P7 900 lumens MTE DX first impression

Hi everybody,

Sometimes there is something good being close to the supplier... Today arrive my new MTE P7 900 lumen light from DX.

My first thoughts:
- Packed as usual (yellow envelope with some bubbles around the flashlight)
- Flashlight is about the same size as a SF U2 (or its clones....)
- Anodizing looks good
- Front should be a glass lens

Now to the output:
- On high it draws 2.2 A from a freshly charged 18650; this is about 8W and around 650 lumens (on low 0.2 A)
- The 5 stages have a memory (even though I experience some time troubles to switch them)
- The only runtime test I did so fare was 10 min. the flashlight body gets warm quite soon (I good sign as the thermal pase is present) in the 10 min it does not get very hot.
- The output is very floody with no dougnet hole at all

I included some pictures of course:

The whole light


The front end


The P7 against a SF L1


The P7 against my modified U2 clone on 8 watt as well (as described in this thread:
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/191449 )



The P7 against a T5


And to see a comparison the T5 against the U2 clone


In conclusion I would say its a nice flashlight for close range and most probably if not running too long at a time on high because of the missing heatsinking.
I have the odd feeling the P7 is not as efficient compared to 4 single P4s or Crees. Even though the 4 led light have about the same output on paper they look much brighter. But for the pice worth it (so fare…) and at least for the moment the brightest (buyable) light for its size.

Cheers,

Dominic

Thanks for the review. I do see that the throw is not great.
Are you saying that the lens is plastic?


Thanks

Very disapointed at this light.

Reserving judgement for later. Can you take some outdoor beamshots? IMHO white wall pics tend to make lower Lumen lights appear brighter, when doing A/B comparisons.:thumbsup:

Is the P7 the big floody beam in your pics?

Hmm... whitewall beamshots can be deceiving, I recall a similar view of pics taken of a P7 vs the Malkoff SSC mag module and the Malkoff looked brighter on the white wall, but in a comparison of practical beamshots (outdoors, at night) the P7 was the clear winner. The OP did mention it was the brightest buyable light to his knowledge in this sized package...

Cpfmember, any chance you can take some outdoor nighttime comparisons?

I hope some one could get a Lux value on the hot spot.

Is the P7 on the left in all the beam shots? Thanks for the review.

TONY M: from tapping on the lense I would say its glass

LightBeing: on the first 3 beamshots the P7 is on the left. in the 4th beamshot the P7 doesnt even appear...

I hear you, here are some beamshots, knowing that my camera is not the best to do with:

SF L1 (barely visible)


T5 (bright hot spot with less spill)


P7 (a lot of spill but no bright hot spot)


U2 clone (lot of spill an medium hot spot)


dont get me wrong, its not a bad flashlight, its just not a throw monster, but I wouldnt expect this from a light with this size.
I am sure you can still impress quite a few people when showing them the light first on medium (comparable to a normal P4 or Cree light) and then have another step to go....

cpfmember said:

dont get me wrong, its not a bad flashlight, its just not a throw monster,

Click to expand...

It doesn't look like a flood monster either. In fact, I wouldn't use the term "monster" at all. It's more like a "pip." Yes, I shall call it a "flood pip."

Lets hope for better with established mfg's.

Glad I canceled my order and got a refund!


The reflector looks horrible, think the one @ KD will provide a nice hotspot and better throw since it's smooth!

BUZ said:

Glad I canceled my order and got a refund!
The reflector looks horrible, think the one @ KD will provide a nice hotspot and better throw since it's smooth!

Click to expand...

I wouldn't bet on it, but we'll have to wait and see. I think it'll suffer from the same small reflector problem AND have a donut hole. Using a smooth reflector in my P7 Mag, there was a donut hole. I had to sputter the reflector before it disappeared.


It seems to me that this particular light has a poorly designed reflector. Clearly, the huge die area needs a bigger reflector to catch all the spill and direct it forward. 2.2A is quite a significant amount of current and the light should appear much brighter spill and throw wise. My P7 Mag was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen from a single emitter.

pbs357 said:

Hmm... whitewall beamshots can be deceiving, I recall a similar view of pics taken of a P7 vs the Malkoff SSC mag module and the Malkoff looked brighter on the white wall, but in a comparison of practical beamshots (outdoors, at night) the P7 was the clear winner.

Click to expand...

pbs357, whitewall shots can be misleading at times.
As an photographer I do think that many whitewall shots are overexposed - therefore making 2 very different hotspots that may differ in brightness greatly appear much more similar than the naked eye sees them(this is a HUGE problem with digital cameras.

Having two pictures, one overexposed shot (mainly to show spill brightness) and one underexposed shot (to show hotspot intensity) is easy and a great way to compare seperate lights/beams!

Does the MTE come with a C bin or a B bin? With no firsthand experience with P7's I am speaking out my *** here but I would think a B bin is quite a bit brighter to the eye than a C bin. Either way the tint on that emitter is terrible! Still pretty bright though.

The bigger emitting surface would make this light less of a thrower. More of a flood light.

I'd say it's a Middle Monster!

Thanks for the review!

LOL

I purchase 2 of this similar light from KD i hope it doesnt turn out like this also. I might just cancel 1 and purchase 1 for test out.

Mine was shipped yesturday from DX yeh i think i got way better light then this from 3 cree MX, M-c3 3cree and T4 will kick this light.

Man i think im going to mod ot my self using MRV host with direct drive from 18650. MRV reflector should give me a nice beam with some good hot spot.

SAD:mecry: :mecry:

I'd love to see this LED in a P60 format by a quality company like Dereelight. And it'd be even better if they used 4x R2 dies. Not only because they're brighter, but because the tint is MUCH nicer.

abit yucky

sad to see the outcome is no better than what it shld had been.

thanks for the review, noted.

Keep in mind the U2 the P7 is up against is rated at 1,000 lumens. This light appears to be very floody, so it wouldn't be hard for a lower lumen light to produce a brighter hot spot if it has a tight beam, like the L1. Look at the size of the hot spot it produces, it's huge compared to the L1, and it's hard to see what kind of spill it has in the beam shots. This thing could be a serious "wall of light" and all the lumens it is putting out maybe spread out all over the place. This doesn't look like a thrower, but it maybe great for shorter range applications where you need a lot of light spread out over a wide area.

Can't wait to get mine and see what it does.

cpfmember, I hope you don't mind but I adjusted the curve values for your outdoor shots for comparison:



The P7 shot came out a little blue so I went ahead and desaturated all the pics.

Did it come out blue because of the LED, or was it just your camera?