I EDCed my TINI2 for a quarter. Then I switched back to Utorch S1 Mini. Not because it was better but because I wanted some change. Then TINI2 got the dubious privilege of being the first light that I put through the washing machine….a disassembly has shown that Nitecore didn’t even try to make it waterproof so it’s time to sum up my experiences with it.
Overall my attitude is more positive towards it than it was at first. I really love the format, I wear lights around the neck and squarish lights tend to lie flat against my chest. It gets the top score for comfort.
Runtime…is very very long. I think I recharged it once over that quarter. I praised it initially for using USB Type C. I still think it was the right choice but considering how rarely I needed to use it I don’t think it’s big deal in my case.
Beam shape…I never felt it was too throwy so I think it’s OK. I still think it’s far too cool and too low CRI though.
The light comes with mode memory - I don’t like it, I always prefer starting on one of the lower modes.
The biggest issue is that it took long to turn on and off. I never got used to it. Slow, slow, slow.
The turn off slowness suffered from lack of feedback - I always wanted a lockout. The sequence is:
press the switch (the light turns off)
keep pressing…after a short while the light enters lockout 1 (display shows a padlock with 1)
keep pressing…after another short while the light enters lockout 2 (display shows a padlock with 2)
The thing is - when the light is around my neck it would be bothersome to move the light to a position when I could see the display. So I couldn’t tell whether the light was off, lockout 1 or lockout 2.
I would prefer lockout 1 to get access to momentary mode. But I never knew whether I managed to hit lockout 1 the last time I turned off, so I never even try to use the momentary.
I think I tended to land in lockout 2 because I prefer to stay on the safe side with the press length, so there was little chance of staying without any lockout.
Overall the lockout sequence is annoying but works well enough. It’s not perfect - over the 3 months that I used it I got 1 accidental activation. Compare that with TINI1 which was just as annoyingly slow to use, yet it would turn on every day.
Compare that to Utorch S1 Mini which never turned on with way over a year of use - but that’s with physical lockout which requires 2 hands to turn on.
Overall, I can reiterate what I wrote at first - Nitecore, you’ve made a huge improvement over TINI1. But UI is still not what it should be. I do hope that TINI3 will be better.
Thanks for this very useful commentary on the TINI2, Agro. You cite some issues for me, particularly with the default emitter tint, the lack of any design to resist water ingress, and the slow button response for on/off. Like the TIP… what is WRONG with Nitecore these days? They make some really terrific flashlights. But then, some really surprising mistakes with other models. Nitecore shouldn’t be stumbling like this. I have to wonder if these keychain lights are such a low margin of profit for them, they’re doing it only to “spread the Nitecore name” by getting it in people’s pockets, while not putting forth a full effort to do this type of light properly. With these kinds of issues… sullies their own name. I had some really shocking problems with my two TIP “CRI” lights that they both went back… and stopped looking at Nitecore for a while after that. Half a year later, a few of their models grabbed my attention. I figured by now they’d stop with the ridiculous mistakes in keychain lights.