There have been several reviews and a fair amount of discussion of the XL50 lately, so here's my take on the this light after about a month of use around the house, walking around the neighborhood, and a few trips out of town.
First and foremost, this light is a thrower. While it produces usefully bright spill, a whole lot of the ouput goes into a tight hotspot (over 5000 lux) that projects for an impressive distance downrange.
Even on low setting, 25 lumens, throw is pretty decent. On the high setting, 100 lumens, the XL50 will light up a target brightly at 100+ feet in an urban environment. Of course in a rural environment useful throw will be greater - at something over 200 feet I was able to distinguish a human figure standing against a background of trees and shrubs across an open field.
Mag designed this reflector for throw, and it throws so well that the 25 lumen setting can be a bit too bright for close up tasks. You can make do with the spillbeam to accomplish a close up task - to briefly read something or locate an item on your desktop - but it's not ideal.
To get around this limitation, the user can simply unscrew the head which will produce a very nice, smooth, even flood of light. That 25 lumens of pure flood is excellent for close range tasks, including looking into computer cases and extended book reading.
Switching to high gives 100 lumens of flood, which is usable for walking around outdoors but limited to close-to-medium distances. The brighter 100 lumen flood also looks like it would be good for working at close to medium distances - working on a furnace perhaps - to provide a lot of light without the glare, but I haven't tried it for that yet.
While you wouldn't want to remove the head in a rainstorm, otherwise I think the emitter is fairly well protected. The LED dome sits at the bottom of a half-inch deep well formed by an extension of the body tube all around it.
The flood configuration is so useful that I plan to buy another XL50 and remove the reflector to make a dedicated flood version to keep on my desktop for use around the home office.
Tailstanding works well and the XL50 will light up a good sized room on the high setting.
Fit and finish on my sample is quite good and it feels good in my hand. The electronic switch provides a very nice tactile sensation as it is pressed and a soft audible click. Although I prefer a forward clicky with momentary capability, the electronic switch of the XL50 works fine to produce momentary flashes of output. UI is good and simple. Strobe is available, but out of the way - at least I haven't stumbled into strobe mode by accident so far.
I think the XL50 is a good all around utility light that can also be used to good effect as an outdoors light. I'm not unduly concerned with its short runtime on high, because for most purposes outdoors the throwy 25 lumen output is sufficient.
An XL50 would be good to keep loaded with lithium cells in a glovebox (if the tailcap is unscrewed before storing away.) An XL50 would also be reasonable to keep on the nightstand. The handly size and simple UI - one click always yields a 100 lumen throwy beam - should be good for home defense purposes.
Criticisms of the XL50:
The XL50 lacks both a pocket clip and lanyard attachment point, both useful features.
I think the omission of some way to tie on a lanyard was a big mistake. Hopefully this will be rectified in a future version, as they did with the MiniMagLED.
Lack of a pocket clip doesn't bother me so much, because the additional length and greater girth of the XL50 (compared to EDC friendly 1AA lights) makes it too big for me to EDC in a pocket. Perhaps Mag will offer an optional pocket clip in the future. For now, belt carry is the way to go for EDC and there are several holsters available that fit the XL50.
There's been criticism of the plastic lens and Type 2 anodize, to which I respond: "This is a Mag that costs 25 bucks! Plastic lenses and Type 2 anodize come with the territory - get over it."
There's been critisism that the battery carrier may not be robust enough. Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. If the battery carrier breaks, then Mag will replace it even years down the road.
There's been criticism of artifacts in the beam. Looking carefully at the beam at close range on a white wall, I can pick out some slight artifacts: a faintly brighter ring just outside of the hotspot, followed by a slightly darker ring surrounding that, both concentric around the hotspot. But when actually using the XL50, those artifacts are unnoticeable.
There's been criticism of the light constantly drawing a standby current. I haven't yet measured the standby current, but it doesn't seem excessive when compared to similar lights. If you desire to store the light long term with cells inside, then unscrewing the tailcap about one full turn breaks the circuit and shuts off the standby current.
Summing things up:
XL50 is a great light for the money IMO. Output and throw like nothing most people have ever experienced from such a compact light.
Since these can be found for 20 to 30 bucks at big box stores all across the USA, they are a very good option for non-flashaholic people who nevertheless appreciate having a good flashlight: hunters, fishermen, campers, and other outdoors people, tradesmen, etc.
