the quality of Convoy lights is very good, the threads are super smooth and square, the anodizing is good. It is a slightly bigger EDC but fits in the pocket
S2+ is more on the floody side, I don’t see a defined hotspot, the reflector is quite shallow I guess
How much run time do you need? I haven’t modded mine yet, only on 1050mA and the battery lasts forever. indoor use only so far.
You’ve already got some good answers and I’ve never bought a finished S2, only hosts for custom builds, but I would like to point out that its a very different light from the other two you mentioned. Its quite a bit smaller than the others you have and is built for local area lighting, not as a thrower. So if you want a bright, defined hotspot with a lot of range, its not for you. But if you want a nice edc-style tube light with solid construction for a great price, the S2 is hard to beat.
Convoy lights have good build quality, are easy to disassemble and assemble again, they have set a standard for exchangable parts that can be swapped or upgraded, and are very affordable.
But my favorite Convoy flashlight is not the S2 because I like a bit deeper reflector (less spill, larger hotspot). I like the Convoy S8 best.
I found this only true up to a point. After 3-4 chips you are mostly making heat, and eating battery, with little visible improvement in light output. The light is pretty floody so though the output does go up it’s pretty hard to actually see.
My favorite Convoy S2+ is the first one I purchased with 3*7135. I was looking for maximum run time since it is an EDC light and it is bright enough for just about any task I can think of too be honest. Going by the stats on Simon’s page the ‘general’ output would be in the area of 500 lumens on high, 200 on medium and 25 on low. 25 lumens is plenty of light for most tasks. And the runtime would be in the area of 48 hours on low (that is an ‘on-paper’ calculation for an example). I purchased a second 4*7135 and a third 8*7135 to have for purposes of comparison. Yes, they are brighter but we’re talking by tiny degrees and to me I’d rather have the run time.
I’ve got this one on me right now. I turned it on and in less than 5 minutes the head was pretty much too hot to handle comfortably. The rest of the body was starting to get quite warm as well.
— Convoy is not a “China Lottery” product. Each one is consistent, the parts interchange, the quality is the same, over long stretches of time. We don’t get parts that were subcontracted to get cheaper materials but fail to fit.
— Convoy is not a “Poorly Made in China” product. The high initial quality that gets high recommendations is sustained. This is a dramatic contrast to what has been described as normal business practice for China — slowly reducing quality by substituting cheaper parts and less attention to the product over time to increase profitability as orders go up based on the original reviews. By contrast look up Dealmetic’s Zeusray, the poster boy for that. Or look at many other instances. For a while everyone thought there was no way to degrade the SK68 clones any further, after they’d downgraded them over a period of years. Then they swapped out the Cree emitters for garbage and moved to cheaper alloys.
Doing business with Convoy is like doing business with someone known to be reliable in person.