Here is my review of the MATEMINCO FT01, a high CRI 14500 flashlight that can turn into a lamp!
How does everyone find the tint? to me it looks way too yellowy.
My first impression is that this is a strange looking light. Big head, small battery. Still trying to find a purpose. Is this just another flashlight or is this something truly unique?
I just received one of these, love the miniature “Stranger Things” aesthetics.
However the tint is horrible, as mentioned above, way too yellow.
I had to swap the LED straight away for a 519a.
Very yellow. I wonder what the FT02 is like.
Cool white I hear.
It’s a novelty. For a head that size, you should get a serious mini-thrower. You don’t.
It has a somewhat unique appearance, and AFAICT that’s the reason to buy it. In my case (as a gift), that’s a good enough reason. NGL, I think people who pay thousands of dollars for imitation damascus steel lights have way more money than sense. $35 for a “cute” light that the average person is going to think has a retro, incan-looking beam is within my budget for the aesthetics. But it’s definitely not for everybody.
It does seem to be a pretty solidly built, moderately driven light, in spite of the rattly ring on the tail.
ETA: Just having advised a friend on a flashlight purchase, you know we live in good times when a solid light with 90 CRI, up to 265 meters of throw, and 5 hours of runtime at 100 lumens can be written off as a novelty, just because there are so many better options. Is the FT01 better in every way than an old Maglite? Probably, except for noggin’ knockin. And it’s still better than almost anything I’ve seen at Lowes or Home Depot.
Did not know about the 18650 version, the FT02
As I said, love the “Stranger Things” vibe so I just placed an order for one
Tint is a spectrum between green and magenta. Above BBL is green, below BBL is magenta.
CCT is a spectrum between yellow and blue, so it’s actually the CCT that you guys have an issue with if the yellow is bothering you.
I think yellow is a completely appropriate way to describe tint. Being above BBL has different visual manifestations at different CCTs: green at neutral/cool CCTs, and yellow at warm CCTs. And yes, I do find the tint way too yellow! I bet a 80CRI Cree beats it in practical color rendering.
My main gripe with the design is that the head is unnecessarily large--looking at the top-left image below, over half of the head size is not contributing to the throw at all!
Lol, thanks for the start of the review, made me chuckle. And thanks for another good review.
I think the brass one looks great. Wonder if the driver can be easily swapped for a 17mm AA one.
Looks like the optical setup was chosen more for a cosy home light than for a dedicated torch, so a lamp that can be used as a torch rather than the other way round. It’s def yellow but it looks like a nice yellow, obvs hard to tell through digital translation though.
How is it with the 519A? What colour temp did you go for?
In Lightroom, have a look at these two Develop module sliders. Tint is between green and magenta. Color temperature is between blue and yellow.
The warm 3500k ones from KD which to my eyes are a nice creamy natural looking color
This is only their particular way of representing the extremes of the CCT interval--I might argue that sky blue and orange/red are more appropriate endpoint colors. It is not easy to make things mathematically precise, so a very crude approximation that suffices to convey the general idea is chosen instead, and it should not be taken as the literal truth.