Acebeam P17 Defender is one of the brightest tactical flashlights on the market.
Yeah, there are some brighter flashlight…with a goofy 5-6 second turboblitz.
Acebeam P17 is not one of them. It has really long-lasting turbo, it is bright and convenient in use. Let’s take a closer look at this new product from Acebeam.
Acebeam P17 Defender at Official Acebeam store | ALIEXPRESS
Specification
- Cree XHP70.3 HI LED
- maximum brightness and range 4900 and 445m (49509cd)
- Power supply 1 * 21700 battery
- Waterproof IP68
- Modes: Casual, Tactical1, Tactical 2
- Dimensions and weight: 147 x 41 x 26 and 227 g (with battery).
Runtime
daily mode
- Ultra low: 3 lum -20 days
- Low: 90 lum - 36h
- Honey: 580lum->90lumens; 5h 30min + 20min; 172 meters, 7396cd
- High: 2200lum->1250lum->90lum, 6min + 1h 50min + 1x; 312 meters, 24336cd
- Turbo: 4900lum->1250lum->90lum; 40 sec + 1h 55min + 1h; 445m; 49506cd
- SOS: 2000lum; 2 hours 30 minutes
- Tactical 1:
- Low\Mid\High\Turbo\Strobe
- Tactical2:
- Ultra Low\Low\High\Turbo\SOS
Packaging and appearance
As usual, the packaging is great. Design, printing, reliability - everything is top level.
Open the lid on the magnet and see a some (un)useful reminders.
The package is rather sparse, including only the bare essentials. There is a flashlight itself, a 5000mah 21700 battery, a charging cable, a manual, o-rings.
Where’s the holster? Where is lanyard? Acebeam P17 is not a cheap flashlight, it’s strange not to see such inexpensive add-ons.
However … the charging cable is orange? Unusual. But I see the logic - finding such a cable will reveal a serious illness.
The battery is the same as usual, with built-in charging port. I would prefer built-in charge directly in flashlight body, not in battery. BTW, Acebeam P18, finally, has one. But this is purely a matter of taste.
And here is the Acebeam P18 itself. This is a fairly large tactical flashlight or a completely medium-sized long-range flashlight. For comparison, the leftmost Acebeam E70 and the three right Acebeam L18, L35, L19.2
The optics, of course, are also completely different here.
And here is the Acebeam P17 itself. Tactical flashlights - with rare exceptions, is a category that doesn`t astonish with awesome design, that is not EDC.
So here too. Acebeam P17 looks just functional and clearly a branded flashlight. But it is likely to be lost in a row with other ribbed-toothed tactical stuff. I’m glad Acebeam chose matte anodizing. I find that in the vast majority of cases it looks much better than glossy.
Don’t get me wrong - the flashlight looks really cool. But simply, for the most part, draw many tactical flashlights somehow like this. You can somehow play with EDC and make it look unusual (the same E70 in the photo above, for example). Tactical flashlights here are mostly monotonous.
Acebeam P17 is controlled by a standard set of the tail power button for on-off and by nearby triangle button that switches modes
Interestingly, the side button is immediately located at such an angle and fits perfectly under the thumb pad, which, thus, can conveniently control both buttons at once. In the same place, by the way, you can see a hole for a lanyard.
Of course, as there are two buttons in tailcap, there is an additional sleeve for transmitting a signal from the buttons. I can only say thanks to Acebeam that, unlike Olight and Nitecore, they do not use expensive proprietary battery. thanx, really thanx.
Threads are well lubricated
Flashlight, by the way, can be disassembled into 3 parts
The knurling is not particularly deep, but it is convenient to grab easily.
The clip is double-sided
Of course, there are springs both on the side of the head and on the side of the tail.
The head is medium size, well ribbed. I don’t think it will be of any use in a turbo at such an increase, but for lower modes, youll need bigger head and deeper fins for the cooling to have an effect. But, well, lets check it below.
The bezel is blackened in the spirit of L19.2. In general, not bad. The bezel teeth are wide and not particularly agressive ones. Glass balls are inserted into their tops. The reflector, as you can see, is textured and comparatively deep.
