Nice review Dale.
Ok, you guys stump me. I’ve seen it mentioned several times that some think this light is overpriced. Why? I agree it is a simple design and that the components themselves likely don’t justify the price. But the thing everybody seems to look past is the unmatched performance of this light. There is no other LED light on the market that matches the power and throw of this light. And on top of that you get a relatively compact design. Were talking about a 3000otf & 700m throwing light. Sure many manufactures could make a light with this setup - nice triple led using u2’s in deep reflectors and drive them fairly hard. But nobody is. Only close ones are the TK75 and the TK70. The first is a nice light, but is lacking in both power and throw. The second is lacking power, has fairly similar throw, but is twice the size. Lights like the king are a great deal in the $60 range. But your talking 800 less lumens and less than 1/2 the throw. Lights like the new blackshadow quad xml might match the power, but won’t even be in the ballpark with throw. SR95 might beat the throw, though barely, but it lacks 1000 lumens and costs over 2 times the prices. The Olight X6 will actually beat the power and even slightly beat the throw, but its 3 times the price and has an external battery pack. And I think that’s about the only light that even matches its numbers. So, same basic story with other manufactures - all either lack the power or lack the throw. I might be wrong, but I’m not aware of any.
So I personal think the light is well worth the price considering this light is THE current leader in the market when power, throw, and size are all considered. Simple design or not. These lights are BEASTS!
Sorry Dale, my little rant is over 
I think you are the very few persons think this light is NOT overpriced.
The reason could be you didn’t owned a TK70. If you compare it with TK70 side by side, the reflector, the finishing, the AR lens, the UI, BTU is really not worth the money you paid for it. Of course the only good thing for BTU is 3000 lumens for 3 minutes, but I won’t pay USD150 for it.
You need to take R&D cost and Material cost into calculation. Not just Lumens or Throw or Flood. Again, being budget light doesn’t mean it must copy other lights. BTU should have been done with proper design, its UI should be better, it should be using 4 batteries, and should use a good AR lens with such high price.
Don’t get me wrong. Yes, it throws well. But not much more than my Tk70. ( Could be the different tints ) The compact design is a big plus. I am disappointed in the battery carrier. Imo they skimped on it. There is no center brace as with the TN31. Now in all fairness to the light… I haven’t been able to get any good distance shots in. The best so far is 100 yards. At that distance it and my 70 are almost equally matched. I guess I am a bit biased. After paying $110 for my TN31. I expected more from the BTU for it’s price. Not there is anything wrong with the BTU… Just perceptions & expectations I guess.
I have to agree. Would have loved a 4 battery carrier. The thing that vexes me? The BTU at 3000 lumens is pretty much the same as the TK70 at 2200 lumens. The TN31 will best them both at 1147 lumens….
Hi Dale, you are the one with TK70 and BTU now.
So far no one do a proper direct comparison. Maybe you can do a white wall shot of two side by side, under expose them so that we can see the differences, or use software to see the differences.
So the tk70 is a good deal at $200…. but the BTU is smaller, brighter, and uses 18650 so it’s not worth 75% less?
I agree it should have ar lens and 4x18650.
The BTU is $150 till the 30th…. It goes back up to $180 after that.
I just came back from inside. There’s really no difference at 100 yards.
You can get TK70 at $175, and DALE got his at $150, of course that will be one of the lowest price.
But I must say that you can’t compare unknown BTU with Fenix which is a well known established reliable brand. Brand alone Fenix can already sell 25% more expensive than unknown brand because Fenix really put more cost into R&D to have good quality and reliability. But if you look at their newest TK75 with much better material and UI design, it is selling for USD170 during christmas sale. Can you imagine a unknown brand BTU selling at USD150 while an established brand selling at USD170?
By the way, between TK75 and BS Terminator, the latter is much better value to me.
I do own a SR90 & an S18. In fact most of my other lights are not budget lights. In fact I only own about 4 or 5 “budget” lights, with the rest being, Olight, 4sevens, Eagletac, Thrunite, etc. And I find the quality on the BTU to be in the upper half of my “name” lights.
The finish on this light is perfect. The reflector is perfect. The interface I find to be very good for a powerful light. Better than my other power lights like the SRK, Ryobi HiD, and even my SR90. This light at least has a low you can actually use. The only negatives I can find, one Dale pointed out - the battery carrier is a little flimsy, and a AR lense would be nice. But the lense is a moot point when the existing one still outperforms everything else on the market.
