Tl;Dr: The design is very similar to another popular light. Pricing is a bit expensive. The build quality, runtime, ergonomics, regulation, user-swappable batteries, and switches are all great. The brightness, voltage immunity and powerbank function are good, though my sample has a powerbank issue. The beams are fine but I would prefer a tighter spot and wider flood on a light that has both. The UI is clunky, the UV LED is in a poor location, and the clip is borderline unusable. Overall, it’s a decent option with a lot of features (spot, flood, UV, laser, RGB, user-swappable batteries, powerbank, etc).
Read the full review here!
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Got MAO version and it’s actually better than the “popular light”:
- much better runtimes
- UV
- Laser
- Combined modes (flood + laser, spot + laser)
- Two directional clip
- Lower “moon” levels
- Stronger spot (tho less defined centre), flood and side white light vs SK05 V1
- Warmer light
- Durable mechanical switch
- M5 thread
MAO version looks great with blue tritiums.
Thanks for sharing. Have a couple follow-ups on some of your points.
The first is about the much better runtimes. I genuinely wonder how they’re producing better run times. They have the same spot emitter (SFT-42R) as the new SK05 Pro II, but the E28 produces ~850 lumens for 3.5hrs while the SK05 puts out ~900 lumens for 3.15 hours, and the SK05 is doing it with 15% more battery capacity (8ah vs 7ah). Given that the SK05 has an efficient regulated driver, I’m curious how Jetbeam eeks out that much more efficiency.
As for the beam warmth, I assume you’re comparing the low CRI E28 to the low CRI SK05. The high CRI SK05’s flood came in closer to 4500 cct. I thought that both lights were using the same SFT-42R for the spot but maybe JB has slightly warmer bins?
For me, one of the biggest knocks on the E28 is that the beams are quite green - measuring well over 0.01 duv. Have you noticed that at all? Does it impact your enjoyment of the light? I’m not the most tint-obsessed flashlight enthusiast by a long shot, but that’s pretty green.
I compare to SK05 I have. They promised flood 6:00 @600lm in manual, but provided only 2:35 in reality. E28 does 3:40 @1000lm. They promised 5:30 @630lm, delivered 2:35 to 3:10. E28 does 3:35 @900lm. They promised flood @220lm for 20:00, and spot @230lm for 19:00, both unrealistic.
I am reading the manual.
Later they quit lying, however, E28 can still launch turbo/high up to 4hours, while SK05 v2 ends at 2.25-2.5hr. All with smaller battery. So based on that, I decided to upgrade to E28 rather than v2.
Re warmth, i am comparing flood CCT and welcome E28 flood at much warmer 4700K. For spot, it’s always high.
Re tint, i do not notice that. SK05 has spot over 0.01 too. V2 improved it, and surely I like the new side light. E28 v2 needs to add at least one High CRI emitter, while SK05 v3 needs to add the laser. Then I will decide again what to buy.
Where are these numbers coming from?
I don’t see any reviews showing E28 flood putting out 1k lumens for 4 hours. I also don’t see the claims matching up with SK05 manual. I see SK05 flood with 950 lumens for 3 hours low CRI and 630 lumens for 3 hours for Nichia. E28 flood claims 1k lumens for 5.3
Hours but only hits 809 lumens for 4 hours. Still great efficiency but far from specs.
From what I can gather from reviews the E28 is more efficient but I’m having trouble following the run times you care claiming when I look at TG and Zeroair reviews.
Is your SK05 the Nichia version? High CRI is a big efficiency loss vs low CRI, which makes it hard to compare lumen output. Could easily be 1/3 less efficient.
I’m curious about the E28 as a potentially better constructed more feature rich version of SK05, but my main concern is the super green beams. I don’t really need another light with UV or laser, so I mainly thinking about quality of beam. Both lights are pretty efficient and high output, with the E28 particularly and surprisingly so. I’m wondering if their 3500 mah batteries are actually closer to 4000mah.
I have a regular edition, and all data is correct and in front of your eyes. You even have a copy of manual there on Zero in several reviews. Tim McMahon reports 2:35 only but I aggregated all results by hand in my notes. Even when taking the best SK05 results, the benefit of +1/3 runtime with smaller battery must punch you in the eyes.
Or, if you don’t believe what I (you) see, ask AI:
Efficiency 518lm/W vs 400lm/W
“The Jetbeam E28 demonstrates better lumens-per-watt efficiency in its sustained High settings, maintaining output for longer before thermal throttling becomes aggressive.”*
The best thing to do is probably to swap their batteries, and get even more out of E28. I did not test it I actually doing a round now.
Battery test C/D/C +1/-0.7 @ SkyRC MC3000, Fnirsi HRM-10, Triton T3R partial result:
JETBEAM 18650 3500mAh: ~3300mAh
LOOPGEAR 18650 4000mAh: ~3600mAh
I don’t have an ambition for perfect beam on these multifunctional outdoor devices, I prefer runtime as I can’t predict usage outdoors, while I safely can at home. So for me up to 2000K trim is a fine tradeoff for DUV 0.01. If I want reference beams, I can use something multifunctional like Skilhunt Mix7, all CRI 99, all DUV 0.001, all great CCT, UV filter, super thick red green blue, purist’s moon mode 0.5lm, half parasitic drain etc and it will outclass 99% of flashlights out of the box. But this modern double 18650 format is super cool and better outdoors. For me SK05 and E28 are a better Nitecore EDC37, with true spot light that Nitecore can’t deliver, and E28 > EDC37 > SK05 in efficiency. All of them are great.
oh very interesting - never occurred to me that the loopgear batteries were 10% less than advertised! That narrows the gap a bit.