Wow, I don’t remember the last time I saw a thread for filters inside the bezel.
At its bottom is a Cree XHP70.3 LED. This is a dedomed LED - which means that this flashlight will have everything in order with the range. The approximate difference between the regular Cree XHP70.2 and the dedomed XHP70.3 can be seen in the review of the Acebeam X75 light cannon
UI
At the basic level, there is nothing new here, perfectly familiar convenient controls without any “look what we came up with”! But if you dig a little deeper, then there are 3 different modes and I like it. They expelled the STROBE from the daily mode and left the SOS and the firefly. I don’t see the point in So#2 mode. However, I am far from being that guy who use flashlight in real tactical scenarios, and here you should not rely on my thoughts at all.
MB (main button) and MS(mode switch)
OFF-ON - 1 click MB of course there is support for half-presses and mode memory for everything except turbo / strobe / firefly
switching modes - pressing the MS
1 click MS from OFF:firefly for daily mode line strobe in So #1 high in So #2
Holding MS from ON SOS in the everyday line of strobe modes in Tak No. 1
Switching between mode lines:
Hold MS for 3 seconds, then click OK and see: strobe means that we are tactical # 1, High means tactical # 2, and SOS signals everyday mode
The difference between the mode lines
Casual: Ultra Low, Low, Medium, High, Turbo
Tactical 1: Turbo, High, Medium, Low + Strobe
Tactical 2: High, Low, Ultra Low (pretty useless mode, IMO)
How Acebeam P17 illuminates
The brightness is stabilized, the flashlight shines for a long time at very serious brightness. A minute and a half in the turbo without cooling is very, very good. I immediately remember the 5-7 second turbopuffs of some “I’m also tactical!” flashlights. With good cooling, there is even some increase in turbo time.
And even more I liked that with the presence of cooling, you get the opportunity to squeeze out the High mode in general, everything that the flashlight is capable of.
The most convenient for everyday purposes, Mid mode will last the whole evening. This light will be enough for you to work indoors and as a running light outdoors.
The light, alas, is cold white, but there are simply no other options for the XHP70.3. But it has the advantage of a longer range compared to the XHP70.2. Here, see for yourself, the reflector of Acebeam P17 is much smaller than that of Acebeam L35, and the light, at the same time, is quite close to the latter. However, why hide it - I like the L35 light much more both in terms of color temperature and light distribution. The difference in the latter is clearly visible on the first GIF
Once again, I rate the light of the Acebeam L35 exceptionally high and consider this flashlight to be one of the best medium sized flashlight I have ever seen. As well as Acebeam L18 one of the best long-range flashlights. Actually, if funds allow, then I usually recommend this pair as a universal set that will cover all the needs of the world within 1 km. I have both of them and the L18 in camouflage was the only flashlight I have bought in many years.
Acebeam claims 450m range here. But it is naive to expect light for half a kilometer with such and such a reflector and LED. Dedomization and high brightness will not help here.
200m here is already very close to the limit of usefulness of this flashlight. Another thing is that in this radius it will highlight everything.
Well, at 300m you can see that even a turbo is of little use. Yes, it would be surprising to see something different with such optics and LED.
and here is video review
OVERALL
What to hide, I highly appreciate everything that Acebeam release. Their flashlights look great, have convenient UI without any “WTF!!” inventions, and shine well. The exceptions are rare and even they cannot be called unsuccessful models, they are just not bad against the background of their other excellent flashlights.
Acebeam P17 is no exception. It’s stylish, bright and I found it convenient for at least EDC use, here it has everything I could want.
I don’t presume to judge the use of tactical, but there is an instant strobe here, and there is both from OFF and from ON (and a lot of tactical flashlights that look dangerooous give you a strobe only from the same OFF). And here three lines of different modes are really great.
As for the light, the dedomed reflector does its job - with a large LED and a relatively small size of the reflector, Acebeam confidently covers 200m and is able to somehow climb into the territory of long-range hitters, light up to 300 meters. And the flashlight will shine not only far enough, but also long time on cooling.
