Anyone heard any reviews on the Acebeam P-16 Defender? All I’ve seen on YT are two promotional videos.
Thanks for any info in advance.
No, I don’t think it has got to any reviewers yet. I got quite excited about it until I found out it has alternating frequency strobe and is thus useless for light painting photography.
Thanks!
two tail light switches, and they have a picture of a guy wearing gloves operating it? He’s better than me.
Review is coming
Certainly the Klarus and Nitecore dual tail switches are difficult to use with gloves.
Received mine yesterday. Here’s some thoughts:
Build quality is generally excellent, as you’d expect from acebeam. Beefy dual springs, lovely matte finish. There’s an inner sleeve for the side e-switch. Mechanical switch is stiff and excellent. Side button is a little mushy.
It’s VERY small. I love the size. 32mm head, thin body and 131mm long including the button. It’s a very compact little pocket thrower. Pretty lightweight too. Ergonomics are great. It’s a bit more compact and nicer to carry than a Noctigon KR1 overall. I think it looks really neat.
One AWESOME thing they didn’t advertise is that it has two mode groups: tactical and outdoor. In both modes the mechanical switch is mode memory. In tactical mode, the side switch is instant momentary strobe like they said, BUT in outdoor mode, it’s momentary low, which is excellent. Holding the side switch in momentary low for 4 seconds keeps it on, and then you can turn it off with the side switch, or press in the mechanical switch and use the side switch to cycle up from there. This doesn’t affect memory, so if you cycled up to medium, but had turbo in memory, if you turn it off and on it’ll go to turbo.
So it’s nice to know you can put it in outdoor mode and get strobe out of the way.
In tactical mode, clicking both buttons at the same time gets you constant strobe, and in outdoor mode it’s constant SOS. That’s a missed opportunity. It should be a shortcut to turbo, or maybe a 1 lumen moonlight or something, but having a shortcut to SOS is dumb, and in tactical mode the side switch is already a strobe shortcut.
It needs a lower mode, though. It only has 4 modes, so there’s room for a 5th lower mode. Something like ~15 or even ~30 lumens would be great, and make it much more useable up close. A ~1 lumen moonlight would be nice too, but not necessarily needed on a light like this.
The clip is weird. It works well bezel-down, but bezel-up seems awkward and pointless with so much of the light sticking up. Maybe it makes more sense on a belt. It’s a press-fit clip that the head screws over, and it’s also fixed in place by a groove to keep it from sliding around. I THINK the threads are cut specifically so that the mechanical button aligns with the clip, which is cool. My main issue is the clip makes contact with the tailcap, so you have to lift it up to unscrew the tailcap otherwise you’ll scratch it (and the battery is captive at the head so you have to unscrew the tailcap for battery changes). I dunno, again, it works perfectly well, but it feels like they tried to reinvent the pocket clip, when a simple press-fit clip below the tail would have worked just fine.
Sample of 1, but the tint on mine is pretty good for an SFT-40. It’s a little green on low, but cleans up in all the other modes, and turbo is very clean.
The thermal stepdown seems pretty aggressive, it could stand to get a bit hotter and keep turbo going for longer, or maybe start with turbo closer to 2000 lumens. It’s nowhere near burning your hand or anything.
Performance is a little underwhelming? I dunno, mine looks like it maybe isn’t perfectly centered. It’s hard to tell, but I feel like it might be underperforming the 484m throw spec by a bit. It’s very nice to have a buck driver, and I don’t doubt it’s hitting ~1800 lumens.
Still, the TIR beam is very cool, and it throws pretty well with a single large hotspot. Though only the center part of the spot is most intense, and the rest is like a very strong corona, if that makes sense.
The beam is definitely a dedicated throw beam. You could use it for walking outside in a pinch but it’s clearly meant to be a thrower with a big hotspot for medium range, and minimal spill.
Maybe this is just me, but I really feel like it would be better with a W2/CULPM1 instead of the SFT-40. It doesn’t have much spill anyway, and has a tighter, dedicated throw beam anyway, so it’s not really taking advantage of the extra lumens of the SFT-40. It would throw significantly further with CULPM1 (Closer to ~540-550m) and the hotspot really wouldn’t be much smaller.
I think SFT-40 does better in lights larger than ~35-40mm, but in smaller lights you’re getting a big enough hotspot anyway with W2, so you might as well maximize throw. So for example, while this light does noticeably outperform my Fenix PD32 V2, it’s not as big of a step up as it could be.
Overall it’s a fantastic, very compact and lightweight mid-range pocket thrower to pair with your favorite floody high CRI quad. The extra ~3mm bezel width is noticeable over the KR1, and the driver is great, though the stepdown is aggressive. The TIR beam is very wide for medium thrower ranges, and the minimal spill helps you see better at a distance (plus it looks cool). The UI is good for a thrower, and the shortcut to low is nice.
That all said, it’s basically an upmarket Convoy M2 with a TIR. You can get similar or better performance and size out of an M2, or S21B with CULPM1. So maybe go with that unless the dual switch interface, buck driver, and TIR really appeal to you. They do to me.
Mine arrived yesterday. Agree with most of alumenum’s well written take. I like the idea of having a multi-mode thrower in this small package. Price was also pretty nice for what you get IMHO.
The weak point is the clip. Not that the clip itself is weak, but rather the design. I don’t like that it’s stationary and can’t be moved or removed (at least as far as I can tell).
I’m happy with the light output, tail click button and paddle strobe.
Thanks for all the comments.
Keep the ball rolling if you have more info!
Thanks! Yea, it being so small was quite a welcome surprise.
Looks to me like you can actually remove the clip. Unscrew the head and it reveals the clip arms, and you should be able to pop it off.
Don’t think there’s a way to make it not stationary. It’s fixed in place by a groove in the body.
Does your clip align with the mechanical switch? The tail threads are cut in a unique segmented way, and I suspect it’s to make sure the clip always aligns with the switch, but maybe it’s just mine. It does make it easy to find the mechanical switch, and hard to accidentally activate the function switch.
I do think $85 is a decent price, maybe a little steep, though very competitive compared to similar options from Fenix/Klarus/Nitecore etc. The launch day promo price of $59 was very good. Acebeam and other retailers like Illumn have sales regularly, and I think on sale it’s a great pickup.
alumenum,
Thanks for the heads up on the clip. Feelin’ kinda silly that I posted before I looked under the hood. 
It’s actually a smart way to keep the clip from coming off when you don’t want it to.
But yes, I did notice that my also clip indexes perfectly with the tail switch. I use it with the clip in the palm, so it’s harder to hit strobe accidentally. I like the knurling on the body. Not too much. Not too little.
Fortunately I got mine from Acebeam on 9-22 for $59.34 shipped. I feel like it was a great value for light with battery & shipped. Two weeks shipping time wasn’t too bad.
Wade