe they will sell just the replacement switch assembly
Well, I just bought a Black 3D ST33016 and a Black 2D ST23016 for $77 shipping included, (about $38.50 each). In a few days I will do a review of them. I'm looking forward to it. If they are bright, it would be a good option to do my file work on them and be able to keep the overall price down. All I plan on is adding a glass lens.
I hope they are good.
Just like Apple and the Apple Watch, MagLite took their time, but when they updated, (it looks like) they did it right.
Not really a like for like comparison though is it. The Mag runs on cheap, everywhere available D cells. the C8 does not. And I suspect the Mag will wipe the floor with the C8 in terms of run time.
Regulated doesn’t mean flat regulation. Look at the charts posted earlier.
It’s Christmas in Texas!
Enjoy OL.
O-L wrote:
. . . In a few days I will do a review of them.
Yeah! Looking forward to them. Thanks for taking another one of many for the team. 
does anyone know if the driver for the 2 cell and the 3 cell lights are the same? that would make using an 18650 or similar battery easy.
Don’t think they are. At least not on other models. One was a buck the other boost.
Imagine if it was a Chinese company producing flashlight with problems like this the Americans would definitely call it “chinese crap” without a second thought lol.
Good engineering means that a product is neither over engineered nor under engineered. Chinese products often times have NO engineering, and are sometimes just copies of someone else’s design with cost reductions with no thought as to the functionality of it. I have seen so much stuff from China that are obviously copies of something, but have NO chance of being useable because of the cost reductions that render the item worthless. I am not just referring to flashlights.
Maglites on the other hand are engineered to be USED and abused. We as flashaholics can tolerate some issues with the Chinese copies of lights that we buy, but the general public can not. For them a flashlight needs to just work.
Biased opinion because it is US made, but maglites are not even waterproof !
(Full disclosure - I also posted this at CPF, but no one seems to care.)
I was in Wally-World, and went to the flashlight section (of course) to see if they had anything new. I noticed the 2D LED on the racks, and something caught my eye.
412 meters. So I looked at the rest of the specs: 168 lumens, 42533cd, 6h45min. The LED is still small, but there is not green. I’m thinking it’s an XP-E2, but It’s hard to tell though the packaging. That would explain the increased throw. The body still looks like the classic 2D.
The 3D still has the XP-E, but maybe those are old stock.
I find this interesting, as the 3rd Gen (with XM-L2) seems to blow away the regular LED models in every way except throw. I figured the 3rd Gen was going to replace the old one, but it seems like we have a choice between the two. The price was around $35.
I wonder if HD or Lowes will carry these for 14.95 on Black Friday like they usually do. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we just get the xpe versions. I’ll be watching.
I’m curious about two things:
What part number indicates the 3rd Gen LED?
Also, how is the LED housed? Could we buy a replacement LED for the 3rd Gen for use in older models with 18650?