Olight S1 Mini Baton (Post #1 is now updated as review)

[Enderman]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

That machining on the body tube looks great, very nice alternative to the standard knurling you see everywhere.

 

[maukka]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Available now olightstore.com (non-tracking link)

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

There are maybe two dozen potential customers in the flashlight market who care about white wall tints. Everyone else will either choose NW or CW and be happy. White wall tint tests don't exactly match use on multi colored objects. I don't know what the new NW will be like but my s mini is extremely good, forget the tint test on white walls and graphs, I'm talking actual use on multi color settings inside the light beam. The fact people are passing judgement on text in advertisements and speculated graphs is just preconceived reasons to justify not liking something because they just don't want to like it. Who will like it are those looking for a decent run time great useful beam of light with a good tint in either choice in a small easy to carry package. Being made from recycled beer cans will keep cost down from the exotic material SMini models, extra bonus.

Their lights are great quality for the price compared to other brands and thats what looks like what is going on to me. It'll potentially be better than a different choice someone made so they bad mouth it without ever using one or by parroting what they read someone say about actual use. Nothing anyone says will remove the S1R or S Mini from my pocket. I also won't try to convince anyone what they have needs to be replaced with my choice. I like an easy UI and useable lumens with great run times on full (not progressively fading) brightness lights. Olight makes them so I use them. So will many others. Hardly anyone gets caught up in the lumen race or whitewall tint or graph comparisons. That kind of stuff don't help when the lights go out or you drop something in complete darkness and you need to find it.

"Oh man, someone on CPF posted a chart online, I will never find my keys now that I just dropped, maybe I'll do a whitewall tint test to make sure" isn't what someone thinks when they drop keys in tall grass in total darkness. Or need to shoot a raccoon that's raiding a pole barn in the middle of the night so they can shoot it.

Whoa easy there champ, I think you may need to take a chill pill :grouphug:. I didn't say anything about tint nor white walls. I was talking about CCT. And, no one will choose NW as their is no NW option, they are both CW.

It's nice that all you care about is having light but, you have to understand that is not the case with everyone. That is why light companies like Olight are offering more then one option. Unfortunately, with this light though, there is no neutral white option which many people prefer.

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Available now olightstore.com (non-tracking link)

Why are they saying the High CRI version is neutral white on their store? Did they change the emitter to a different CCT for the production version? 5500K is definitely cool white. Cree even lists it as cool white on the actual XP-G3 product page. If they didn't change it to a warmer emitter that is false advertising.

 

[Boris74]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Whoa easy there champ, I think you may need to take a chill pill :grouphug:. I didn't say anything about tint nor white walls. I was talking about CCT. And, no one will choose NW as their is no NW option, they are both CW.

It's nice that all you care about is having light but, you have to understand that is not the case with everyone. That is why light companies like Olight are offering more then one option. Unfortunately, with this light though, there is no neutral white option which many people prefer.

I prefer NW too and I can easily say their NW Mini I have is great. Maybe they are trying to get away from conventional NW and I can understand why. The light I own with the perfect tint is a streamlight 1L-1AA and if you whitewall it next to the mini NW it looks cool, and if I whitewall it next to the S1R it looks an obvious neutral. It's perfect right in between but it throws too much for honest up close work. Too tight of a beam. If they get close to the 1L-1AA tint in their NW, which it solidly sounds like, you'll notice an obvious difference from the CW version with a far better useable tint.

It wont be tech guy neutral but it will be user guy neutral and it's obvious they're catering to user vs graph reader white wall tint tester users.

I am chill as can be. It's kinda funny to see people getting all up in arms over text in advertisements and speculated graphs and speculated white wall tint tests.

What I'd love to see is the tint compared to a 1L-1AA. the clip is nice, if the tint matches the protac along with that clip and the addition of a magnet might just make me get one someday. It's like they literally listened to what users actually wanted in a small easily carried light.

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

I prefer NW too and I can easily say their NW Mini I have is great. Maybe they are trying to get away from conventional NW and I can understand why. The light I own with the perfect tint is a streamlight 1L-1AA and if you whitewall it next to the mini NW it looks cool, and if I whitewall it next to the S1R it looks an obvious neutral. It's perfect right in between but it throws too much for honest up close work. Too tight of a beam. If they get close to the 1L-1AA tint in their NW, which it solidly sounds like, you'll notice an obvious difference from the CW version with a far better useable tint.

It wont be tech guy neutral but it will be user guy neutral and it's obvious they're catering to user vs graph reader white wall tint tester users.

I am chill as can be. It's kinda funny to see people getting all up in arms over text in advertisements and speculated graphs and speculated white wall tint tests.

