REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight

Hey guys,

Just posted my review (photos and video) of this great little EDC flashlight - the Olight i3:

Review of the Olight i3 | ThruMyLens

Check it out, and let me know your thoughts

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Nice review. Thank you.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

RI Chevy said:

Nice review. Thank you.

Click to expand...

You're most welcome! Glad you liked it!

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Nice review. I just could never convince myself to buy one of these lights due to (what I see) their poor run times. I really wanted to buy one of them, but I compared them to the ReVo and LD01 and thought that there was an error on the run times... But it turns out that the i-series lights really are energy hogs in comparison. Sure, they are better than an incandescent light, so I will give them that. And they look good. But their use of energy? I know that you can use Eneloops; most of us do. BUT I would rather know that I do not need to charge frequently because my light is a miser and won't leave me wanting for light, than to get stuck in with a quickly draining battery.

Just my $0.02. Maybe I am the only one that thinks like this.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

michman said:

Nice review. I just could never convince myself to buy one of these lights due to (what I see) their poor run times. I really wanted to buy one of them, but I compared them to the ReVo and LD01 and thought that there was an error on the run times... But it turns out that the i-series lights really are energy hogs in comparison. Sure, they are better than an incandescent light, so I will give them that. And they look good. But their use of energy? I know that you can use Eneloops; most of us do. BUT I would rather know that I do not need to charge frequently because my light is a miser and won't leave me wanting for light, than to get stuck in with a quickly draining battery.

Just my $0.02. Maybe I am the only one that thinks like this.

Click to expand...

I see your point, sure. I'm not familiar with those other lights you mention - how are they powered and what size are they?

When I use my i3 or Preon 1 throughout the day, it's usually for less than a minute at a time. I've gone nearly 3 months on the same AAA battery on this i3...of course, I either carry it or the Preon 1 I have, so it's not used daily. Still, I think I'll get maybe as much as 6 months on a battery, and I don't mind carrying some spares with me in my EDC pack. If I want something brighter or for more sustained use, I'll use my i3 or Preon 1 to get me to my Quark X 123. :thumbsup:

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

I bought a Preon ReVo, when shopping around for a multilevel AAA light. Its levels are 2.5, 22, 80 down to 65. Times are 66hrs, 5+ hrs, 1.2 hrs. A battery can last me a fair bit of time, but I walk my dog through the woods each night and do some camping as well. When camping, I would rather need to carry fewer batteries than more. So, I want to know that my backup can be used as a backup for as long as possible when needed.

I also carry an E01 which I am absolutely in love with. It really is the best thing since sliced bread. I have declared as much on a thread about the E01.

As for more power, I had a D11.2 which I really liked, but gifted to my brother. Now I am waiting for a Zebralight H51w.

Last night I bought a ThruNite Ti, Firefly, and am looking forward to getting it. Two stages: Low = 0.04 lm, high = 60 lm. After making this purchase, I started to consider the A3. Why not add another AAA light to the collection? Maybe I will give this light a shot in due time....

Again, thanks for the review. Well done.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

michman said:

I bought a Preon ReVo, when shopping around for a multilevel AAA light. Its levels are 2.5, 22, 80 down to 65. Times are 66hrs, 5+ hrs, 1.2 hrs. A battery can last me a fair bit of time, but I walk my dog through the woods each night and do some camping as well. When camping, I would rather need to carry fewer batteries than more. So, I want to know that my backup can be used as a backup for as long as possible when needed.

I also carry an E01 which I am absolutely in love with. It really is the best thing since sliced bread. I have declared as much on a thread about the E01.

As for more power, I had a D11.2 which I really liked, but gifted to my brother. Now I am waiting for a Zebralight H51w.

Last night I bought a ThruNite Ti, Firefly, and am looking forward to getting it. Two stages: Low = 0.04 lm, high = 60 lm. After making this purchase, I started to consider the A3. Why not add another AAA light to the collection? Maybe I will give this light a shot in due time....

Again, thanks for the review. Well done.

Click to expand...

You're are most welcome - thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Thanks for doing the review. I'm sold. I'm going to order up a nice little purple one for part of my EDC rotation. I usually only like the tail button lights, but I'll make an exception on this critter...

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

One of the complaints on this light is the design of the split ring. Would a fishing swivel take care of that problem?
-Just have to figure out the right size.

link

I just want to add that I run this light on 10440 Li-on batteries, and it is great. You still retain the two lowest settings, but then the high setting has got to be around 120-150 floody lumens. As long as you hold it in your hand, the heat is tolerable. I've run it as long as 10 minutes on high in this configuration.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

JohnnyBravo said:

Thanks for doing the review. I'm sold. I'm going to order up a nice little purple one for part of my EDC rotation. I usually only like the tail button lights, but I'll make an exception on this critter...

Click to expand...

Please do let me know what you think of it after it arrives!

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

ada_potato said:

One of the complaints on this light is the design of the split ring. Would a fishing swivel take care of that problem?

