Tag: Cree Flashlight

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Nitecore P20iX Review (4000 Lumens, 4 LED, 21700, USB-C)

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. 

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Nitecore MH11 Review (Most Inexpensive 1000 Lumen light from Nitecore)

Today I am taking a look at a preproduction sample of the Nitecore MH11. This is the basic, budget model for Nitecore in their MH series, and they advertise it as the least expensive 1000 lumen Nitecore model available today. That said it still comes with an 18650 battery and has onboard USB-C charging or it can be ran with 2x CR123 or 2X 16340. Thanks to Nitecore for sending this to me to take a look at along with this Nitecore Tiki in blue. I previously reviewed the green glow in the dark models so ill include a link to that below. 

 

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Packaging & Accessories

The light I received didn’t come in a box, since it wasn’t printed yet, but I will include a picture of what it looks like. My light came with a USB A to C cable, 2 extra orings, hand lanyard and a pocket clip. I believe the retail light will also come with a basic holster. 

 

Construction

The MH11 is made from aluminum and anodized in a hard black finish. It appears to be the same finish as the MH12S I reviewed recently. The overall design is simpler than recent Nitecores, a cost cutting measure I would assume to make machining time quicker. At the tail cap you have a single large mechanical on off button on the tail that servers as the on/off switch and mode button. It’s flanked by wings that can protect it but also server as attachment points for the lanyard. It does tail stand either when on or off but isn’t the most stable.

 

Inside there is a dual spring in the tail cap, and threads are anodized, and ACME cut. The clip only attaches at the rear of the light. Knurling on the body is pretty standard diamond shaped, fairly knocked down, so the light isn’t super grippy. It does have 2 flats milled on the sides with the branding and model number laser engraved. 

On my sample the flats don’t line up with the head, but then again the head doesn’t have any buttons on it so is there really a top or bottom? The light does disassemble into 3 pieces. The head itself has a very simple heat diffuser at the front thats shallow. The USB charging port cover runs horizontally across the light. It’s well concealed and didn’t pop loose easily. The front has a crenulated bezel thats shallow. It has a glass lens with a smooth and deep reflector. 

 

Retention

The light comes with a branded lanyard that seems to be standard on most Nitecore lights. It also comes with a pocket clip that attaches at the rear of the light only. It’s reasonably deep carry with about 13.5mm of the light sticking out of pocket. The bad news it has a very large step off the body of the light without a ramp. It will catch a pocket every single time and requires 2 hands to put back in. Not a great design in my opinion.. 

 

Size & Weight

The length is 128mm, max diameter is 24mm, minimum diameter is 22.5mm. Weight with the battery and clip is 110.8g. The light is IPX68 waterproof, and water resistant to 1 meter. Here it is when compared with a few other lights. 

 

LED & Beam

The NItecore MH11 is running a Cree XP-L2 V6 LED in cool white, no exact tint data is given but it’s pretty typical. The beam does have tint shift across it and it’s not a super smooth beam. The center is hot and intense, with a bit of yellow/green as you move into the spill, and some blue on the outer fringes. 

 

Official Outputs are the following. There is quite a jump between high and turbo.

    • Turbo 1000 Lumens
    • High 230 Lumens
    • Mid 50 Lumens
    • Low 3 Lumens

 

My scope didn’t measure any PWM here which was a bit surprising. 

 

Heat & Runtime

I did my testing with the included 2600mAh 18650 battery. The light will also run on 2x CR123a or 2x 16340’s but you loose the ability to recharge the smaller batteries. With the 18650 Turbo is good for 4:20 before the light steps down. It will then run for 1:48:00 at about the 50% relative output. At the 2 hour mark it’s running on it’s low mode of 3 lumens for another 3:10:00 before LVP kicks in at 2.907v. Max temp I saw was 46C at 3:45.

I do wish they would have included a larger capacity battery. 2600mAh is pretty low capacity and larger capacity batteries are minimal additional cost.

UI

The UI here is very simple, the light has one button and it serves as your on/off as well as mode button. It’s a mechanical button that takes a decent amount of force to use. The light has memory that remembers where you left off, so it’s possible to turn it on in turbo if that’s what you last used. It’s a simple 4 mode light and it goes from lowest to highest output and restarts at the top. You can half press the mode button to cycle between modes once the light is on. There are not shortcuts or blinking modes. 

 

Recharging

You can recharge this light via the onboard USB-C if your using the included 18650 battery. The battery itself is a standard button top cell, so other brands will work here, nothing is proprietary. Charging does work via USB-C to C which is nice to see on a budget light. Charging here is a little strange, with it not being a constant current charging algorithm like we see in most other things. Periodically the charging rate here drops to zero every few seconds. My charging graph shows this but it’s not complete since as the cell charges it tirkcs my charger. Real charging time is closer to 3.25 hour. Max charging speed I saw was about 1.2A at the beginning of the charge. The battery measured 4.102v when full.

You do have an LED on the side of the head of the light that glows blue when charging and slowly fades in and out. When the light is full this goes solid. This same side LED acts as a low voltage warning and comes on when the light is needing recharged.

 

Pro’s

  • No proprietary battery
  • Can take CR123a, as well as 16340 batteries.
  • Simple interface, for a basic light.

 

Con’s

  •  Beam has some artifacts.
  • 2600mAh battery is included.
  • Pocket clip has way to large of step, it catches pants every time. 

 

Conclusion

The MH11 is an interesting offering from Nitecore. As a light it’s basic but does everything most people need from a flashlight. The build quality is still good, but it does feel like a more basic design and the anodizing feels the same as Nitecores more premium models. The UI is basic, but functional. While I appreciate the use of USB-C for charging and it’s C to C compatible.

While I don’t always comment on price I kind of have to here, given how this light is being marketed. The MH11 is more affordable than many Nitecore models for it’s output, it’s still more expensive than other well regarded brands that I have reviewed here that offer budget lights. 

It’s hard for me to recommend it for that reason if budget is one of your top priorities. That said if you were looking for a solid, basic light, from a company that’s been in the LED flashlight industry since the beginning this would be a decent place to start. It also has a very simple interface that anyone could understand which is a big selling point sometimes.