What I'd love to see is the tint compared to a 1L-1AA. the clip is nice, if the tint matches the protac along with that clip and the addition of a magnet might just make me get one someday. It's like they literally listened to what users actually wanted in a small easily carried light.

Tint and CCT are different things Boris. Neutral white is a range of CCT's that Cree defines as 3700-5000K(for the XP-G3 used in this model). Tint is the colour of the light and although it varies with CCT, it can also vary without a change in CCT(two lights with the exact same CCT can have totally different tints). I suspect Olight just chose these 5500K cool white emitters because that was the easiest high CRI ones for them to get at the time.

Olight specifically made this high CRI version for their enthusiast fans. So, that is who they are catering to.

I think some people are just upset at the lack of a neutral white option with this light. And, all the information about the emitters they are using in these lights is available in Cree's spec sheets. One can make a pretty educated guess about things like the tint range by using these sheets.

 

[maukka]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

It has been discounted even more down to $40 at least for now.

 

[Boris74]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Tint and CCT are different things Boris. Neutral white is a range of CCT's that Cree defines as 3700-5000K(for the XP-G3 used in this model). Tint is the colour of the light and although it varies with CCT, it can also vary without a change in CCT(two lights with the exact same CCT can have totally different tints). I suspect Olight just chose these 5500K cool white emitters because that was the easiest high CRI ones for them to get at the time.

Olight specifically made this high CRI version for their enthusiast fans. So, that is who they are catering to.

I think some people are just upset at the lack of a neutral white option with this light. And, all the information about the emitters they are using in these lights is available in Cree's spec sheets. One can make a pretty educated guess about things like the tint range by using these sheets.

I agree. I'd have to look, I don't know or care what LED is in my NW s mini Ti. I do know it's very good when I use it. Same with the NW H1R. I also know they're way different from their CW in my S1R. Just looked it up. XM-L2 for both CW and NW. huge difference in actual light emitted. I'm going to gather olight knows more about lights and LEDs than everyone here combined. Same LED with extremely different tints.

Only reason anyone will not like the NW tint on it is because they got so worked up talking or reading about it online they'll actually think they don't like it. Anyone looking for NW and never read the online banter won't know they've been scammed so horribly. They're just going to enjoy a nice useable neutral tint is all.

 

[Skaaphaas]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

I'm getting one! Already emailed my pusher....uhm preferred supplier to speak to the importer.

 

[jon_slider]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

It has been discounted even more down to $40 at least for now.

thanks for all the info, I got these images from your link.. clearly the High CRI is warmer than the Cool White
I look forward to your excellent CCT and CRI tests

for those curious about the NW and Cool White Low CRI LEDs in the Cu and Ti Smini, click pic for maukka's review:

smini Ti, note the negative R9 red bar:

 

[Tixx]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

After reading, going to hold off on this one for now since I'm only interested in NW.

 

[jon_slider]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

After reading, going to hold off on this one for now since I'm only interested in NW.

The high CRI photo, and labeling looks plenty neutral to me.

I am only interested in high CRI, and I like small lights.
This new aluminum smini is the first High CRI offering that I have seen from them.

The LED is a bit more yellow/green than I like, but I have discovered that Lee filters minus green gel's can work very well to correct that

The titanium smini got my attention thanks to its neutral white color temperature, but the low CRI kept me from clicking buy it now.

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

The high CRI photo, and labeling looks plenty neutral to me.

I am only interested in high CRI, and I like small lights.
This new aluminum smini is the first High CRI offering that I have seen from them.

The LED is a bit more yellow/green than I like, but I have discovered that Lee filters minus green gel's can work very well to correct that

The titanium smini got my attention thanks to its neutral white color temperature, but the low CRI kept me from clicking buy it now.

Those photos are just the same copy and pastes Olight uses for all models. They should not be used to identify what the CCT or tint will look like for this light. The high CRI version of this light uses a 5500K nominal emitter so it will likely range from about 5300-5700K depending on the particular sample. That is cool white and will likely look closer to the cool white picture depicted.

 

[jon_slider]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Those photos are just the same copy and pastes Olight uses for all models.

darn
thanks for pointing that out
ok, no click buy it now
wait for maukka to confirm CRI and CCT

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

darn
thanks for pointing that out
ok, no click buy it now
wait for maukka to confirm CRI and CCT

No problem. Also, keep in mind this light will likely still have PWM on the moonlight mode like the special edition Smini's. Like you said, we will know all the details when maukka hopefully does one of his great reviews.

