Inova T3 has spiky edge in center hotspot. (T3 owners?)

I'm evaluating an Inova T3, and found a very irritating "feature" in the profile of the beam hotspot. The periphery of half of the hotspot is a nice smooth arc, but the other half of it looks "spiky", with jagged or pointy features sticking out of it. Thinking about it while typing the rest of this message, it occurs to me if you lopped off Calvin's head (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), it you'd have a pretty good image of it- the spikes look about like his hair, although nowhere near as pronounced, and rotate with the flashlight.

It's certainly not my imagination, and it's visible no matter the inclination or rotation of the flashlight. I think it's made more evident by the perfect smoothness of the other half of the hotspot. It's even annoying on irregular terrain, such as rocks or grass. The circumfrential rings in the spillbeam are noticeable, but I don't find them problematic.

I haven't seen any mention of this in all of the reading and reviews I've seen on the T3, and all of my other Inovas have absolutely excellent beam profiles.

Is this a dud?

It's rare to see artifacts in a T3. I have 3 of them andthe beams are superb. This is also true of my XO3 and T5. I think I read somewhere that if the Lux is off center this can happen. I would email Inova about it. They are usually pretty good about their lights.

I've got a T2. The beam is pretty much perfect. You can see a slight ring pattern extending from the center. But even the rings that go from small to large are perfect. You must've gotten a defective one.

Don't have any of that spiky edge in center of hotspot in my T3. Just the usual Trios Lens patterns.

Mine's round as a full moon... perhaps you should send it back to get it checked, there might be a hairline crack on the TIROS lens?

If its that obvious, I'm surprised QC didn't pick up on it.

I dont have the T3 but I do have the X0 and X03 and neither has anything near to this, the edges are smooth all the way around, they are a favorite of mine.

My T3 has a very smooth edged round center. No jagged or spikey edge to the center spot. Minus all the rings around the outside (that don't bother me either), it's one of the best (bright and useful spread) beams of any light I own.