Klarus has introduced a new Tactical flashlight with the XT21X, producing 4000 peak lumens, active thermal controls, and 21700 battery. It’s nice to see 21700 batteries taking off in 2019. Thanks to FlashlightZ for sending the light to me to review. Make sure to check them out.
*Full Image Gallery: *Klarus - XT21X Review - Album on Imgur
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Packaging/Accessories
The light comes in a white high quality retail box with a tactical soldier on the front as well as the light. Per the usual you have lumens and other facts around the box and the one that got me the most excited was the Intelligent Thermal protection.
Included with the light are the light itself, a pocket clip, lanyard, Oring, MicroUSB charging cable, a button top protected Klarus 21700 5000mAh battery (Rated for 15A max) and a branded black nylon holster with plastic D Ring on the back. The holster is a nice design as it has a plastic cup on the bottom that the light clicks into for a more secure hold.
Construction
The light is made from Aircraft grade aluminum and is hard anodized a fairly glossy black. Starting at the back of the light taking a look at the tail switch, this is the dual function switch that Klarus has used on a few other recent lights. You have a rubber booted mechanical button that serves as on/off, and then a paddle that can activate strobe or low mode depending on the mode your light is in. Not much grip on the sides but enough to get the job done with dry hands. Inside are stiff dual springs.
On the body tube threads are ACME cut and unanodized. The inside of the body is a dual tube design. The clip fits on in one position only but does rotate. It’s allows a decent amount of the light to stick out of a pocket or pouch. The knurling on the body tube itself is a horizontal pattern of knurling, but then has some large diamonds milled into it. I like this, but it does seem to attract dirt easily. The body tube is fixed to the head of the light.
The head itself is similar in layout to the other newer Klarus lights this year. The same electronic mode button with the ST15R I reviewed last month. Opposite the button you have a very similar silicone door covering the MicroUSB charging port. Up front there’s a little more aggressive bezel that does unscrew. The lens is anti reflective coated, and the reflector below has a nice orange peel.
Size/Weight/Comparisons
I measured overall length at 162mm, maximum diameter at the head at 41mm and minimum diameter at the body at 27.5mm. I measured weight with the clip and battery at 228.6g. I did some comparison with my Olight Seeker 2 Pro which is the only other 21700 light I have at the moment, and while the lights have somewhat of a different design ethos in mind, the Olight is smaller in pretty much all dimensions. Diameter of the tails and boy are very similar between the two, but the klarus has a larger head and longer body.
LED/Beamshots/Runtime
This light is using a Cree XHP 70.2 P2 LED in cool white. No tint temperature is given but it’s a fairly warm cool white, more to neutral then cool. The beam pattern is good, nice hot spot in the center to give the light throw and a smooth transition to the spill with no negative artifacts or rings.
Runtime on this light is good but also a bit disappointing. The 4000 lumens of turbo is only good for 1 minute, uncooled, because of thermals. That said the light does have active thermal controls that we see working for the first 130 minutes of running. It’s a smooth fade from 50% relative output to about 18%. After the 130 minute market the light went into energy conservation mode and ran at almost moonlight mode for another 175 minutes. Total runtime from full to empty was 300 minutes. Low voltage protection kicked in at 2.88V, and working voltage of the light is 2.5V to 6.4V.
Parasitic Drain was measured at 3.3uA. I measured thermals during my runtime test at a maximum of 111F at the 5 minute mark.
UI
The flashlight has 2 UI modes, Tactical and Outdoors and the light ships in Tactical by default. In Tactical mode a half press on the primary switch at the tail gives you momentary on. If you give it a full click you get turbo. Using the paddle in momentary you get strobe only. Tactical isn’t my favorite mode because the light starts on high and strobe is too easy to get to. I will put up a photo of the manual that has a nice diagram showing each mode.
In outdoors mode the paddle, starts the light off in moonlight mode, in momentary. You can long press on the paddle to lock the light on then, continue to use the paddle to move up in modes. While on the side switch goes in reverse, So if you are in low that you turned on with the paddle, and the light is still on, if you press the side switch once, you go to turbo. The primary switch acts like a shortcut to turbo. You can also double click the mode button to get to Strobe.
Klarus lists the output and modes at, Turbo at 4000 lumens, High at 1200, Medium at 400, low at 100, and moonlight at 5 lumens. Strobe is rated at 4000, and SOS at only 100.
Recharging
This light has onboard charging via MicroUSB. It’s quite unfortunate that they didn’t go with USB-C, on this new design, in 2019. In my opinion it really should be the standard for lights of this price range. The good news is charging via MicroUSB was relatively quick, I saw it taking 3.3hrs for a full charge and most of this time was at 2A speed. A full cell when recharged inside the light stopped charging at 4.12V.
Pro
- Relatively easy to switch between Tactical and Outdoors modes
- Positive retention in the Holster, with the Click in.
- True active thermal controls, but Turbo mode is still pretty short at just a minute.
- Less Cree Rainbow on the P2 version of the XHP70.2 then others I have tested.
Con
- Micro USB for recharging, It’s 2019 and on a light of this price, they should have USB-C.
- Moonlight mode is brighter then I prefer at 5 lumens.
- A bit large.
Conclusion
I like that for a tactical light, Klarus gave the light an outdoors mode, that if not being used in a tactical setting is better for general use. Most of my lights don’t get used in a tactical scenario, so being able to not have the paddle on the tail switch makes it a much more useable light. It’s nice to see a 21700 in this light, as well as activer thermal controls. The bad is that we are still stuck on MicroUSB instead of USB-C for the recharging in 2019 for a premium light. Overall it’s a solid tactical light, I just wish Turbo mode lasted longer.