This is a quick review of the Wuben X4; the review sample was provided by Wuben free of charge.
Before diving in, I’d like to thank Fiona for her impeccable handling of a shipping-related difficulty. Since the Amazon warehouse was out of stock, the first review sample was sent from a China warehouse with the last-mile carrier being ACI Logistix, which has a reputation for extreme delays and lost/stolen packages. After the package was delayed for multiple weeks, Fiona offered to (and immediately did) send a replacement from the Amazon warehouse when it received new stock. After more than a month, the original sample did arrive, but the replacement order is already on its way, and I ended up with 2 copies of the light.
Onto the review itself. I was interested in reviewing the X4 mostly because of its massive selection of unusual features, from analog-like brightness control to RGB and side lights. This means I will evaluate it not as an everyday beater light (my S2+ already fills that role cheaply and perfectly), but as a specialized tool.
Also, I won’t be inundating the review with photos–there already exist plenty by much better photographers, and words suffice for everything I need to say.
Packaging and presentation
The light comes in a very nice, sturdy box that itself is bubble-wrapped and in a bigger box. This ensures that the light won’t be damaged by rough handling during shipping. The delivery person left the package right on top of a radiator, but the packaging did such a good job insulating that the contents didn’t even get warm.
I feel ambivalent about the very high quality of the packaging. It works fantastically as a gift, but seems costly and wasteful if one simply wants to use the light for oneself. Though I’m sure one can come up with many, many nice uses for the box.
In addition to the light, the box also contains accessories plus a very clear manual.
First impressions
After seeing photos of the light online, I am pleasantly surprised by how compact it is: about as thick as my S2+, and much shorter. It fits quite comfortably in a pocket.
The light has a rather futuristic look, and by necessity due to the large number of features on the exterior, which include:
- The main light
- Side panel with white light and RGB/indicator
- Electronic switch
- Rotary knob
- Mode group toggle
- Charging port
- Screw-on clip
- Tail “tactical” switch
- Battery cover lock which doubles as a tail magnet
Given the huge number of features, it’s pretty much impossible to achieve the same physical robustness as a simpler light like S2+; I imagine that the mode group toggle and tactical tail switch may be easily damaged by impact on a hard surface. I won’t complain though, as this light is simply not intended for extremely rough use.
Although the type C charging port is not directly protected against water contact, the light is rated IP68, which makes me speculate that the port itself is engineered to (1) not fail in the presence of water, and (2) stop water from entering the light any further. Could @fionazheng confirm whether this is the case?
Modes and UI
One can access a large selection of modes on the main light and side panel using a combination of mode group toggle, side e-switch, and the rotary knob. Other excellent reviews already cover the UI in detail, so I won’t elaborate here on technical details and will only state my subjective impressions. I find the UI as simple/intuitive as I can come up with, and am impressed that they managed to cram so many features into one light.
The “ramping” in both the main light and side panel are controlled by the rotary knob. The knob gives an impression of infinitely-variable brightness, but there are in fact 6 discrete brightness levels that the light settles on. I have no complaints as I find the 6 modes very well-spaced–the brightness increase seems barely sub-exponential, faster on the low end and slower on the high end, which feels perceptually even.
Whenever the highest or lowest modes are reached, the light blinks once as an indication to stop scrolling the knob, which is a useful feature.
The “tactical” tail switch serves as a momentary switch for turbo in the front and side panel modes, and as a constant switch for moon in the moon mode. I find it very helpful to have this instant access to turbo without engaging the rotary knob or mode toggle.
Main light
The main light consists of 4 emitters (though not independent) behind TIR lenses of varying levels of focus, and produces a combination beam that achieves good throw and wide coverage. The TIRs are unprotected by glass, so I would take extra caution to not let the surface get scratched by keys/sand, or to accidentally activate it in a bag and melt the optic; fortunately, the lockout toggle provides a natural solution to the latter.
