M stands for Monster
The M20 is an insanely bright ultra-compact 4 x 18650, 4 X 5050 LED light. The batteries are built-in, so they can only be charged via USB-C port. There’s another USB-port so it can be used as a power bank. The light is waterproof, but won’t likely survive diving.
It’s cold white to the extreme and the lowest mode is a whopping 250 lm. For a second, about 11000 lm can be unleashed, mean stable output is above 2000 lm. When I got the light, I couldn’t believe it fits in that tiny package. Well, it did, and there was space reserved for the USB cable.
I like the M20 since it is extremely fun to have such a monster in the jacket’s pocket. Bear in mind this is a budget light, so some problems may exist.
Case
The housing is elegant with no machining marks, almost as if it was die-cast aluminum. The steel clip is excellent but sits on the wrong side for most people. To have the button pointing forward, the light must be worn left.
Don’t overlook: There’s a tiny hole in the clip to attach a lanyard to. Everything has screws. When I got the light I was immediately tempted to take it apart, but won’t. At least, for as long as I need a working light for this review. I’ll have a look at the battery compartment, that’s for sure.
Mode Set and UI
The light is controlled by a single (firm) button containing a silicon r/g LED-lightguide.
The light always starts in low mode. Subsequent clicks switch to mid, then high, finally off. A sequence of double clicks activates turbo, then strobe, then SOS. A single click returns to the basic mode set. Long press switches the light off. This is super simple and intuitive, the blinkies are well hidden. There’s no lockout, at least I haven’t found one. With so much power, you wouldn’t want to have the turbo activated inside your pants pocket. The diabolic thing is, it fits there. But then, on high the light doesn’t get too hot, and activating the turbo takes a double click. That’s probably safe enough.
Turbo Mode
The M20 has an interesting turbo mode. It is very bright at startup (my measurement reads about 11000 lm), maintains 60 % (6600 lm) after 30 s (remarkably close to the manufacturer’s specs), and drops down in two steps (56 and 66 s) to low mode (250 lm) when the temperature (IR-measurement) reaches 45,7 °C. Low mode is then the only available mode until the light has cooled back down to 28 °C, which took more than 10 minutes at room temperature. While above 28 °C in turbo mode, the button LED flashes red.
Since the step down and locking is temperature controlled, the figures will be better outside in Winter. My measurement was done at room temperature, but fan-cooled.
High Mode and Energy Management
Unfortunately there is no true energy management. The light follows the discharge curve of the batteries and then switches off. I wish there were some mechanism lowering output to low mode after, let’s say, 120 minutes.
High mode runs for hours, lightening up a room comfortably. Still, the temperature never gets much over 30 °C. The unibody design is excellent in heat dissipation.
Light Quality
According to the manual, the (unknown to me) LED is cold white at 7500K. My Opple thinks it’s rather 9200K. The color rendition is good at Ra 75 with a visible portion of red. Indeed the duv is way below BBL at –0.01. My eyes easily adapt to that CCT as does my camera:
All light you see in the picture above comes from the M20 in high mode. No post processing of this image, the color quality is really that good.
All regular modes are PWM-generated, but at 16 kHz it’s not visible.
Doom Walk
Final Thoughts
The M20 is probably not your EDC, given that there’s no lockout and the lowest mode is already 250 lm. It’s a budget tiny monster, good for long-lasting high output and a Minute of glory.
Superfire is on the right track with interesting lights like this and the G20 that Mr. B has tested (my review will follow soon) The specs are all met I found, so the company is quite honest about their product. I think it is worthwhile to follow what Superfire is doing and hope the BLF can give some impetus towards designing flashaholic targeted lights.