Today I have a new Quad LED light from Nitecore with the P20iX that produces up to 4000 lumens on a 21700 battery and it features onboard USB-C charging with Tactical and Daily modes. Thanks to Nitecore Store for sending this to me to look at and review.
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Packaging & Accessories
Packaging is a step up, with a nice high quality box full of information. Inside the light is packed in foam with all the accessories underneath. It reminds me a bit of how Olight does theirs. Accessories include a branded lanyard, Extra Oring, USB-A to C Charging cable, Pocket clip, CR123A battery adapter, hard plastic belt holster and a Nitecore specific 5000mAh 21700 battery.
Construction
Machining on the aluminum light is good here, and the anodizing is high quality. The tail cap has a large off center mechanical on/off button that’s covered with a textured silicone boot. It stands proud making the light unable to tail stand. Your mode switch is a flat, textured area. This is flush, but protected by the outer rim of the tail cap. For me this was harder to find in the dark and hard to actuate with gloves on.
The body has some tame knurling on it, the pocket clip attaches near basically the middle of the light in either direction. The head does not separate from the body. On the head you have a large antiroll ring to keep the light in place on it’s side. You do have a blue LED that’s built into the side of the light that’s used as a charging indicator, similar to the MH11 I reviewed earlier this year. The charging port has a large silicone cover and it fits tightly.
At the front the light has a short bezel that doesn’t stand out from the lens very far, it has 3 protruding areas each with a small ceramic balls in them, I presume for striking glass that law enforcement may use. I believe the bezel is a little different material due to it’s slightly different finish. The lens is glass, and underneath there is a custom quad silver reflective optic for the 4 leds.
Size & Weight
I measured the length of the light at 140mm. Minimum width on the body at 25.4mm, maximum diameter on the head at 32mm. Weight with the included battery in the light and no other accessories is 191.7g. The light is IPX68 water rated and drop rated to 2M.
Retention
The P20iX has a couple of retention options that come in the package. First is the lanyard which is primarily slip fit over the light or attached to the clip. The clip which is a press fit is fit down pretty low, which leaves a lot of the tail or the head of the light sticking up out of the pocket. This is disappointing to me personally. That said the plastic belt holster that the light comes with does a pretty good job if you want to carry the light on your belt or on a mole vest. The light clips in with the front bezel facing down.
LED & Beam
THe light has 4 Cree XP-L2 V6 Led’s in cool white with a maximum output of 4000 lumens. The tint here is cool white, likely around 6000k or a bit higher. The beam is somewhat compromised in this quad. The hot spot is pretty round but it’s not a smooth transition in the spill and you do get some Cree Rainbow. The very outer edges are a bit rough. That said it’s hard to nice in real world use at distance.
Heat and Runtime
For my Heat and runtime I ran the light with the included 21700 battery. The light will run on 2x CR123 batteries in the included adapter if you wish but you generally get less output and for a shorter time. With the 21700 on turbo the light lasted only 30 second before step down. This was disappointing especially since the heat during this time at least measured externally didn’t amount to much. Step Down was pretty significant as you can see from the graph. As the light continued to run heat pretty quickly increased though up to about 55C, at about 21 minutes. Thermals eventually regulated at about 25C for the duration of the runtime. The light went into it’s lowest mode after about 3 hours of runtime where it continued for another 2hr and 20 minutes for a total runtime of 5:20:00.
I did another runtime graph with comparing runtimes of the 4 highest output modes, Turbo, Highest, High and Medium. The 3 highest don’t have a ton of overall impact on output. Medium ran for considerably longer, a solid 8 hours without stepdown.
UI
The P20iX has 2 modes, a Daily mode which it ships in with 5 individual modes, and then a Tactical mode with 4 individual modes. To switch between them, you turn the light on, press and hold the mode button on the tail and unscrew the light. It will flash Once for Daily, or twice for tactical and then you screw the light back together for it to be remembered.
Daily mode is where I am using the light most. In this mode the light starts in the lowest output and goes up with each press of the mode button. It has memory so you can shut the light off and when it comes back on it will be in the previously used mode. This mode has outputs of 2,50,300,850,1700 lumens, and then to get turbo (4000 lumens) you hold the mode button in and it works in a momentary manner. Double click this mode button to go to strobe in momentary.
Tactical mode is similar but it goes from highest output including turbo down, and only has the 4 brightest modes.
Recharging
The light features a USB-C port on the side covered by a tightly fitting silicone rubber cover. I used the included 5000mAh 21700 battery to run my charging tests and found total charge time took 3hr and 54 min. Max charge rate I saw was 2A. The light will charge via USB-C PD without issue. While charging the battery in the light, it’s not possible to use the light at the same time. The LED on the side will blink when charging and go solid when charged. When a battery is inserted it will also blink the voltage.
The included battery looks to be custom with a negative terminal on the positive end. It’s a long protected battery with a shallow button top. It fits in my Vapcell S4 Plus charger and works just fine there. Due to that length I wasn’t able to find another battery I had that fit this light
Conclusion
This is a pretty nice high power flashlight from Nitecore. I like that it has a pretty practical daily mode, and that it’s not all tactical. It’s an interesting choice to have Turbo be only in momentary in daily too. I do wish Turbo had more runtime before step down though.
The clip on belt attachment here works well, and I suspect that or in a bag is how most would carry this light. For me the pocket clip is super impractical due to it being so far down the light, and that’s a disappointment.
I wish the battery was more universal, but this semi proprietary format with the protected batteries and positive and negative terminals on on side of the light seems to be the way most manufactures are going with their 21700 light that have onboard charging. It’s a disappointing industry trend in many enthusiasts minds. To be clear this is an industry thing, not just Nitecore.
Overall this is a solid light for general purpose and has some nice tactical features without being 100% tactical. I can see this being a good option for many if you don’t mind the cool white LED’s or short turbo runtime.