 

[rookiedaddy]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

...
I'm going to gather olight knows more about lights and LEDs than everyone here combined. ...

haha... you are joking right? :laughing:
I like their choice of NW XM-L2 used in the H1R too. :kiss:
anyway, I think maukka and I was confuse about their choice of words... and fwiw, yours truly did feedback to them when doing a proof read of their draft. hehe...

we were teasing the Olight representatives that Olight is so behind others in terms of quality of light, that their engineer don't believe in HiCRI but simply big lumens number, but apparently, they have been getting feedback from their distributors about High-CRI emitters... and POOFFFFF! a few months later a tweety bird was singing a secret message that they are cooking a high CRI light in their pot! Although I too was hoping they would go the Nichia route.

I pre-ordered mine last week with local distributor, now awaiting for their shipment to arrive. Olight said they are sending review samples over too... so we will see... and I'm eagerly waiting for maukka to get his hands on these to do his magic measurements. I'm really hoping I'll like their HCRI version tho... so I can start stocking up for gifts...

 

[Boris74]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

haha... you are joking right? :laughing:
I like their choice of NW XM-L2 used in the H1R too. :kiss:

No jokes. If they are saying they listened to feed back then they're saying they listened to the most voiced feed back. Would you as a head of R&D looking for job security listen to the masses, or a couple dozen white wall and graph testers. It's pretty safe to say more wanted what they put to market than the 0.00003% are voicing here. Just pointing out the obvious.

 

[rookiedaddy]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

LOL! I wasn't referring to that... but hey no worries... as long as at the end of the day we get to enjoy our light/passion... now I just envy you guys in the US of A gets that super deal off the RRP. Gggrrr.... :mecry:

 

[Tachead]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

No jokes. If they are saying they listened to feed back then they're saying they listened to the most voiced feed back. Would you as a head of R&D looking for job security listen to the masses, or a couple dozen white wall and graph testers. It's pretty safe to say more wanted what they put to market than the 0.00003% are voicing here. Just pointing out the obvious.

Boris, I'm not sure you understand. I'm pretty sure it was the "white wall and graph testers" who asked for a high CRI model in the first place. Most normal users don't even know what CRI is and just want light that makes light like yourself. Two of the main people feeding us information in this thread (maukka and the OP rookie daddy)that are in contact with Olight(that's where they are getting this early information) are in fact "white wall and graph testers" as well so we wouldn't have even known about this light as early as we did without them. We also wouldn't be getting all the added information(thanks guys:thumbsup. Also, judging by what other brands offer, there are very few people that want a CW high CRI light. Most want a neutral or warm white high CRI model and I believe that is why we see so much criticism in this thread.

Like I said earlier, I would bet they only are using 5500K XP-G3's because that was the easiest, cheapest, or all they could get in numbers at the time. Also, I bet they didn't go with a Nichia, even if they could get them, because that would require them to source or custom order a different optic as the current one is not compatible with Nichia's.

 

[Boris74]

Re: Olight S1 Mini Baton

Boris, I'm not sure you understand. I'm pretty sure it was the "white wall and graph testers" who asked for a high CRI model in the first place. Most normal users don't even know what CRI is and just want light that makes light like yourself. Two of the main people feeding us information in this thread (maukka and the OP rookie daddy)that are in contact with Olight(that's where they are getting this early information) are in fact "white wall and graph testers" as well so we wouldn't have even known about this light as early as we did without them. We also wouldn't be getting all the added information(thanks guys:thumbsup. Also, judging by what other brands offer, there are very few people that want a CW high CRI light. Most want a neutral or warm white high CRI model and I believe that is why we see so much criticism in this thread.

Like I said earlier, I would bet they only are using 5500K XP-G3's because that was the easiest, cheapest, or all they could get in numbers at the time. Also, I bet they didn't go with a Nichia, even if they could get them, because that would require them to source or custom order a different optic as the current one is not compatible with Nichia's.

oh, I understand. They're going to appeal to the masses, not 24 people on an online community. They'd go out of business if they did. For some reason this stirs up emotions.

Most who buy one will compare it to normal any brand CW lights and enjoy the ability to identify colors instead of them being washed out. Users aren't looking at graphs to look at numbers that aren't even visible in real life use. They're going to see better tints over CW any brand lights.

There's nothing wrong with catering to the overwhelming majority who buy lights than the minority who will pass because of a graph. They won't even notice the revenue loss. In the end they win and the users win.

My NW Mini is so much better than my CW S1R with the "same" LED that all this fuss is pretty pointless. It just reinforces a fact them charts are completely unreliable compared to end use. That's all. Sorry if the "same" LED produces a better more useful tint, I'm sure olight is too.