FIrst of all, thanks @Barry0892 and @Sofirn for gifting me this light. They had it delivered to my door (whatever you are doing for shipping this to Chile is working very well, Sofirn, just keep doing it) and they did not ask me for anything in return, I’m posting this of my own volition to try and contribute something back to the wonderful BLF community.
This is my first Sofirn light, and also my first 21700, my first “tactical”, my first Cree XHP50B and my first mechanical “forward-clicky” (whatever that means 
) light, so a number of firsts here! I apologize in advance for any mistakes or oversights, and welcome all constructive criticism.
Also, I suggest anyone interested in this light to first watch @Weerapat_K’s excellent video review and read @jon_slider’s great “first impressions” post, I will try and comment on this mini-review only where I can add something to what they have already said.
Now for the unboxing:
The packaging is high-quality and more than enough to protect the light, came all the way from China to me in a bubble-wrap envelope and arrived in perfect state. I like the magnetic top-fold and the foam cut-out insert, and the lateral label and back print with all the technical details.
This light has an innovative, “cranelated+post” TIR optics I haven’t seen before:
I agree with @jon_slider that it produces a very nice, balanced beam, good for flood and with more than enough throw for casual use, with acceptable tint. Not the light I would use indoors at night with its relatively low CRI and coldness, but very good for daylight or outdoor actiivities.
And it’s a very bright beam: the turbo is almost unbearable indoors, ditto the high, I think these would be most useful outdoors or if you’re trying to blind someone (please don’t), medium is more than enough for indoors use and even low and moonlight are brighter than I would choose for my normal indoor activities.
The light fits nicely in the hand, in a pocket or clipped to a belt or backpack (the clip is very good if forward-only, so no hat use, but I don’t think this is much of a problem as it would be too heavy for clipping to a normal hat or baseball cap to begin with).
Overall the light is well built and looks very robust, I would guess it can stand a lot of use & abuse and still keep working.
The light has a USB-C port and comes with a USB A-to-C cable; there’s also a red/green LED in the head to signal battery status during normal use (for the first few seconds after turning the light on) and during charging (red for charging and green for done). I haven’t tried using its USB port yet, but I have little doubt it works well. EDIT: I just tried USB charging and it works, and noticed the light won’t operate while charging (not a problem for me, but some folks might object to that).
The manual is short but informative; I would like a PDF copy to store along with my other manuals, @Sofirn when you can, please make it available for download somewhere. Here’s it in pictures for those that can’t wait:
I like it that both the head and the tail have springs, which is very good for both shock resistance and battery-lenght tolerance:
Did you notice the 4 pads in the head? I surely did, and wish like hell (but probably in vain) for them to be flashing pads, more about that below.
No pics for that, but this light can both tail-stand and head-stand; when tail-standing it works nicely to ceiling-bounce ilumminate a room, and when head-standing you can see whether the light is on or off due to its bezel being crenelated and letting out enough light to be visible. In moonlight mode (presuming it lasts the 1000h Sofirn has quoted, I haven’t tested) it could work well to allow someone quickly locate the light in a dark room as just enough light escapes for it to be visible and not enough for it to be disturbing.
My light came with a nice 5000mAh 21700 Sofirn-branded battery:
As you can see, it came at 3.67V, which is a good voltage to store/ship batteries at; just keep in mind this is around 50% charge, so if you’re going to use that light for an extended duration or critical (spelunking, etc) activity right out of the box, you might want to fully charge it first.
Now for my greatest peeve: that effing user interface. As everyone who knows even a little bit about me is sure to have noticed, I really like Anduril, and while I know it’s not possible to have Anduril in a light with a mechanical switch, Sofirn could have used something much better than this UI, even Anduril’s crippled cousin Narsil would have been a great improvement. Seriously, half-clicking for configuring is hell (I keep fully-clicking instead, and then have to start over). There being no shortcuts for turbo or moonlight just makes it even worse for me. The only positive thing I can say about this UI is that a single full click turns it on and another turns it off as expected (much better than some other light UIs that require press-and-hold to turn off), so once configured it kinda “just works”, but be careful not to click it on/off/on too fast or you will mess the configuration.
@Sofirn and @Barry0892, is there any way this light can have its firmware flashed by the user, eg via the contact pads visible in the head (see above)? I do have flashing adapters (and could buy or build one if my current UPDI ones won’t serve) and I generally know my way around electronics and firmware, so I would volunteer to port Narsil (or even write something like it) for this light if possible. Please let me know, one way or the other.