The manuals aren’t always that useful if they don’t accurately reflect stepdowns. For example, the E28 manual promises 1500 lm on high for 5 min followed by 1000 lumens for 5.3 hours. Zeroair tested it at 1200 lm for 5 min and 800 lumens for 4 hours. TG’s review also shows 1200 for 5 min (well 1200 for 3, then 1000 for 2), stepping down to 800 for ~3.7 hours. Pretty sizable difference from the manual (~20% fewer lumens for 25% shorter duration). But still better than what the SK05.
The SK05 Pro 2 has the same spot emitter as the E28 and puts out ~1000 lumens for 3 hours. The E28 spot puts out 875 lumens for 3.5 hours (according to TG). The efficiency difference between those two results is less clear.
1lumen just released their SK05 Pro 2 review and their’s is the first one I’ve seen which tested run times for mediums. Both the spot and throw put out ~350 lumens for 12+ hours. That compares favorably to the E28 spot which produced 300 lumens for 11.75 hours and the E28 flood. Hard to compare against E28 flood since it does 460 lumens for 7.5 hours.
It seems to be some combination of emitter efficiency (particularly on the flood channel) and better driver between E28 and SK05 pro, with the gap substantially narrowed or eliminated with the Pro 2. It’s somewhat academic because both lights offer great runtimes, but we’re enthusiasts so we focus on the details.
On the other hand, I got the Pro 2 and hate the switch and no amount of efficiency can make up for the fact that I can’t get the light to do what I want when I attempt to actuate it.
Maybe I aggregated it correctly here:
SK05 spec (old) result E28 spec result
flood high @600lm 3:30 (6:00) -> 850lm 2:35..3:00 @1000lm 5:20 -> 800lm 3:40
-> @500lm 8:20 -> 450lm 7:35
flood med @220lm 11:00 (20:00) -> 330lm 9:12 @200lm 18:00 -> ?
spot high @630lm 5:30 -> 600lm 2:35..3:15 @900lm 7:15 -> 870lm 3:35
spot med @230lm 11:30 (19:00) -> 270lm 13:20 @300lm 13:15 -> 300lm 11:50
-> @100lm 37:00 -> ?
Looks better for E28 especially in high modes, and with smaller battery. Saw Zero’s Pro 2 review and it set runtime of flood 1000lm for 2:15, spot 700lm for 2:35 - no change in efficiency. That is less useful than E28’s 3:40 @800lm and 3:35 @870lm. Imagine you can produce strong light not far from 1klm for almost 4hours. 1Lumen review I just read has better outcome interestingly, high modes are brighter, and medium modes are indeed nicely consistent. I guess we need third review.
Still I chose E28 MAO for versatility, stronger magnet, moonlight 10lm vs vulgar 50lm, over SK05 v2 MAO UV (even UV special offer did not convince me), tho side light was very tempting as having at least one High CRI emitter is useful. Overall they are both great choices and very similar. Loopgear has more public traction, so they might come up with v3 which I will likely buy.
Cell Brand Type Voltage Capacity Resistance Discharge Size Flat TEST: Capacity Resistance Weight Notes
model name size V mAh mohm A mm X/S/- mAh mohm g details
18650 Loopgear 18650 3.6 4000 18.5x69 P D3612,C3638 27 50.1 from Loopgear SK05 Pro, measured 14.059Wh vs 14.4Wh
--""-- 18.5x69 P D3626,C3611 27 50.1 from Loopgear SK05 Pro, measured 14.064Wh vs 14.4Wh
HL35 Jetbeam 18650 3.6 3500 -10 18.5x70 P D3229,C3251 29 49.8 from Jetbeam E28 White, measured 12.716Wh vs 12.6Wh
--""-- 18.5x70 P D3299,C3322 29 49.8 from Jetbeam E28 White, measured 12.809Wh vs 12.6Wh
Thanks - I don’t think you can compare the Nichia SK05 Flood to the E28’s low CRI flood (which is what your chart shows on the left).
The SK05 Pro 2 low-CRI flood puts out ~1200 lumens for 2:45 in turbo (according to 1lumen) which may or may not be more efficient than E28’s low CRI flood for 3:40.
E28 moonlight is definitely an improvement.
For me, I’m interested in the E28 but all the emitters are green and low CRI. I also don’t love how much of a knockoff it is of a very distinctive SK05 design. I don’t really need that many UV lights or lasers, so those add-ons don’t do that much for me. I chose the non-UV SK05 Pro 2 for that reason.
From my perspective, the biggest benefit of the Pro 2 is the better sidelight and the biggest disappointment is the switch has been hit or miss for me.
The engineer in me cares about the efficiency stuff but in reality both are well regulated and efficient lights. They’ve made some different choices about light levels which impacts runtimes and I do think the E28 has a bit more efficient driver but I don’t think it’s a needle mover for most people. Pricing is somewhat of a factor as well. The SK05 Pros can often be had for ~$100 USD whereas the E28 is more like $130.
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