M21 What a disappointment!

Hi All:

Found this forum the other day and joined. Lots of great info here. I would like to ask if anyone else here has the new M21 and found it to be a serious disappointment. My M20`s easily out do the M21. What The Hey? I have used new CR123`s in both lights and the M20 is definitely brighter. I have emailed Batteryjunction to see about returning it. They have been an Outstanding company to deal with and I hope they can help. I am looking at the Thrunite Catapult. That light has got my attention.

Eric

I recently ordered the Olight M30, I got the same impression and sent it back. Olight seems to aim too high on their lumen ratings, I did not see enough difference between my Fenix T1 (225 lumens) vs. M30 (700 lumens) to justify the cost. Fenix is hard to beat, went with the TK30, AWESOME Light!!!!! Yes Battery Junction is an outstanding retailer, will continue to buy from them.

I have been on the fence about this one as well. Sorry you did not like it...It sucks to be dissapointed by a light. I do however, have no doubts that Batteryjunction will hapily take care of you.

By the way.... Welcome to CPF!

Sounds like you place a lot of value on hot spot or throw. I find the M21 more useful for my purposes. I also have the catapult. I find both lights very effective, and for different reasons.

Simpleman, how are you measuring the brightness of each light? The different beam patterns can be deceiving, I would bet your M21 is in fact putting out more light. Can you post a side by side beam shot comparison? It would be interesting to see how they look next to each other.

Best, Mike

I think the hard thing.... and why I have kind of held off buying the 2 cell P7 and SST50 lights, is that to the eye there is not much difference between a 230L R2 light with a bright spot vs. a 350-400L light with a more floody beam. In my head (even though I Know this wold not be the case) I would expect a 400-500L (advertised) light to apear to be twice as bright as the 230L light...and I would be dissapointed when it was not.

turn the light on max, and point it towards the ceiling one at a time (with the other off) and may be you'll see the difference.

a lot of people who's new to flashlight even tries to say that their Maglites are brighter than ... say a Fenix LD10, which is nonsense.

billybob929 said:

I recently ordered the Olight M30, I got the same impression and sent it back. Olight seems to aim too high on their lumen ratings, I did not see enough difference between my Fenix T1 (225 lumens) vs. M30 (700 lumens) to justify the cost. Fenix is hard to beat, went with the TK30, AWESOME Light!!!!! Yes Battery Junction is an outstanding retailer, will continue to buy from them.

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I've compared the M30 to a fair few lights in the 230-240 lumen range, these include, fenix, nitecore, olight and R2 dropins. I did the good ol ceiling bounce test and my results were opposite to yours. The cells in the M30 may have been depleted. Olight states emitter lumens like the majority of other manufacturers. Even comparing the M30 to the M20 Ti you can see a difference.

Simpleman, are you using a SMO reflector or OP in your M20? The M21 should be brighter, the ceiling bounce test will confirm this. When I compared the M20Ti to the M20, the Ti was brighter.

SureAddicted said:

I've compared the M30 to a fair few lights in the 230-240 lumen range, these include, fenix, nitecore, olight and R2 dropins. I did the good ol ceiling bounce test and my results were opposite to yours. The cells in the M30 may have been depleted. Olight states emitter lumens like the majority of other manufacturers. Even comparing the M30 to the M20 Ti you can see a difference.

Simpleman, are you using a SMO reflector or OP in your M20? The M21 should be brighter, the ceiling bounce test will confirm this. When I compared the M20Ti and the M20, the Ti was brighter.

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But M20 ti is SST50 not R2 XR-E? So you ceiling bounce is not R2 vs SST50 then, meaning your results are not the opposite of expected.

Thanks for the OP posting this, I was thinking about putting the M21 on a rifle, but it sounds like the M20 would make a butter gun light if it throws farther.

Justintoxicated, I know what emitters are in each light. The reason I did the comparison was to see how much difference there was between the two emitters. The M21 is also SST50, the only difference between the two are the bezel/reflector and heatsink.

I can tell you one thing for certain, the M30 is much brighter than R2 emitter equipped lights. I think people are confusing throw with brightness.

Justintoxicated said:

But M20 ti is SST50 not R2 XR-E? So you ceiling bounce is not R2 vs SST50 then, meaning your results are not the opposite of expected.

Thanks for the OP posting this, I was thinking about putting the M21 on a rifle, but it sounds like the M20 would make a butter gun light if it throws farther.

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A friend of mine uses an M20 on his AR-15, great combination! For CQB type stuff, like mounting on an MP-5, I think the M21 or a MC-E equipped light would be a better choice.

