These are my comments from yesterday, in another thread, after have the light for less than an hour.
OK, so my (4) units arrived from BrightGuy today. I have a partial shipment on the way from Fenix-Store. I have a random unit on the meter now for about 15-minutes and I believe I can draw these very very early conclusions.
-- The E01 has better regulation, a more flatter curve, if a curve at all.
-- The E01 is dimmer, whereas it's initial reading is 2500 vs. 3570 of the Arc. I'm only 30-minutes into the test.
Some personal comments:
-- Fit and finish is fine. I wish the Olive color was darker.
-- The LED (and this is my biggest complaint) is set too deep into the reflector.
-- Because of the deep-set LED, side spill is pretty useless in what I look for in this type of light.
Some of my opinions may change as I play and learn more about the light. It's still daylight, so I can't do any "real" outside/real use stuff yet. Keep in mind that I have not even had these an hour yet.
Edit #1: Overnight, I put one of the E01's on the meter and here are the results compared to one of my better Arc-P DS lights.
Edit #2: This shows only the runtime period between hours 5 and 12, in an attempt to see the amount of dim light (moon mode) after the regulation drops-out on each light. It's pretty obvious that Arc has a much better moon mode, at the Scarface of normal regulated runtime.
Edit #3: What can be said about this. Brightness doesn't change on the L92, but runtime sure the hell does. Note this is an 18-hour graph. I don't recall ever plotting a light out that long on it's primary (in this case its only) brightness level. It's tough to see, but it drops out of regulation at ~825 minutes. That's 13.75-hours folks.
Edit #4: If I had any doubts at all that the Fenix E01 was going replace my Arc-DS as an EDC, those doubts have just been put to rest. This finding is simply amazing as far as I'm concerned. One of things that I always liked about the Arc is the ability to fire on a very low cell. I've seen the Arc fire on cells that were in the .7/.8 volt range. I always considered this to be a big deal for me, especially since the Arc is many times the only light I have on my possession. I just happened to do a test with a cell that metered at .41-volts standing voltage. I tried it in every Arc that I own and as expected didn't fire. I then took this same cell and put it in the E01 that I've been testing the light fired. I was simply blown-away by this. I metered the cell again and it should the same .41-volts. I then tried it in the other (3) E01's that I have and it fire in every one. You've got to be freakin' kidding me. Way to go on that circuit Fenix.
Edit #5: Here's the comparitive testing of my 1st 2-units. Nothing really of a surprise here. I've never seen (2) of the same type lights produce the exact same readings. What's important here is that even though the 2nd unit it dimmer (not enough to be noticeable to the eye), it's runs longer in regulation. That's what you want to see. If it were dimmer and ran shorter, that would be a problem.
Edit #6: I wanted to wait until the testing of my last unit of my current supply of E01's were completed, however that's still a couple days away, so I wanted to get this posted now. This chart shows the differences between units. There are (3) units which have been tested. Unit #4 is on the meter ow. Not that it matters but (2) of the (3) are black. The 3rd unit is olive and the 4th unit (currently being tested) is also olive. I have 2-more coming from the Fenix-Store whenever they have more stock. Each of these lights were metered with the Duracell alkaline and Energizer E2 (L92) lithium cells. It's pretty ironic that the 1st unit tested appears to be the one with the highest output so far. I color-coded the legend is such a way, that same color represents a particular unit. I think it makes it easier to read the graph. In all cases the L92 outperforms the alkaline.
Edit #7: Here's the completed chart that adds the last E01 that I have in my possession. I just received a shipping notice that my last (2) units are on the way to me. I guess since I've tested all of these, that I'll go all the way and test these other (2) units when then arrive. Although there's a bit of a swing between these (4) units that I've tested so far, I wouldn't say that I've seen anything that really surprises me. Those units that are a bit brighter than the others don't run as long and those dimmer units do run longer than the brighter ones.
Edit #8: This shows the head-to-head comparision of the Fenix E01 (GS) with the latest version of the Arc-AAA (GS). I have the 2nd Arc unit on the meter as we speak.
Edit #9: Here's the chart with the 2nd Arc-AAA (GS) added.
Edit #10: This last chart shows all the E01's that I own of the Black and Olive variety. Just today, my (6) new colored (2-of each) arrived. This chart plots each and every of my black and olive versions. It's pretty interesting to see the various range of output. It you throw out the high and low performers, all things seem to appear pretty equal.
Edit #11: Now that the runtime tests of all my Black and Olive E01's have been completed, I've started on the colored ones I received the other day. This chart shows one of my gold units on a Duracell alkaline. The L92 test is still running, but I was so interested in this particular result, I had to post it now.
Take note of the very well defined "moon-mode" of this light. In all my prior testing of the other E01's, not one of them has shown this level of moon-mode. For the most part, the others show a rapid drop in output. I'm not sure if this is a fluke or if something changed on the colored versions. To keep the clutter down a bit, I only left the brightest and dimmest E01 on the graph to compare with this gold unit.
