I love Nitecore products and have a few headtorches from them. (The Nitecore HC65 is still my favourite headtorch) So I bought this light on it’s release but alas I was careless and lost it in the forest the very first time I took it out the house, disaster!

You can imagine my surprise and delight when I was lucky enough to win another one via a giveaway by the fantastically generous guys over at the Nitecore Flashlights page on Facebook!!

Speaking of which, the cell has it’s own USB C charging port built in which you can charge with the supplied cable. I’m not convinced it’s actually charging any quicker than a Micro USB but at least there’s no more multiple attempts to plug in the USB cable the wrong way! it has a red light while charging and a green light once charged up. You can also see that, being a protected cell with a built in charging circuit, it’s quite a bit taller compared to an unprotected Samsung 40T or a 26650 sized cell and as a result you’d struggle to get it in a standard charger for conventional charging methods. When you put the cell in and screw up the tailcap the button will flash out the voltage.

There’s been a bit of a hoo-hah around the unconventional UI on this flashlight so I thought I’d try and explain it a bit clearer for those that don’t know.

From off:
• Single click – battery check (button flashes a rough percentage, 3 flashes you’re fine, 2 flashes you’re below 50%, 1 flash find a charger!)
• Click & hold – last memory position (keep holding to cycle through the levels)
• Double click – ultra low (2 lumen)
• Triple click – Turbo (or strobe if you go for the alternative mode)

From on:
• Press and hold for Turbo, letting go returns back to last position.
• Triple click to access strobe then long press from strobe to access SOS & Beacon modes

To change the brightness level from on you need to first click once to turn it off then press and hold to turn it back on and cycle through the levels. That’s it in a nutshell.

Now that’s out the way how does it perform?

well the beam is a neutral white with a large soft centre spot, there’s some tint shift going on between the centre and corona, seen clearly on a white wall you see the pattern you get from a quad led setup but it’s not too bad outside and gives you plenty of light for your needs, did I mention press to hold from any level for momentary blindingly bright Turbo?

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Final Thoughts:

There’s a lot to like about this EDC, it looks great and feels comfortable in the hand, As a brand I’ve never had any issues with Nitecore product quality and the 5 year warranty is a nice bonus although I’ve never had to use it. The 4400 lumens on Turbo is insane for something this small and naturally that means it gets really hot really fast!!
Having quick access to both Ultra Low and Turbo is brilliant and once you get used to the UI you can make it work for you. I have the memory mode set to Mid (320lm) so I basically have 3 easily accessible levels from off. Double click for ultra low, long press for Mid or Triple press for Turbo. That works for me.

Things I like:
• Build quality is impeccable, not one single flaw in the construction anywhere.
• Quick access to Turbo (which is Insanely bright for something this size)
• Easy access to ultra low mode
• Comfortable in the hand. Really good length and thickness for a pocketable EDC

Things I don’t like:
• The UI! Sorry Nitecore but the power level cycling is just too slow…
• The odd decision where you need to turn your light off and on again to cycle through the brightness levels baffles me. (I got used to it but it’s not intuitive and there’s a second of darkness while it decides to cycle (See below)
• The 1 second delay between levels when cycling is way, way, way too long. It’s a near torturous 6 seconds to go from off through Ultra Low to Turbo!

Torched Rating: 🔥🔥🔥

I really wanted to give it 5 out of 5 but the horrible UI frustrates me, a self confessed flashaholic, never mind your average consumer. you can get used to it but it should be intuitively easy enough to use without having to !!