New TrustFire F25. Nice looking but ¿old led? flashlight

The spare o-rings are in the middle of the tube.

Just joking

19,92$... is the price lower than when I wrote the original message?

if the weight stated is correct.

The stated (shipping) weight is the one and only spec trustworthy on a HK flashlight spec page. Dimensions are usually ok, esp w/ photo evidence (zeroing has been wrong in the past on the digi-calipers).

Emitter/bin is usually random. Battery type often incorrect, but at least could be verified w/ photo. "Lumens" is mostly dependant on draw current and that usually has no correlation with spec and changes by batch and crap QA anyway. Number of modes is usually correct, type of memory is random so usefulness of mode is likely wise unpredictable.

Basically, your only guarentee with HK retailers is that you'll get something that mostly looks like what's in the photo, and it weighs quite close to what is listed.

Dx have it now at $19.30

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.44962

And comes in a cover, standards have gone up.

Has anyone ordered this?

73g according to DX's specs, a lot lighter than the previous 160-ish grams. Still heavy though, but not as heavy as if the light were made out of lead.

Most likely DX will not be shipping the packaging.

Hmm, so it looks like the low mode is 50 lumens, according to QCG. Too high, although QCG's stats are probably wrong. I should receive my Ultrafire C3 Stainless 3-mode from Manafont tomorrow, and I'll do a full review of it soon. I suspect that it will be superior to this F25. But at the same time, I am halfway considering purchasing the F25. Maybe after some reviews roll in?

I go to pick up mine at the post office tomorrow. I will post my first impressions here, in about 24 hours.

OK thanks a lot!!!!

Great, we'd appreciate a review Matt. Thanks!

As I promessed, I give you here my first impression of the specimen i have got from KD. It didn't come in that box you can see on DX. It was just the usual simple card board box and the bubble wrap. The flashlight is very nice machined, and polished like a mirror. The threads are decent and all the parts are clean (no chips, no dirt). The threads were hyper dry. All o-rings are present and have a decent size. Since there are two on each end of the tube, I think this flashlight is sufficient waterproof to work under water (occasionally, but not to deep). The clicky feels good and works well. It has a nylon retainer ring without the small holes, so it is probably press fit. It has a big sping in the end cap and a protected 14500 fits well. The pill can be unscrewed from the thread side (has two groves), but I didn't do that for now.

The LED is a XPE. I don't have any equipment to confirm if it really is a R2. It has fife modes with real memory. (high-mid-low-strobe-SOS) If it was off for two seconds and then get switched on again, it goes on in the last mode used..

I tested it with a 14500 and a Duracell AA. The max output with the AA primary is about like the mid-mode with the 14500.

The beam has a tight hotspot with something like an unsharp corona around it and medium bright spill, without rings. The reflector is smooth. The hotspot is roughly 15 cm wide in a distance of one meter. Not rally a far-thrower, but it reaches easy 75 meters. I mesured 1100 mA at the end cap, with a 14500 at 4,1 V.

I compared the brightness to a zooming light, that I believe it does around 150 lumens, in a completely dark room. I estimate the output of this flashlight goes around the predicted 200 to 230 lumens. The head feels hot after about 10min on high. Nothing toxic. All my lights, which are driven at 1000 mA and higer do that. So the heat transfer fromt he pill to the housing seems to be fine.

Hey there Matt,

Thanks for the update! Sounds nice. How's the low mode? Any runtime figures on low?

Nice beam colour - up there with the Trustfire F22 as my favourite beam colour. Not yet tried it with NiMH though. Beam colour can vary depending on how an LED is driven.

Not monstrous output, but a throw number that surprises me (6870 lux @ 1m) as it has a wider beam than the R5-A3. 1003 lux on the lightbox with a 14500 - around 180 lumens on high.

Will do more numbers soon.

Thanks Don for the update. You know me, a low mode runtime race to death test would be appreciated. I'd like to compare the results with a very interesting surprise that I will soon post here.

I weighed mine as it clearly wasn't anywhere near 158 grams - it weighs 71g. I will weigh it with the packaging when I get home. The packaging is the normal Trustfire box with closed cell foam cutouts in it - they clearly use the same inner package for several lights as there are marks for cutouts for chargers and cells. I doubt it weighs more than the light so I do wonder where 158g came from.

It tailstands nicely. The low appears to be reasonably low (At least considering I am sitting in a very brightly lit office just now.)

It'll be easy enough to take a pile of AA lights, stick an Eneloop in each of them, set them on low and leave them to get on with it. Instrumenting it would be harder, but I can stick lights on the box every so often to see how they are getting on. Some should run a day or so, quite a few won't.

Thanks Don, nothing complicated, just a visual runtime test would be nice.

So I saw on DX that there was a discussion as to whether the F25 was solid steel or just steel plated due the light weight. How does it feel compared to, say, an Ultrafire C3 Stainless?

The C3 stainless is 7g heavier at 78.8g. However, the F25 has a thinner body tube so I'd guess it probably is real stainless steel - can check if it is magnetic, which good stainless (or many other metals) is not. The tailcap is weakly magnetic, the body and head are not which implies the tailcap is made from a different grade of metal. It is very highly polished, almost like it had been chrome plated.

The head appears to be identical in diameter to the (93mm stainless) C3 head. The tailcaps are actually interchangeable as are the heads though I doubt they'd work properly because of different thread lengths.

Pics later

Don where did you buy your f23 from?

The F22 and F23 came from DX, the F25 from Lightake.

The F25 with its box does come to 157g according to my scales so the shipping weight is correct even if I was expecting the world's first lead alloy light. It is interesting that the threads and tub diameters at head and tail are the same as for the Ultrafire C3 stainless (At least the 93mm one I have)

Mine does give around 180 lumens with a quick test on a 14500 of unknown state of charge. Will write a review soon.