How to make a limousine from a small car? Nitecore have a solution - they took several keylights, mixed them, lengthened body and released a sort of limousine. And, unlike limousines, this flashlight turned to be really convenient in every day life.
Specification
- maximum brightness and range 3000lum and 220m (12200cd)
- LEDs: 2*SST40
- Battery built-in Li-Ion 1700mah
- Titanium coated stainless steel case
- Display
- Instant access to ultra-low, turbo, strobe
- Dimensions and weight: 135.6x31.4x14.2mm (''5.34x"1.34) and 124g (4.37 oz)
- IP54 waterproof standard
*you can buy Nitecore EDC27 at:
➤ Amazon
Package and appearance
Great premium packaging. Looks definitely win
In addition to the flashlight itself, kit includes a manual and a type-c charging cable. Everything you need, actually
Yeah 13.5cm length may seem to be too long. Well, Nitecore EDC27 is longer that definitely not compact Sofirn SP35, a popular budget EDC flashlight with a 21700 battery. But! Things look very different when the Nitecore EDC27 is turned sideways. And here it is only 14.2 mm - for many, this flashlight will be convenient even in a pants pocket.
The design of the Nitecore EDC27 borrows a number of ready-made solutions. Something from Tini2, something from TIP, SE display from TUP.
As a result, flashlight got a very pleasant and unusual look. A sort of limousine, stretched out of the usual runabout compact keylight. Rough anodizing, both good for an eye and in the hand. The body itself is swift and graceful. In short, I definitely like the result of design work.
Well, see for yourself, the part with the display neatly sticks out like a car cabin.
The flashlight actually sits comfortably in the hand. It is lightweight and has a secure grip. Easy access to both tail buttons.
Actually, the buttons, which are actually convenient and, coupled with the good interface used, provide quite flexible UI. It’s easy to screw up here, but Nitecore did it right. It is clear that I would have prefer Anduril 2 or a simplified version of Sofirn, but I would not hesitate to use this UI either, it is really good.
You can thread the lanyard through the clip. It can be removed, for which you will need to work a little with a screwdriver.
Well, if I mentioned a screwdriver, then with its help you can easily look at the rich inner world of a flashlight. It would be interesting to see everything from above, it is there that all the electronic stuffing is hidden.
But … look carefully. The arrow points at the place where some plate adjoins copper MCPB under LEDs
And now we turn the flashlight back and open it. Look, this plate is a continuation of a longer L-shaped plate, which is used for heat transfer. Making a good heat sink in such compact flashlights with built-in battery is not an easy task. Manufacturers screwed up with this in lot of full-size models.
And display is no innovation at all, everything is the same as in other keylights by Nitecore. Brightness level, remaining time, voltage - it shows everything you need to know.
The flashlight charges quickly enough, it gains 1700 mAh of its capacity in 1 hour. good capacity, btw.
A TIR lens is used as optics, a pair of SST40 LEDs is behind.
By the way, it’s not visible here - but the inflammation sensor is also hidden there, which automatically drops brightness to 65 lumes from High, Turbo or strobe if some kind of obstable is ahead. Quite a reasonable move, in my opinion.
UI
Very interesting UI.
Both buttons have two positions, which gives you instant access to all important modes: ultra-low, turbo and strobe. There are two types of blocking, the first one has is instant access to the turbo / strobe. Since the mode button, which is flush with the body, works here, I do not see the danger of accidentally switching on these modes. In the same pocket, it is not possible to set this setting, the main button will be pressed first.
How Nitecore EDC27 illuminates
It is clear that you shouldnt expect hiCRI here, for me this is not crucial
I will attribute the difference in temperature measuring to the imperfection of Opple (although this was not the case with other flashlights). I checked with the manufacturer, Nitecore says.
Light has expected green tint. Not serious thoug. This shade will not be visible at all during summer walkaround with all the green grass and trees around.
The dimensions of the flashlight are very compact, so the turbo runtime here matches them. 3000 lums last 10 seconds and cooling here can only affect in winter in Siberia. However, 10 seconds should be enough to quickly look around. Be that as it may, in this mode there is more marketing than any real benefit.
But the 1000 lum High mode impressed me. I did not expect the size of the flashlight to allow it to maintain this brightness even with cooling. But the same plate on the back of the flashlight worked out perfectly and the brightness sank when cooled after 10 minutes only by 15%. Without cooling, it will fall to the conditional 500 lum, which is also just great.
The most popular, in my opinion, mode - MID will last 4.5 hours and this is enough for the eyes for any evening walk.
In terms of light, Nitecore EDC27 is pure EDC light with an emphasis on close up lighting. Due to the high turbo brightness, you can briefly illuminate something at an average distance or simply surprise others with a bright light that is unexpected for such a compact flashlight.
Ultralow-low-mid are good for indoor use. Perhaps Mid is even excessive on the scale of the room, but it is an excellent walking light. High is suitable for some fast movement or if you want to see a little further then 15-20m.
Turbo, I repeat, due to its short runtime, seems to me more like a marketing mode than something actually useful, comparing to normal turbo runtime that most of us are got used to.
Nevertheless, it`s 10 seconds are enough to see everything you need in most cases. So it’s better to have a short turbo than not to have a long lasting one. And, anyway, when you turn it on…wow…it is really bright!
So, as you can see, High and Turbo even let Nitecore ED27 perform quite close to the level of full-scale 18650 EDC flashlight.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
Nitecore experiment a lot. And, what to hide, I do not always like the result of these experiments. But I consider Nitecore EDC27 a successful attempt to do something new in the extremely saturated segment of EDC flashlights.
The recipe turned out to be simple. It is only necessary to take something that is known to works perfectly as a basis. Britht keylight in this case, and then radically increase the battery capacity. Along the way, of course, increase the brightness and length. These two increases are not a rocket science themselves, and the market is full of failed attempts to simply boost up the brightness. But, to Nitecore’s credit, they went further than that and came up with a cool move - they developed and attached an external heat sink plate directly to the LED MCPBT. Well done!
The UI is very similar the one used in keylights and I got used to it instantly. I really liked that each button has two levels , this made UI really flexible. In this regard, I think it will completely suit an advanced user and at the same time will not scare off even ordinary user. At least the one who is able to spend 2-3 minutes reading the manual.
The tactical potential of UI, by the way, is not bad. For once, access to the turbo and strobe is convenient, and even from both ON and OFF.
Charging is fast, stabilization is good, the flashlight reacts well to cooling.
In short, I think that this is actually a successful model, the purchase of which will not disappoint you if you decide to fork out…(sad point) qiute a lot.
And some other CONs, I came up with:
Ultralow at 15lum is definitely a good mode. But if your eyes are already accustomed to the dark or you woke up in the middle of the night, then this is above a comfortable brightness. And Nitecore EDC27 really would be better with traditional firefly mode of 0.5 lum.
And, of course, I would prefer a color temperature ~5000K. For the rest, again, i have positive opinion about this flashlight. If you need a powerful et slim EDC flashlight to store in jeans pocket - Nitecore EDC27 is the one that will fit.