pocket light – LiquidRetro.Net's Reviews

In this review I am looking at the Acebeam Ryder RX, a 14500 or AA sized EDC light, with a neutral white, high CRI with a feature you don’t see on many flashlights, a built-in bolt action fidget toy. Now I had a fidget spinner back in the day but used it for about 10 minutes before it founds it’s way to my drawer to collect dust. Acebeam did send this to me to take a look at and for that I am thankful.

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Pickup the Acebeam Ryder RX on Amazon (10% off coupon on the listing page)

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Sophisto Grey – https://amzn.to/3uZ8gWM

Rainbow – https://amzn.to/3MjKA58

Blue – https://amzn.to/3rDVISq

Titanium – https://amzn.to/3vyYJVk

Other Acebeam models on sale

L17 White (20% off) – https://amzn.to/3OpHWN9

TK17 (25% off) – https://amzn.to/3OoL1No

Packaging & Accessories

The packaging here is a small color print white box, with a slide-out plastic tray holding the light and the accessories. The light comes with lots of accessories, 4 extra O-rings, a wrist strap that’s branded, a short USB-A to C charging cable, a 920mAh Button top Protected Acebeam 14500 battery with onboard USB-C charging, and a user manual.

Construction and Design

The Ryder RX comes in many different cosmetic finishes (Polished Stainless, Sophisto Grey, Rainbow PVD, Blue) and a growing number of materials (Stainless Steel, Titanium) for the outer shell, with 4041 Stainless steel, with a blue aluminum inner part. A titanium model is also available for a small upcharge. It’s a robust design and I think it will be very durable, thanks in part due to that one piece thick stainless steel outer casing. The design of the body here reminds me of the Acebeam E70 with the inner and outer tube design and the cuts made to show it.

Let’s talk about the fidget factor here, the pocket clip is attached to the inner blue aluminum tube, An L slot is cut into the outer tube, and there are detent balls installed that give a very positive sensation and nice mechanical click when you actuate the clip side to side or down. It’s fun, but kind of loud, this isn’t something you could do in a meeting or while on a Zoom call.

When in the down position it exposes the flashlight head, allowing you to unscrew the tip of the head to access the battery for recharging, etc. Doing this does hide the button at the top which is how you turn the light on and off though. The front bezel stands proud slightly of the AR coated lens which is in front of the small smooth reflector.

For me the Fidget factor is fun but almost requires 2 hands at times to really get good use out of it, for my medium-sized hands and to slight the light into the down position. Side to side is easier to actuate, and you can see they even thought ahead and put an area in the tube to relieve the clip, to prevent it from scratching through lots of fidget use. One thing to note is that to actuate the light you want it in the up, and left position, when it’s in the up and right position I find there isn’t quite enough resistance to make pressing the tail button easy.

Retention

The Ryder RX has a stainless steel dual-direction clip, similar to the Acebeam P15, here though it’s optimized for EDC use instead of a weapon mount. The clip stands out from the body here more than most normal flashlights but it ends up working well. Retention on the pants is above average and despite the clip being a little larger than normal I had no issues with it snagging on things like a seat belt during the week+ I exclusively carried it. There is a lanyard hole at the top of the clip where you can attach it if you wish.

Size & Weight

I measured the length of the light in the retracted position as 96mm, and 103.4mm in the extended position. The diameter is 18.6mm excluding the clip. Weight with the included 14500 battery was 82.3g. The light is IP68 water-rated to 2 meters submerged. Here are a few photos with similar-sized 14500 lights, like the Reylight Lan and Pineapples.

LED & Beam

The Ryder RX is using a Nichia 219F a new LED from Nichia and this is my first time seeing it, Acebeam says this is at 5000k and High CRI. My Opple Light Meter Pro I measured the tint at 4981k and a 96 CRI. The beam doesn’t have any tint shift across the beam, although the medium-sized hot center isn’t perfectly round. I would be interested to see what this light would be like with a TIR optic since I tend to really like those on EDC style lights like this, but the lens here works pretty well. I also think the new Nichia 519a would really shine in a package like this and likely put out a little more output. There is PWM here according to my meter but it’s pretty fast.

Output tested at 30 seconds using a “Calibrated DIY PVC Lumen Tube”.

Acebeam Ryder RX	Claimed Lumens	As Tested Lumens
14500 High	650	473
14500 Medium 2	280	221
NiMH High	200	135

Heat & Runtime

For my runtime graphs I used my “Calibrated DIY PVC Lumen Tube” and the included 14500 battery the light came with. On high we can see the major step downs at 2 minutes going from around 480 lumens to 350 lumens for about 6 minutes, and then for an additional hour slowly decreasing from about 250 lumens down to zero. The heat peaked at 9 minutes at about 55C.

I also compared High to Medium modes, we can see medium was very steady for the full 1:22:00 runtime all covering between 220-100 lumens.

I also did a heat and runtime test with an Ikea LADDA 2450 NiMH battery since this is a dual fuel light, This provided the longest overall runtime of 3:06:00 but also the least amount of light with the bulk of that runtime being around 50 lumens.

The UI for the Acebeam Ryder RX is simple with no programmable options. The light has 4 modes plus SOS and has memory mode. It has a forward clicky button that means a half-press gets the light to turn on or to change modes before you do a full press to lock the light on. This means you can get it to come on in a momentary mode silently.

The light will come on in the last mode used as long as it’s not SOS and progresses through the 4 modes in a linear fashion. Getting to SOS it’s a little different. You have to do a full cycle through the 4 main modes twice fairly quickly, and then the light will start blinking.

Recharging

To recharge the light, you need to remove the battery from the light by putting it in an extended position, unscrewing the head, and sliding the cell out. From here you can put it in an external charger, or use the onboard USB-C port on the battery to recharge. When charging there is a Red LED on the positive end that’s red when charging, and green when charged.

Charging the included 920mAh 14500 battery the light came with took 2:42:00 with a maximum charge rate of 0.45A. A pretty conservative charge rate of ½ C with most of this time being in the constant current phase of charging. When fully charged the battery measured 4.149V, and the cells LVP kicked in at 2.874V. NiMH LVP was 1.082V

You can use another button top 14500 batteries in this light, but Flattops, don’t make contact. It’s also worth noting that the head itself doesn’t have LVP because this light is capable of running lower voltage NiMh or Alkaline batteries too. So worth mentioning so you don’t damage your 14500s by running them to exhaustion, and on that note, the light can’t charge NiMH cells.

Final Thoughts

The Acebeam Ryder RX really ticks a lot of boxes for me on an EDC light. If you follow me on Instagram and see the pocket dumps I post from time to time, you will know I like the 14500 sized lights for front pocket carry, and the Ryder RX is just in that sweet spot in terms of size and output in my opinion.

I thought the pocket clip here was going to be too bulky but after carrying it, I have decided it works extremely well, is a nice tight fit on my pants and adaptable to many different thicknesses of materials. That dual-direction clip also means you can use it as a make shift headlamp on a hat if you want too.

Best of all might be the LED choice here, Neutral white and High CRI! It’s like someone was finally listening to many enthusiasts who were tired of all the cool white and low CRI lights from major manufacturers.

Overall as an EDC light I really like the Ryder RX. While I won’t use the fidget factor of it often, it’s kind of a neat bonus and has created something different which is nice to see too. Pricing here is at the time of the review seems pretty fair too for the quality your getting here, and to upgrade into the titanium light is only $10 more, so a bargain if you are a Titanium junkie. So on that note, I can recommend the Acebeam Ryder RX as a solid buy in my opinion.