unexpected real world emergency use and review

As I anxiously awaited my NightCore PD10 and ZebraLight H50-Q5 last Friday, I had no idea what was in store the following Sunday night. Both of these lights are the first products from the respective companies for me so I was looking forward to them arriving.

I received the lights on Friday and spent Friday night and Saturday night trying them out and getting familiar with the UI on the PD10. Fast forward to Sunday night..... The remnants of Ike came through... 72 mph peak winds gusts and the next thing - power out at 1:00AM Monday morning.. The short story was that I would not get power back until Tues AM... During that time I got to try the lights out in candle mode (PD10) while brushing my teeth..

I used the H50 whenever I had to navigate through the house. It was pretty much on the entire Sunday and Monday nights. That long battery life sure is nice. For most activiities the low setting was sufficient. One place that I did find the high setting was during cooking (gas stove). I could see where the CRI of the LED might effect cooking. Did you ever try looking at eggs with an LED light while they are being scrambled or over-easy? Try looking at them with a purple-tinted LED light like my gladius has. They don't look very appetizing.. Same thing with bacon.. (I get up pretty early for breakfast and it's still dark when I am cooking it).

So the short answer is that the H50-Q5 is my favorite headlamp now and the PD10 (Q5) version replacing my L1D CE as my EDC. I won the cree lottery with the tint on the PD10(Q5), it's a nice, slightly warm yellow tint. The H50 is a little more yellow and I severely lost the tint lottery on the PD10 (GDP) - with it being a sickly purple tint. (But not as bad as my gladius, thankfully).

The PD10(Q5) gave me 1:10 on max (eneloop AA - 2000mah) which is way beyond the 0:50 minutes it's spec'd at. The PD10 (GDP) was very disappointing at 0:45 on max. I thought the GDP was supposed to be more efficient(?).

I want to make a special note regarding the GID holders for the H50. I don't know what they use in those, but without any special treatment, I could see those GID holders throughout the entire night without hitting them with any light. I have never seen any GID devices last that long (hours) that weren't self-luminous (I.e. tritium-based). Very nice unexpected surprise..

It occurs to me that the UI on the Gladius and the UI on the PD10 are very similiar. I think the Gladius configurable UI is very close to my ideal UI. With a ramping low->high in position 1, strobe in pos 2 and momentary (tactical) high in position 3, I can switch between all 3 with one quick snap of the thumb in one positive movement. The PD10 allows ramping and then with the low/high shortcuts acheives similiar functionality but not as fast or with a positive movement. The other thought is how far technology has come. The PD10 delivers the same lumen performance from one AA battery as the Gladius delivers on 2 CR123 primaries in a package roughly 1/3 the size. Quite an improvement over the last couple of years..

My last comment is NO holster with the PD10! How does NightCore expect anyone to carry this light? The lanyard is nice - top notch in fact, for an OEM, but please start offering a holster for the light... Fortunately, the Fenix holster is a perfect fit for the PD10, so I didn't even have to remove it to replace the L1D CE light. Still no excuse for NightCore.. The PD10 and the L1D CE are almost identical form factors with the PD10 being just a little shorter and knurling everywhere it's needed.

Thank's for sharing!

Thanks for the real world first hand experience with your NightCore PD10 and ZebraLight H50-Q5. I was eyeing that ZebraLight and now you peaked my interest.

What is the Nitecore PD10? Do you mean D10? Or EX10? The AA is the D10, and the CR123A is EX10. Glad you got them in time for your black out.

Thanks for the real-world review, Closet_Flashaholic. :twothumbs Glad that you managed to make it through the outage without any major issues and that your lights arrived just in time!

Btw, you mentioned power went out on Monday am... how many days was the outage? Just the one or did it go into another day or so? Just curious as I'm curious to hear about how people would handle several days as batteries would start to be depleted. Like many, I keep spare primaries around as well as back-up.

And, you're bang-on about the NiteCores and lack of holster... :hairpull: I don't understand it either and I, too, use an old Fenix P1D and L1D holster for my EX10 and D10, respectively.

Btw, I think he means D10 since he had a Fenix L1D... but let us know for sure.

Nice!! thanks for sharing. Good to know you are OK:twothumbs.

Sometimes I grill in the dark, especially in the winter when it gets dark early. I never use my LED torches because I can't decipher the color tint of the food I'm grilling very well. I swap the P60 Xenon module back in my 6P for that kind of thing.

Closet_Flashaholic said:

So the short answer is that the H50-Q5 is my favorite headlamp now and the PD10 (Q5) version replacing my L1D CE as my EDC. I won the cree lottery with the tint on the PD10(Q5), it's a nice, slightly warm yellow tint. The H50 is a little more yellow and I severely lost the tint lottery on the PD10 (GDP) - with it being a sickly purple tint. (But not as bad as my gladius, thankfully).

Click to expand...

I got the same thing with my EX10 Q5 and EX10 GDP, but ignoring the tint and looking at color, I think the GDP shows colors better. The GDP has a slightly higher CRI.

4sevens is waiting on a shipment of pocket clips for the Nitecore SmartPD lights. That should make things a bit easier.