-Just have to figure out the right size.

link

Click to expand...

That might well work, BUT personally I'm looking for ways to make my key ring smaller, not bigger with more stuff. The pocket clip solution does seem to be the better way to go all around.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

You'll really like getting 125 hours of runtime with the Firefly mode on your Thrunite Ti. I have 3 of them and wish they will offer the Firefly version in colors or at least stainless steel or Titanium as limited edition lights.

michman said:

I bought a Preon ReVo, when shopping around for a multilevel AAA light. Its levels are 2.5, 22, 80 down to 65. Times are 66hrs, 5+ hrs, 1.2 hrs. A battery can last me a fair bit of time, but I walk my dog through the woods each night and do some camping as well. When camping, I would rather need to carry fewer batteries than more. So, I want to know that my backup can be used as a backup for as long as possible when needed.

I also carry an E01 which I am absolutely in love with. It really is the best thing since sliced bread. I have declared as much on a thread about the E01.

As for more power, I had a D11.2 which I really liked, but gifted to my brother. Now I am waiting for a Zebralight H51w.

Last night I bought a ThruNite Ti, Firefly, and am looking forward to getting it. Two stages: Low = 0.04 lm, high = 60 lm. After making this purchase, I started to consider the A3. Why not add another AAA light to the collection? Maybe I will give this light a shot in due time....

Again, thanks for the review. Well done.

Click to expand...

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Has anyone done a runtime test comparing the previous iTP A3 with the newer Olight i3? Hard to believe the runtime got worse with the Olight versions.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Beacon of Light said:

Has anyone done a runtime test comparing the previous iTP A3 with the newer Olight i3? Hard to believe the runtime got worse with the Olight versions.

Click to expand...

I have not - but I am interested in doing a similar test with the 4Sevens Preon 1 and the i3.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

Beacon of Light said:

Has anyone done a runtime test comparing the previous iTP A3 with the newer Olight i3? Hard to believe the runtime got worse with the Olight versions.

Click to expand...

edit: [Test per freshly charged AAA Eneloop]

I've done a run time with the iTP A3 EOS (XP-E, Q5) and the new Olight i3 has about the same run time on high only it is brighter. On medium its a shorter run time but at the same time its brighter. I don't have an iTP A3 EOS with XP-G, R5 so can't compare with it.

I haven't done any run times on low yet. I will say though that the output is 65 Lux on the iTP A3 and 185 on the i3 as per my lightbox setup. These numbers can only be used as comparison to other lights tested on my setup. But you can see that the iTP A3 will probably run longer on low than the i3 simply because the i3 has a higher output.

Overall the i3 is more efficient when you consider the area under the curve length x height (time x output).

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

I upgraded the graph above and included the medium run which was missing. I wish I had an iTP, R5 to compare, as then we'd be comparing apples to apples. Of note is that if the driver circuit was the same between the two lights, meaning that the output current fixed, then I would have expected to see the same run times...........with the difference being the output higher on the R5. You can kind of see that on high. But on medium there is quite a divergence.

So what I like to do is compare efficiencies to see which output puts out the most light over time. Here is the list in order of the most efficient light and mode.

Output / minutes / product (area under the curve)

i3 high 3980 / 63 / 250740
i3 medium 1250 / 154 / 192500
A3 high 2600 / 69 / 179400
A3 medium 700 / 235 / 164500

Most of the time the lower outputs are more efficient but I've noticed on single cell AAA and AA lights that isn't the case like it is with 2 cell lights. From a technical standpoint I haven't quite figured out why that is. But I'm sure it has to do with the 2 cell lights voltage being closer to the Vf of the LED.

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

hiuintahs said:

Most of the time the lower outputs are more efficient but I've noticed on single cell AAA and AA lights that isn't the case like it is with 2 cell lights. From a technical standpoint I haven't quite figured out why that is. But I'm sure it has to do with the 2 cell lights voltage being closer to the Vf of the LED.

Click to expand...

Some factors I can think of:

1 Efficiency of driver (which is probably affected by the need to have more voltage boost with a single cell light). IIRC some drivers are quite inefficient at low levels (using more current to run the driver than they send to the LED).

2 PWM duty % cycle (how long the led is "on" vs how long the light is off).

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

The A3 R5 is brighter and more efficient than the i3 R5, as can be seen from selbuilt's review. I also did a great review of the A3 R5 and the i3 R5.

@OP
Great review! Have you too submitted your review for consideration for the review forum? :thumbsup:

Re: REVIEW: The Olight i3 Flashlight>>>>>>

I'm throwing this out because of my disappointment and in just in case Olight reads any of these thoughts. Run time is often more important than minor increases in brightness. I use the iPT A3 EOS Upgrade mainly for backpacking. The 4 hr run time on medium is great because I can count on two AAA Li batteries to get me through a night of hiking in case of emergency. Unfortunately, that light (still available for the short term) is discontinued. The shorter run time of the Olight i3 on medium makes this an inferior flashlight for an ultralight backpacker.