And why 4 batteries? That would just add bulk or length. 3 is perfect. I have 3ea 3400mah batteries. I’m not going to use the light for search and rescue for hours on end. The 10,200mah worth of battery capacity it allows will give well over an hour on turbo and high. I have no desire or need to ever use 3000lumens for over that period.
And about the 3 min. only on turbo. Sure, but the 2200 lumens it drops to isn’t exactly weak. And this light I’d hearty enough I wouldn’t hesitate to kick it back on turbo as many times as needed. Which again with a high of 2200, I don’t think the need will happen to often.
So when I say this light is worth the cost, I truly believe it is. In fact I personally wouldn’t trade it for ANY other light on the market at any price. And no I’m not crazy. I just like it that much and I think it’s that good of a light.
Dale I would think your NW BTU to be very similar to throw and just slightly ahead or even in power to your TK70. I’m assume you lose perhaps 300otf or so with your T6’s vs the U2’s. So your likely in the 2400-2500otf. That I assume using the 2850otf I got at 30sec with my CW. The TK70 is 2200otf isn’t it? Of course variations in bins could but your TK up some and your BTU down some to make them about even.
But again I’m not knocking the TK70. I’ve always liked it. It is and always will be one of the best performing lights of the current era of LED lights. But I already had one monster sized light, the SR90, and didn’t want another one so large.
And I’ve had the BTU out playing in the 500-600m range. It’s no problem with this light.
Maybe it is just me. I always set higher expectation when the price is high.
If I paid USD70 for a light that claim to have AR lens, and I found that it is not AR lens, I am not so angry about it but definitely I am unhappy.
But if I paid USD150 for it, I definitely demand a good and clean AR lens to be sent to me else I will want a full refund.
I respect your view for BTU as it is just different people have different expectation and experiences.
I hear you. And I respect your views on this light. You make good points. I disagree with many of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m right. I just wish you had a chance to play with one for awhile. I think you might soften you negative views on it. But maybe not. This light is not for everybody. But for pure power in a fairly compact light, it is hard to beat. That’s what got me into this hobby - the awesome demonstration of light power. Because of that, my currect favorites I now own follow that path - the SRK very compact 2200otf. Likely the best deal on the market for $60, I think. My SR90 with its massive size, power, and throw never fails to impress me and others. My D25C XML U2 Ti clicky. Running on IMR’s the personal verified 650otf it does in a under 3” light is freaking awesome. That’s my EDC. And now I’ve added the BTU to that trio. If the world ever goes crazy - those are the 4 lights I want to have with me.
I have some powerful lights either, BS Terminator is one small lights with massive lumens output. Now waiting for SR95S UT. I don’t mind the size too much. Too small will have heat sinking problem and not good to batteries and LED.
By the way, Fenix does sell TK70S which use 2x 32600 batteries, but only available in Thailand.
Good thing about TK70 is that I feel very very safe about it. It is the only high output light I let my wife use it. I wish Fenix continue to develop NIMH D size lights, to make it smaller and compact, maybe they need to get rid of long tube design.
Yeah I’ve been looking at that SR95S UT also. Very sweet light. I am likely going to mod my SR90 very soon with a SBT-90. Hopefully it will come close to its throw. I’m getting 144Kcd now with its SST-90. Could try the SBT-70, just don’t know if it would be any better. If I can reach over 200K I’d be content I think.
Dale - I like your approach ...Short sweet to the point.
The battery carrier is a downer i think the prior reviews commented on the same. The carrier i bet is a bottleneck as well, just looking at the springs and el cheapo wiring. Im almost certain a high quality battery holder would improve performance. Looks to be a custom job to build it to fit the BTU.. I know there's a guy on CPF that builds some of the nicest holders , probably will cost as much as the BTU itself.
DENGOH - Fasttech carries Feilong 32650 and 32600's, and at a very nice price...
DarkSide, I mean Fenix TK70S that is hard to get as it is only sold in Thailand. At the end, I got TK70 instead.
I wonder if the designer of this light knows that it’s two in the pink, and one in the stink.
didnt even know they made a S version. I though larger Li-Ion
cells could be used after removing the battery holder, guess not..
Im taking a look for this TK70S...Thank You for the clarification
Hey Dale,
I’d just like to point out that this review would have been FAR BETTER with your wife holding the light instead of you