Zoomie Comparison: XM-L vs XR-E (pics)

LED Flashlights – General Info
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EDIT: Well poop. Can’t get the picture links to work. :frowning: Ill try adding links. Any advice would be helpful. They work fine when I paste them into a browser.

Hey guys. So many of you have the cheapo zoomie flood to throws and may have considered getting an XM-L version. I wanted to demonstrate the difference and give you an idea what to expect.

I have 3 lights I compare, a Fenix TK70 for reference, a sweet new Trustfire zoomie expertly modded by my new friend Matt with a 3.0 Amp driver and XM-L2 emitter, and a pretty generic XR-E Q5bin zoomie. Remember that this is a BEST CASE scenario for the XM-L zoomie due to the high quality of the mod.

Note that all pics are underexposed significantly. Aperature f5.0, 1/5th second, ISO 100. (prob should have used 400 ISO)
Here are the contenders:

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First pic is a comparison of the two zoomies in full throw mode.

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Next is the same comparison but at a further distance.

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This compares the mighty TK70 on the right with the XM-L2 zoomie. Zoomie holds its own!

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This is the Floody area of the cheapo zoomie. This pic was dark but after conversions and flickr its nearly black. You can barely make out the white blanket on the left side.

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This is the XM-L2 zoomie:

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For reference this is the TK70. You can see the zoomie actually has better spill.

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As you can see, even though the fully zoomed in isn’t 7 times as bright as teh XR-E, you can see it is definitely a LOT more useful than the tiny square of the smaller one.
The flood of the XM-L zoomie is way brighter and makes it an excellent work light, giving you nice even lighting.

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Is the XML dedomed? I guess not. I also guess that the xre is just slightly driven.

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I chose not to dedome the XM_L2 since I would be using it for Flood most of the time.

The Q5 is pretty typical of its class and work nicely. Unfortunately these pics are really underexposed and don’t really demo what the light actually looks like when you see it…especially after conversions. When I first got the Q5 I thought it was super cool and is like a lightsaber at night in throw mode. Turns out the XM-L2 is just that much better.

But the pics are still useful for comparison purposes.

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Thanks for sharing.