My .02, Mike

billybob929 said:

I recently ordered the Olight M30, I got the same impression and sent it back. Olight seems to aim too high on their lumen ratings, I did not see enough difference between my Fenix T1 (225 lumens) vs. M30 (700 lumens) to justify the cost. Fenix is hard to beat, went with the TK30, AWESOME Light!!!!! Yes Battery Junction is an outstanding retailer, will continue to buy from them.

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There must have been something wrong with the M30. I have one, and several other lights comparable to the T1, and the M30 is easily 3x as bright. The M30 still amazes me. I think the problem with the OP and your issue is that neither of these lights have good throw. A T1, M20, T20C2 will seam brighter shinning it on a tree 75-100 yards away. The M30 and M21 are not supposed to be a throw type light. They have very very wide spots and bright wide spill. They aren't designed to out distance lights like your T1. Sorry, but you should have done some homework and not blamed Olight.

The one point that I agree with the OP about is the claimed 500 lumens is ridiculous. Probably more like 375 emitter lumes. But the 700 claimed of the M30 isn't too far off if you are talking emitter lumens.

Original quote by Painful chafe: "M20 and M21 are not supposed to be a throw type light. They have very very wide spots and bright wide spill. They aren't designed to out distance lights like your T1."

M20 or did you mean M30? My M20 had incredible throw and everything I've read about them seems to indicate that.

Mikellen said:

Original quote by Painful chafe: "M20 and M21 are not supposed to be a throw type light. They have very very wide spots and bright wide spill. They aren't designed to out distance lights like your T1."

M20 or did you mean M30? My M20 had incredible throw and everything I've read about them seems to indicate that.

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Yes. Sorry about that. I have changed it.

I have an Olight M21 Warrior and overall I am quite pleased with it. It does have a warmer light, which in my opinion, is not as intense as a cool white.

I question the 500 lumen also. It is definitely not 500 OTF lumen. It does throw significantly further than my Fenix RD30 & LD20.

i hear people say that the lumen ratings from manufactures can be decieving,and for someone new to this all,this can lead to dissapointed expectations......i think that the manufactures should be responsible for stating whether these ratings are at the emiter or out the front lumens
also i notice when i shop around on companys websites,that not enough info material is on said websites about the type of beam that each model is putting out....for instance i need to know if a light is designed for throw or flood/spill,and you cant always percieve this from the info i am seeing.
thats why CPF can be so important,to hear first hand accounts of how a light performs compared to others..

billybob929 said:

I recently ordered the Olight M30, I got the same impression and sent it back. Olight seems to aim too high on their lumen ratings, I did not see enough difference between my Fenix T1 (225 lumens) vs. M30 (700 lumens) to justify the cost. Fenix is hard to beat, went with the TK30, AWESOME Light!!!!! Yes Battery Junction is an outstanding retailer, will continue to buy from them.

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Weird. I found my M30 ridiculously bright compared to my T21, T10C2, T20C2, T20C2 MKII, and PD30. Maybe you had a defective light, or maybe mine was an over achiever.

I have not seen the M21 in person yet but I thought it would be pretty good as it is an SST50 and has had pretty good reviews even on CPF.

I have had the Olight M30 for nearly a year and it is very floody.

I love the "wall of light" that it puts out!!

It was never designed to be a thrower but I am still considering an M31 as my next torch.

I have seen the M31 in person and it is a thrower with a fair bit of spill as well.

The hotspot from the M31 is heaps brighter than the M30.

Just now ran across this thread. I didn't buy the M21 but almost did . Reason? I found out early on that this light was not to be the thrower my M20R2 Premium is. I decided to try the new M20S R5 and was immediately disappointed in it as it too turned out to not be a thrower. It does put a tad brighter beam of light downfield tho, I can see that for myself. However it does not throw that beam as far as my original M20 does plus is more of a floodier beam and not nearly as concentrated at the hot spot either. Thankfully I have a place for both lights so it all worked out fine in the long run. I am now however finding myself wanting to buy the new M31. It is not only brighter but is also a thrower type of light, one that I must have. Now all I have to do is find the coins in my spent piggybank to buy it..............

Regards...........Terry

If the hot spot of a light beam is twice the size it will have 4 times the area and the beam would have to be 4 times as powerful to deliver equal "Brightness" to each square measure of the hot spot.

If you said the first hot spot was 1 unit, then 1 unit squared is 1. If the second hot spot is 2 units, 2 squared is 4.

If the brightness per square unit were to be the same the hot spot would need 4 times the "Light" to be equal.

The SST-50's have more lumens, but deliver it to a bigger hot spot so they would have to be vastly more powerful to have the hot spot appear to be brighter.

See Lumen and Lux definitions on Wiki. Lux is basically lumens per square area.