New brand of 1xAA XP-? R5 3-mode on DX - Eastward YJ J609

Well, here's a new beauty, just released within the last 30 minutes at the time of this posting:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.44460

Looks like it's inspired by the Maratac AA. Very, very, very attractive, simple design with a clip. Sweet red O-rings. XP-G R5 emitter [edit: some sharp eyes on this forum have spotted that it appears to be an XP-E. Shame on DX...yet again], probably a real scorcher. Never heard of the Eastward brand. But of course there has to be a downside... It only has High, Mid, and Strobe modes, which means that it's probably similar to the Trustfire R5-A3, which has an atrociously short runtime on medium. Come on DX, give us this light with a 5-lumen low mode and you'll have a winner.

EastwardYJ has a rather good reputation I'd say. Their 18650 lights are usually very solidly made, hard-driven and very well heatsinked. The only downside I'm aware of is that they often glue the head/body threads. But at least on the two lights I got of them the glue was crackable without any heat/chemistry.

Well, I couldn't resist. I pulled the trigger on this one. This is a drop-dead beautiful design, and at least I'm sure it'll be bright. Expect a review about 5 weeks from today if/when it finally finishes its long journey from China to South America.

I see that it says 1.5V max, but I wonder if it can run on a 14500...

Is veeeeeeeery interesting this light. I want tho purchase it. I wait your review. But...

Why cant use 14500? 240 lumens with alkalines/ni-mh is impossible.

Well, from what I have learned here, Don has said that a light designed to work only with 1.5V current is more efficient and will be brighter with alkalines and NiMHs compared to a light running 1.5V that can optionally handle >3V. This is an advantage for me, since I don't use 14500s.

Yes I agree with that, but I beleive that 240 lumens with alkalines/nimh is almost impossible. For 240 lumens i think 14500 required

But..................

I don't know, the only other XP-G R5 light I currently own is the Trustfire R5-A3, and on 1.2V NiMH it really is insanely bright. Could very well be 200+ lumens.

Mine got 115 at switch on with NiMH, 292 with 14500. The NiMH test might be on the low side and will be redone to get the 30 sec and 2 minute measurements.

BE CAREFULL


Watching carefully the pictures, see the picture showing the die. It is an XP-E not XP-G.

See the 3 holes around the die? xp-g has not those holes, the XP-E yes!

If you own the Trustfire R5-A3 and you truly want "insanely bright", you need to try it on 14500's. To my eyes and others, it becomes about twice as bright.

Agree, and now others are catching on to the same thing. XP-E and lack of 14500 support kills it for me. Darn! It sure looked like a nice light.

I have brighter - it's close to 3x as bright at switch-on - if I were prepared to push the voltage higher it would just about touch 300 lumens at switch on - it gets 117 or a bit more with an NiMH.

Mine has only had an NiMH in it for testing. It is indeed a real screamer on 14500 and doesn't set fire to your hands like the C3 stainless steel.

After grabbing the image and doing a brutal unsharp mask in Photoshop, it is possible that it is an XP-G - the image is too murky to be certain but there appear to be 4 segments.

There is not really enough data in the image to be certain.

As fran82 said, if there are three dots visible around the die the emitter isn't an XP-G and it wouldn't be the first time DX failed to list correct specs...

The 3 square dots do not lie

Well spotted Fran82.

It's a Xpe and not XPG compare with the trustfire R5-A3

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39062

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.44460

Whoa, nice catch Fran82! Well, there goes a lot of the appeal of this light. Shame on DX and Eastward YJ for their deceptive advertising. I updated my first post.

Totally agree. Seems this behavior is spreading. Remember LighTake and his Trustfire S A7 with a R5,

which was nowhere near a R5. And now this. Shame on DX, LT and all the others who use deceptive

adverticing. Good we have this forum where the reality comes to light.

Looking forward to a review of this, seems like a nice alternative to Maratac AA, at a reasonable price. Strobe