First I need to get some business out of the way! This light was a vendor supplied sample. It was supplied by Olight USA . It can be purchase through Olight USA or from Olight’s Amazon Store.
My first Olight review was of the S1A , while being a very nice little light I did not like the UI for an EDC light. When considering an EDC, I am not a big fan of having to hold the power button to change modes. But, I will go into that more later!
The light came very well packaged, looks very professional and very secure in the box. No scratches for a new light, during shipping! The display/storage box has a magnetic closer and seems strong enough to use it as a storage box in your car or truck.
The internals of the box fit all parts well and will not allow things to bounce around. The white foam, 2 sheets surrounded the light in it’s shipping box.
The light fits your hand very well, it does not seem heavy to me at all. This light would fit a coat or jacket pocket easily and it also fits the back pocket of my jeans well. I am very pleased with the fit, finish and feel of this light.
I picked the light that often fills the role of general walk about light for me, as a comparison light. That would be the Shadow JM20. Both are essentially 26650 tube lights, the Shadow does include a tail switch to stop parasitic draw on the battery. The Olight provides tailcap lockout with less that 1/16 of a turn of the tailcap, I can live with that!
This Olight, like many other Olights, includes the great looking blue bezel ring! I think this is a classy touch but I am not sure how tough the coating will be, time will tell. Oh, and the big beautiful XHP50!
Ok, back to the UI… It is the standard Olight fare, 1 click to on and hold to advance modes. Oh, there is a hidden turbo mode as well. From any mode, or off a quick double tap will enable the turbo mode. There is a step down timer when running in turbo, the step down kicks in at 2 minutes (verified) and reduces the output to 800 lumens. This is a good idea, the light gets extremely hot in 2 minutes! There is also a hidden strobe mode that takes 3 quick taps from off or any mode to enable.
This light is rechargeable, with out removing the battery… if you are using the Olight provided battery! I have not been a fan of in light chargers, they usually do not work that well. When connected to a micro USB plug the area surrounding the socket glows red until charging is complete and then glows green. The unit ships with a 2.1 amp, 5 volt supply and what appears to be a well built USB cable. But, Olight tends to produce quality equipment and I will be taking readings during the next charge cycle to check the termination voltage on the charge. Charge has terminated through 2 cycles at 4.18V, so I would rate this charger as pretty good! This light does work with standard 26650 cells, but the charger will not. I did not plug the charger in with a standard cell in place, it appears that it might short the charger across the negative cap of the battery. To me, it did not seem to matter what cell was in it with regards to output. I suspect this light has a current regulated driver.
What about output… Well, it rocks! This light is a flood light that throws some by brute force! The reflector is a very shallow OP reflector, this contributes to the flood and also hides the dreaded cross pattern of multi-die emitters. I really think this will become a very good late night walk light due to the fact that it is a good flooder. The following pictures were shot with the light mounted on a tripod at an angle that would be common when walking. The furthest trees are basically 100 yards away, the night air was very heavy and did affect the throw of the light some. This light is rated at 2500 lumens on turbo, I think that is a fairly realistic number. I do not have the equipment to measure output, but this light puts out more than any other single cell light I have. This includes many that I have built that are direct drive FET lights. It however is not as bright as a heavily modified 3*XP-G2 SRK. But, they are not in the same class and I would not expect them to perform the same! As I said before, this light is very floody and that makes it hard to judge the output by eye.
Shot at ISO 1000, f/5.6 and exposure of 1 second. These looked pretty realistic to me, if not a little under exposed.
High mode:
Turbo mode:
My overall conclusion regarding this light? I really like it! Given that it is just a bigger body than the S1A, I feel that for it’s purpose the UI is great and the output is pretty awesome… if you need it! It is not a “jack of all trades” light and I do not think it was designed to be one. But, for what it was designed to do it does well. And that is to get a bunch of lumens out the front! Thanks Olight for the opportunity to take a look at this light!
Matt