The beam has no obvious artifacts, and no unpleasant green tint or angular tint shift across all drive levels, just a clean cool white. The hotspot looks slightly lopsided on a wall, but won’t be noticeable in real use. If you are not a tint/CRI snob, you would be very happy with the beam.
The stock emitters have a strange footprint that makes it difficult for a casual modder to source replacements. I think the ideal would be to use 2 larger emitters with standard footprint (say 3535 or 5050), behind just 2 optics, one flood and one throw. This should simplify the engineering and allow both higher output and farther throw to be achieved. With a SFT25R for throw and SFT42R for flood, 3000lm and 350-400m of throw should be achievable given the head size; furthermore, the unibody construction would do a great job heatsinking.
I have no integrating sphere, but the claimed 1500lm of output seems accurate based on ceiling bounce comparisons with my other lights. Using Phyphox as a lux meter and my previously-tested lights as reference, I obtained a throw estimate of 230m, which slightly exceeds the claimed 205m.
Side panel
This is where the real fun begins! The light features a 4000K side panel that also ramps with a dynamic range of 1lm to 100lm, which is very useful for closeup work. Although low CRI, the tint is pleasant.
And then there’s a tiny RGB emitter that makes this light incredibly fun to use. Aside from the battery and charging indicator, it also serves as mood lighting, beacon, and police flasher.
The constant-on and beacon modes admit 7 colors: aside from the RGB primary, you also get yellow, orange, pink, and aqua via mixing the colors. It is interesting to note that a red-green mixture produces two of these colors, while other mixtures produce one. I love to use it as a mood light and to demonstrate some concepts in additive color theory, but easily see more practical uses. The red mode (seems 620-630nm) can be used to conserve night vision or avoid attracting bugs, the blue mode can be used to check some objects for fluorescence, and all of the modes can be used as unique visibility markers.
There are also flasher modes in R/B, R/G, and R/Yellow. The first one simulates police flash, while the other combinations are unusual and would make a very unique marker.
It is worth mentioning that within each subgroup (on, beacon, flasher), the last selected color is memorized, which eliminates the need to scroll through everything whenever one repeatedly accesses the same color.
Battery and charging
The X4 uses a replaceable 3400mAh 18650 behind a lockable cover. The locking switch, I must say, is pretty stiff and requires a lot of effort to open, but that’s fine as the light has built-in charging. The battery appears a bit longer than a standard 18650 and has a golden positive contact, which suggests the presence of a protection board.
The RGB emitter from before also double as a battery checker: hold the button from off, and it’ll tell you where the battery level lies between 100%, 90%, 40%, 15%, and 0%. I find this division sufficiently granular, and for those who want to top off the battery as much as possible on short notice, the 90% cutoff is a great way to check that.
The charging is pretty fast. My type-C tester reads 5.2V 2.4A maximum at the port, which suggests a charge current of 3A at the battery. The body of the light warms substantially during the charge, but never becomes injuriously hot. Charging terminates at 4.195V at the cell, which is an excellent balance of capacity and longevity–most lights and even dedicated chargers tend to slightly overcharge new cells to 4.22V, so I’m very pleased to see a good termination voltage on the X4.
Final words
I would describe the X4 as a Swiss army knife among flashlights: it does not particularly excel in throw or output or CRI, but doesn’t need to. I find its main appeal to be the very cool design and the wide range of features, which makes a handy tool in many situations.
Things I really like:
- Replaceable battery
- Excellent UI and features
- Beautiful and space-efficient design
- Build quality
What could make the light perfect in my book:
- Change front emitters to just 2: my suggestion would be SFT42R for flood and SFT25R for throw. I believe this combination improves both flood and throw compared to the current emitters, and makes the beam a bit cleaner.
- Change side panel lights to high CRI. I assume that the panel LEDs are 2835-type, which are pretty cheap even in high CRI. Putting some SunLike ultra-high-CRI LEDs in the side panel would make the light extra special.
- Add a powerbank feature if possible.