Wuben X4, 14500 battery, Wuben G5, 18650 battery, Wurkkos FC11C
This light was provided by Wuben at no cost for review purposes.
This is my second integrated battery and first flat rectangle flashlight, and it has a swivel head. This light is very small, it reminds me of a Zippo lighter. It weights practically nothing and it has an impressive brightness level for its size, though since its rotating head is maybe the size of 1/3 of a pinkie it has very little thermal mass so brightness does fall quickly (pesky laws of physics).
It has 2 LEDs, one white which has a temperature around 5000K and appears to be a low CRI and a colour changing LED. The white LED is brightness controlled by a built in rotary dial which is a nice touch. Though arguably it needs more rotation than expected to get to full brightness however this aids precision. Also it has noticeable rotary lag.
The battery is not removable and the light has USB-C charging and comes with a charging cable. I am not a fan of non removable battery lights as you can’t measure its voltage for long term storage (i store my batteries at 4.0V to maximize lifetime). That said i’ve taken to running the light for a while after charging it just so its not being stored full. Not an exact science but it should help.
There is a magnet on the back which is able to hold the flashlight on most ferrous surfaces. It is fairly strong and can easily hold the light on a horizontal or vertical surfaces.
The size and negligible wight of this light means it can be used in unconventional ways, easily clipped to a hat, easily carried anywhere, easily squeezed into small spaces (and the head rotates). It tailstands fairly well.
The UI is fairly standard, white LED from low to high set by rotary with mode memory, hold down the switch to get to colour mode, rotary controls colours, hold from off to check battery level.
One issue is that when checking the battery status the next click leads to the white light coming on at whatever brightness you last used it at, so you get many eye blasts at full power unless you remember to not try and turn off the battery check.
While i don’t have much test equipment, i did take some lux measurements in my integrating China cabinet, using the phone as a lux meter, here is the first 10 minutes of data. While these numbers cannot be converted to lumens, they do show how quickly the light throttles output.
| Column 1 | Column 2 |
|---|---|
| Time | Lux |
| ~0 sec | 696 |
| 30 sec | 519 |
| 1 min | 400 |
| 2 min | 388 |
| 3 min | 385 |
| 4 min | 385 |
| 5 min | 385 |
| 6 min | 385 |
| 7 min | 372 |
| 8 min | 372 |
| 9 min | 372 |
| 10 min | 360 |
| Restart after 10 mins | ~595 |
The output starts dropping instantly after you select max mode. After the 10 minute test the head was warm but not at all hot, it appears to have a very aggressive temperature regulation or a built in brightness reduction timer.
So after 1 minute the light has effectively reached its steady output which is about 50% of its starting output.
So in conclusion, this is a very small light with impressive brightness for its size and with a rotating head. Its claim to fame is its small size.