.
First and foremost, this light is a thrower. While it produces usefully bright spill, a whole lot of the ouput goes into a tight hotspot (over 5000 lux) that projects for an impressive distance downrange.
Even on low setting, 25 lumens, throw is pretty decent. On the high setting, 100 lumens, the XL50 will light up a target brightly at 100+ feet in an urban environment. Of course in a rural environment useful throw will be greater - at something over 200 feet I was able to distinguish a human figure standing against a background of trees and shrubs across an open field.
Mag designed this reflector for throw, and it throws so well that the 25 lumen setting can be a bit too bright for close up tasks. You can make do with the spillbeam to accomplish a close up task - to briefly read something or locate an item on your desktop - but it's not ideal.
To get around this limitation, the user can simply unscrew the head which will produce a very nice, smooth, even flood of light. That 25 lumens of pure flood is excellent for close range tasks, including looking into computer cases and extended book reading.
Switching to high gives 100 lumens of flood, which is usable for walking around outdoors but limited to close-to-medium distances. The brighter 100 lumen flood also looks like it would be good for working at close to medium distances - working on a furnace perhaps - to provide a lot of light without the glare, but I haven't tried it for that yet.
While you wouldn't want to remove the head in a rainstorm, otherwise I think the emitter is fairly well protected. The LED dome sits at the bottom of a half-inch deep well formed by an extension of the body tube all around it.
The flood configuration is so useful that I plan to buy another XL50 and remove the reflector to make a dedicated flood version to keep on my desktop for use around the home office.
Tailstanding works well and the XL50 will light up a good sized room on the high setting.
Fit and finish on my sample is quite good and it feels good in my hand. The electronic switch provides a very nice tactile sensation as it is pressed and a soft audible click. Although I prefer a forward clicky with momentary capability, the electronic switch of the XL50 works fine to produce momentary flashes of output. UI is good and simple. Strobe is available, but out of the way - at least I haven't stumbled into strobe mode by accident so far.
I think the XL50 is a good all around utility light that can also be used to good effect as an outdoors light. I'm not unduly concerned with its short runtime on high, because for most purposes outdoors the throwy 25 lumen output is sufficient.
An XL50 would be good to keep loaded with lithium cells in a glovebox (if the tailcap is unscrewed before storing away.) An XL50 would also be reasonable to keep on the nightstand. The handly size and simple UI - one click always yields a 100 lumen throwy beam - should be good for home defense purposes.
Criticisms of the XL50:
The XL50 lacks both a pocket clip and lanyard attachment point, both useful features.
I think the omission of some way to tie on a lanyard was a big mistake. Hopefully this will be rectified in a future version, as they did with the MiniMagLED.
Lack of a pocket clip doesn't bother me so much, because the additional length and greater girth of the XL50 (compared to EDC friendly 1AA lights) makes it too big for me to EDC in a pocket. Perhaps Mag will offer an optional pocket clip in the future. For now, belt carry is the way to go for EDC and there are several holsters available that fit the XL50.
There's been criticism of the plastic lens and Type 2 anodize, to which I respond: "This is a Mag that costs 25 bucks! Plastic lenses and Type 2 anodize come with the territory - get over it."
There's been critisism that the battery carrier may not be robust enough. Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. If the battery carrier breaks, then Mag will replace it even years down the road.
There's been criticism of artifacts in the beam. Looking carefully at the beam at close range on a white wall, I can pick out some slight artifacts: a faintly brighter ring just outside of the hotspot, followed by a slightly darker ring surrounding that, both concentric around the hotspot. But when actually using the XL50, those artifacts are unnoticeable.
There's been criticism of the light constantly drawing a standby current. I haven't yet measured the standby current, but it doesn't seem excessive when compared to similar lights. If you desire to store the light long term with cells inside, then unscrewing the tailcap about one full turn breaks the circuit and shuts off the standby current.
Summing things up:
XL50 is a great light for the money IMO. Output and throw like nothing most people have ever experienced from such a compact light.
Since these can be found for 20 to 30 bucks at big box stores all across the USA, they are a very good option for non-flashaholic people who nevertheless appreciate having a good flashlight: hunters, fishermen, campers, and other outdoors people, tradesmen, etc.
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