[Review] Lumintop GT Nano Plus: 14500 compact thrower!


This is the GT Nano Plus, a mini flashlight made by Lumintop. It uses 14500 batteries and AAs, has the SFT25R LED, a Buck constant current driver, backlit button, USB-C charging, tail magnet and more!

• My opinion:

The GT Nano Plus is a pretty solid compact thrower for EDC, in my opinion. It accepts 14500s and AAs, has a nice SFT25R with a nice beam, the backlit button, which is probably my favorite feature on this flashlight, and a very nice build quality. I just wish it had more CCT and LED options.

• Pros:

  • USB-C charging

  • Backlit button (helps to find the flashlight in the dark)

  • Color battery indicator

  • Dual fuel option (14500s and AAs)

  • Efficient Constant current drivers

• Cons:

  • No real moonlight, Eco mode is too bright (8 lumens with 14500s)

  • Eco mode takes around 2-3 seconds to turn ON

• Box contents

  • GT Nano Plus

  • USB-C charging cable

  • 2x spare O-rings

  • Lanyard

  • User manual and QC passed

• Price

The Lumintop GT Nano Plus is currently priced at $39.95 on the Lumintop Official Store

• Body and build quality






Colors/Material Options: It is only available in a single color, that is a matte black anodizing.

Material: The main body is entirely made of anodized aluminum. The main button is made of bead-blasted stainless-steel.

Threads: Only the tail cap is unscrewable, the threads are fully anodized. This means that the flashlight features mechanical lockout by slightly unscrewing the tail cap. The bezel and head side of the battery tube seem to be glued.

Clip: The flashlight doesn’t feature a clip to use, this restricts a little the flashlight uses, but as it’s a thrower I think the clip wouldn’t be much useful to clip on a cap.

Tail stand and rolling: The flashlight rolls a little as the body is round, but there are grooves and edges that prevent it from rolling too much. The flashlight will tail/head stand without any problems.

Magnets: It has a strong magnet on the tail cap that is user removable, so if you don’t like magnets you can untwist the tail cap and remove the magnet. The magnet is capable of holding the flashlight in almost any position if the metal surface is thick enough.

AUX lights: This flashlight has a backlit button! It will remain lit green while the flashlight is OFF to help find it in the dark and indicate the battery level. It can be turned OFF/ON by clicking on the main button 7 times.

Buttons: This flashlight has a single e-switch to operate the flashlight. The button has a pretty nice finish and feels very good.

Battery contact: Contact is made with the battery by a spring on the tail cap and a gold plated button on the driver.

Bezel: This flashlight has a standard aluminum bezel, it helps to protect the lens from scratches.

Water Resistance: The GT Nano Plus has the IPX8 rating. seems very well sealed, with the head and battery tube being glued, and the unscrewable tail cap having a O-ring. The USB-C is covered by a nice rubber gasket.

Size comparison: The Manker E05 II, on the middle the Lumintop GT Nano Plus and on the right the Convoy S2+.

• Weight and size

Weight:

  • With Battery: 77.2g

  • Whithout Battery: 57.9g

  • Battery (Lumintop 14500): 19.2g

Size: 103.1mm x 31.9mm x 19.0mm (Height x Head diameter x Tail diameter)

• Battery, runtime, and charging

Battery: The GT Nano Plus has the dual fuel feature, so it accepts 14500 batteries and also AAs (alkalines, NiMH…). The included Lumintop 14500 battery with 900mAh seems to be pretty good, holds charge well and runtimes are nice.

Battery Indicator: The backlit button serves as a battery indicator, it turns red when the battery charge is too low and is green when the battery charge is sufficient (Lumintop does not state at which battery percentage this change happens).

Charging: This light features USB-C charging on the main body.

• Modes, Runtimes, Throw, Candela:

Modes: It has 5 modes: eco (moonlight) - low - medium - high - turbo. It’s very easy to cycle through them, eco is only accessible by holding the main button while the flashlight is OFF and Turbo is only accessible by double clicking it.

Advertised Specs (14500):

Mode Brightness [Lumens] Runtime
Eco 8 48h
Low 40 8h
Medium 160 2h15min
High 450 2min + 1h06min
Turbo 1200 1min + 1h06min

Advertised Specs (AA):

Mode Brightness [Lumens] Runtime
Eco 5 33h
Low 20 11h
Medium 52 4h
High 120 2h05min
Turbo 270 1min + 2h

It is possible to see that with AAs the performance is much worse (way less lumens), but this is normal, AAs can’t deliver the same power as a Li-ion battery, and their use on this flashlight is mostly as a backup power source on emergencies.

Turbo: Turbo mode has around 1200 lumens, it lasts quite some time for such a tiny host, well the SFT25R LED is pretty efficient.

Moonlight: Moonlight is very poor on this light in my honest opinion. 8 lumens is crazy high for a moonlight, even if you use AAs it’s still 5 lumens which is very bright. Also, it takes like, 2 seconds holding the button to finally turn ON moonlight. This “eco” mode could be way better if it had around 1 lumen or less.

Blinkies: This flashlight has a strobe mode that can be accessed by triple clicking the main button.

Lockout: This flashlight features mechanical lockout and electronic lockout by clicking the main button 4 times, on lockout you can only momentairly access “low” mode, which, for me, is too bright, it should only be able to access momentairly “eco”. To exit lockout press 4 times again, or unscrew the tail cap.

Throw: This flashlight has a nice throw to it, Lumintop states 450m max on the box, while the beam has a pretty focused hotspot and goes far, I don’t think it actually reaches 450m.

• Emitter, reflector and CRI:

Emitter: The GT Nano Plus has a SFT-25R 6500K LED, it makes it a compact throwy flashlight with a uniform beam with no artifacts or tint shift.

Lens: The flashlight has an anti-reflexive coated glass lens.

Reflector/TIR: The reflector is smooth.

Beam profile: The beam is very good, no visible artifacts and any visible yellow/green tint, just the blue-like tint that every cool white has.

CRI: The SFT-25R has standard 70 CRI.

• Beamshots Camera settings:

  • 18mm lens 1" F8 ISO800

  • (The trees at the back are at a distance of around 100m)


GT Nano Plus - Turbo


GT Nano Plus - High

I always try to match what my eyes can see on the beamshots, so camera settings may vary.

• Driver and UI

Driver: The driver is not directly specified, but there is no PWM on any mode, and for it to work with AAs, at least one part of the driver has to be boost, so it’s certainly a constant current buck driver for 14500s and boost for AAs.

UI: The UI is pretty straight forward, one click from OFF turns it ON, holding the button will cycle between Low - Medium - High; Eco is only accessed by holding the button when the light is OFF, Turbo can be accessed by double clicking the main button at any time, and strobe is accessed by triple clicling the main button, you can triple click it again to cycle between Strobe - SOS - Beacon. Lockout is accessed by 4-clicking the button. You can activate or deactivate the backlight of the button by clicking the main button 7 times.

Low Voltage Warning: When the battery voltage drops too much, the light will dim down and eventually turn OFF to prevent damaging the battery.

Reverse Polarity Protection: It has reverse polarity protection.

Temperature Control: If the temperature rises too much, which happens specially on High and Turbo, the flashlight will dim the light to avoid driver and LED damage.

A special thanks to Lumintop for sending this flashlight for me to review!

*I am not being paid to do this review. Everything here is my honest opinion.

Thank you for reading my review <3

3 Thanks