First of all I’d like to say thanks to Olight for sending me this light for review. I probably shouldn’t have accepted, but it was the first Olight I’ve used and I was curious.
Second of all I’d like to apologize to Alicia at Olight. Soon after I got this light my life got a bit busy and all things flashlight fell on the back burner for a couple months. So this review is quite late. Hopefully me disappearing with this expensive light didn’t cause her too much trouble at work.
I just hope Olight actually uses this review for feedback, and not to just sell lights and generate clicks.
Now to the review:
I am not going to go into a bunch of detail because there are other reviews out there and Olight publishes their own specs. I’m just going to give my impressions and the things that stuck out to me as a first-time Olight user.
The presentation is very nice, which I expected from a more “premium” company than what I usually buy, but it was still well done. The box fit the light well without being too big, and since this light is bare copper (that develops a patina very easily) they vacuum sealed the light in a little pouch inside the box. As such it came out very shiny and beautiful. Definitely a good first impression.
It also came with a few accessories, one of them a hard plastic diffuser cone that is a tight fit over the head. This cone may have been my favorite part of the light. I haven’t had one before, but I can see it being used in many situations, one of them being bathroom runs. This light has a good moon mode, and a nice low mode too, both of which combined with the diffuser and the tailstanding capabilities make for soft, even lighting. It also is itself GITD, which is a nice touch.
Brightness is par for the course, the typical 900-1200 lumens or whatever people are claiming these days. It doesn’t make much of a difference.The moon mode was more impressive to me, it’s the lowest one of any light I have, and I like that.
The size is also great for an 18650 light, the tail magnet is actually strong enough to hold in most situations, and the clip is well-designed.
There are a couple things that make me want to leave this light on the shelf though.
The Copper.
I can think of two reasons to use copper in a light, to look fancy, or to suck up some heat. The Olight has a terrible thermal path because of how Olight saves space, but it doesn’t make enough heat to need it anyways, As far as looks, this is up to preference, and I know I am different from other people. When the copper starts to “patina”, it just looks dirty to me. If it had a coating to keep it shiny like it arrived in the package, that would give it the premium look. But as it is, in my mind, it makes it look worse than an anodized light. The copper weighs way more than aluminum, and it really adds nothing. Plus, it makes your hands smell :confounded: .
All of that can be avoided by just saving your cash and buying the aluminum version. So again, it’s preference.
The knurling doesn’t help with the dirty look though, and that’s the same for the black version. It’s very grippy, so that’s a plus, but the grooves attract a lot of dirt which would take a long time to clean out with your fingernail or a toothbrush.
The other thing I didn’t really like was the UI. I have mixed feelings towards it. In some situations, it was really nice. I liked the shortcuts from off to moon, your last mode, or turbo. But it never really felt natural, and it always felt slow.
Lastly, Olight, you really need to offer more tints. As far as cool white goes, this one wasn’t bad, but in many people’s opinions cool white is always bad. You lose a lot of buyers and lower buyers’ satisfaction by not having more options. This copper light was begging for something in the 4c-5d range
Most of my dislikes were related to the copper. Anybody want to trade for an S15R? 
Thank you. I truly appreciate when someone uses words to paint a picture like that. :+1: