The Thorfire VG10S is a single 18650 hand-held general purpose flashlight. Thorfire asked me to review the newest revision and they gave me a link to buy the light on Amazon. I received a small, tan colored cardboard box with a product label on the outside. Inside the box I found a VG10S flashlight, a user manual, and a pair of replacement o-rings in a small Zip-loc style bag. The light was itself wrapped in a sleeve of bubble-wrap and there was a piece of soft foam in the bottom of the box. The light has a clip already installed, clipped around the battery tube. There is no lanyard included with the light.
The Thorfire VG10S is listed as being a 1100 lumen flashlight, utilizing a CREE XP-L2 emitter, with up to 900 feet of throw. The emitter is neutral white, but I don’t know exactly what bin. The listing also says it has IPX8 waterproofing. I haven’t tried using the flashlight under water, but there’s a decent looking o-ring on both the tail-cap end of the battery tube and where the head attaches to the tube, and the anodized, square-cut threads are lubed at least on the tail-cap end, where the light is meant to be opened for changing the cell. There is no mention of what type the anodizing is, but it looks and feels nice. It did produce a tiny scratch when I rubbed the edge of a scissor blade against it, so it’s not type III anodizing for sure. There is no knurling on the tube. It has a smooth surface. The listing doesn’t say anything about low voltage protection, so it will be up to the user to know when to replace the cell. The Thorfire VG10S has a reverse-clicky switch in the tail cap for on/off operation and to handle mode changes. The tail-cap has thumb cut-outs so that the button is easy enough to press while wearing gloves. But, it has enough of the metal rim left around the button to be stable while tail-standing. There is a groove in the battery tube for the belt clip, which works very nicely.
The UI is simple and intuitive. A click of the tail button will turn the light on or off. A softer press of the button while the light is on will change modes. There are four ‘levels’ through which to scroll from lowest to highest. When you’ve reached the High mode, another soft press will start over at moonlight mode, and so on up through the modes again. At any point that you turn the light off, the mode level will be memorized, and the VG10S will return to that mode when you turn it back on next. The VG10S also has a hidden strobe mode which alternates between a fast strobe and a slightly slower one. To turn on strobe, you must quickly soft-press twice while the light is on. After that, any press or click from strobe returns to the last used ‘normal’ mode. Of course, if it’s a full click, the light will be off. But when the light is turned on again, it will return to the mode last used before the strobe was activated.
The VG10S is by no means a thrower, but it has a decently tight hot spot which smoothly transitions to a bright spill. It’s a bit tighter spot than I prefer for my general use, actually. The somewhat narrow beam of light means that I must ‘scan’ the light back-and-forth to light up everything I might want to see, when shining it within a very close range. It does also mean that the VG10S works well for lighting objects that are not within close range. To some people, that will be more important. The rating of 1100 lumens output on High means that the XP-L2 is moderately driven. This fact, coupled with the nice, deep fins around the head, mean that the VG10S doesn’t get too hot while in operation. It takes over a minute to get very warm at all at the head. This means it should be safe for use by children (supervised, at least) and adults who are not accustomed to the heat that can often be generated by high-output lights.
The Thorfire VG10S is a nice little flashlight. It can be carried in a jeans pocket, or clipped onto a belt, or swimming in the sea of a woman’s hand-bag. It’s bright enough for just about any general-purpose use. It’s simple and intuitive to turn on/off and to change modes with the reverse-clicky switch and easy UI driver. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to just about anybody I know that was looking for a compact, bright, hand-held flashlight. Well, as long as I knew they’re comfortable using and properly handling the required lithium-ion rechargeable cells, that is.