These are shelf beauties for sure. What's maybe nice to know is that both versions have a great neutral white tint (SST40 with 4.800K and XP-L HI with 5.000K), more or less handpicked by Jacky Zhang ("WildTrail") and Sven ("TheOnlyDocc").
I remember some folks in the group buy mentioning rough machining or burrs on their non-anodized lights. I think the manufacturer acknowledged the issue and said they were usually hesitant to sell ‘bare’ lights because those kinds of imperfections are usually smoothed out before anodizing.
These two samples were from the very end of the group buy, and seem nicely machined to me. Here are a couple close-up photos. The only ‘issues’ I can see are within the knurling on the battery tube. The knurling feels pleasantly grippy in hand, and I can’t feel the small burrs.
What! no lanyard? i see what you mean about the knurling. few more nights of playing with this and i’ll have no fingerprints. thanks for the light, i think this will be going in the car to chase those foxes at night.
Keep it on only the grippy part. It tears up the pad more than the light. People use scotchbrite pads to polish metal. The green will look like the machine finish it already has if you just grip the pad lightly and spin the tube.
You can get the gray and/or white pads i think if you want to make stuff shine.