Jetbeam PA20, the good and the bad

This isn't a real review by any stretch. Just some impressions after owning the light for a few days.

First the good:

The overall build quality of this light is nice. The threads feel good. It's fairly solid. The tail switch, which I understand has been widely criticized, is actually pretty easy to use and good. The light feels good in my hand. Because it's AA based, it's thinner than a lot of lights I have (18650 and CR123 lights), which is welcome. It's grippy and just nice to use.

This is my first modern AA light, so I was expecting it to live up to it's specs. ...but it's still brighter than I thought it would be. For non-flashlight people, it's unbelievable for running off of AA batteries! I'm very happy with it's maximum output. The reflector must be quite deep as well, because it's beam is almost *exactly* the same size as the beam from one of my Solarforce lights with a P60 sized XPG dropin. The SF is brighter, but not by a lot. Very good beam on this PA20.

The medium setting of 16 lumens is good for general work. I think it's brighter than 16, but it's close enough and it works. The low of 1 lumen is really good for moonlight mode. It's 100% usable for walking around a dark house at night after you've woken up and doesn't blind you at all.

The mediocre:

High on this light is rated at 110 lumens, versus 230 for "turbo". In practice there's not a big difference in brightness between these levels. Outdoors at night, you can see the difference when hitting objects 30+ yards away. But indoors you can only detect a small difference. It's almost a wasted level, but not quite. In theory this lower level gives you 3x the run time so that could be good I guess.

The bad:

I pulled the clip off of the light within minutes of getting it. I didn't do anything weird; just pulled it to make it snap off. It scratched the finish noticeably down to bare aluminum. I tried to snap it onto the ring above where it was installed, thinking it would be a deeper carry location. Well, that ring is *slightly* narrower upon close inspection. The clip won't snap onto it properly, but it will scratch the finish nicely if you try. So I've got two little gouges in the finish now. I've also had the clip pop off when I was carrying it in the corner of a rear pants pocket. I guess I won't do that any more.

This has been documented in another thread, but I didn't see this in several hours of researching this light. The modes don't work as advertised. The more I use it, the more it bugs me. Here's the deal:

With the head loosened, half pressing, or quickly doing on/off will change modes through high, medium, low, strobe, and SOS. It remembers the level you last left it on and turns on to this level with the head loosened. With the head tightened, you only get turbo. Pressing the tailcap over and over in any combination just gets you turbo. This is great. EXCEPT... If you quickly press the tail switch with the head tightened, it will invisibly change the mode for the head loosened mode!

For example, if I leave the loosened mode set on medium, when I have the head loosened and I switch it on, I get medium. If I tighten the head I get turbo. But if I quickly press the tail switch 3 times, with the head tightened, it changes my head loosened mode from medium to SOS! I'll never see this until I loosen the head, but it does it. Repeatably.

I don't want to be too harsh, but this is broken behavior. There's no reason for it to work this way. It's poorly engineered in this respect. This is a solid light with nice performance that is marred by a rather glaring bug. Jetbeam should fix this. They should be embarrassed to have delivered a product that doesn't work correctly.

The copy I got did not come in the large plastic storage case that's pictured on the web site. I got a small cardboard box. The holster it was supposed to have? No where to be found.

Overall I still like this light. The little things about it leave me with a bad taste, but it is still a good light. Would I buy it again knowing all of this? I'm not sure. The good is good. The bad is irritating, but not a total deal killer.

Brian.

blgentry said:

I pulled the clip off of the light within minutes of getting it. I didn't do anything weird; just pulled it to make it snap off. It scratched the finish noticeably down to bare aluminum. I tried to snap it onto the ring above where it was installed, thinking it would be a deeper carry location. Well, that ring is *slightly* narrower upon close inspection. The clip won't snap onto it properly, but it will scratch the finish nicely if you try. So I've got two little gouges in the finish now. I've also had the clip pop off when I was carrying it in the corner of a rear pants pocket. I guess I won't do that any more.

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my biggest pet-peeve.. I freakin' hate those things

blgentry said:

High on this light is rated at 110 lumens, versus 230 for "turbo". In practice there's not a big difference in brightness between these levels. Outdoors at night, you can see the difference when hitting objects 30+ yards away. But indoors you can only detect a small difference. It's almost a wasted level, but not quite. In theory this lower level gives you 3x the run time so that could be good I guess.

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I have noticed that the stated specifications are not always correct. Using a lightmeter you can know if the percentual difference is the same as stated. While twice the brightness isn't a huge difference it is still significant. Apart from that I noticed the perceptual difference is less if it's a short moment of darkness between the different modes. With an instant change without a moment of darkness even 5% change is noticable. I don't know how is the case with PA20?

The change from (stated) 110 L to 230 L is noticeable. It's just not a big difference. I think you may be onto something in that the rated output at these levels might not be accurate. All I know is that "turbo" isn't much of a step up from "high". It's a step, but not much.

In other news I've gifted this light to the person I had in mind when I bought it and he seems quite content to run it on high all the time. So, while I'm still sort of irked with Jetbeam for releasing a light with an obviously flawed UI, it's no longer in my rotation.

I've given myself the gift of searching for another light by giving this one away!

Brian.

Pretty much agree with all you say.
The clip: though not being bad, I had my PC20 snap off the clip and fall out of my pocket.
The anodizing isn't too great either and it comes off too easily where the clip touches.

These are probably minor flaws but the UI thing has started to bug me big time. It took me a few times to notice it, probably because I wasn't using momentary on and that often and because after I got my PA20 I bought a few other lights in a short time and rotated them so didn't use the PA20 so often anymore. A few times I found the light in the Daily mode to be on strobe or SOS when I thought I had switched it off on Lower Low but I thought my memory was just getting bad.

Now I got my PA10 and PC20 at a discounted price but for the PA20 I paid full price. Even if I had gotten it for free though, the UI issue is and remains a major flaw!!!

The PA20 still has a few nice features: forward clicky, memory on the secondary mode, pretty decent output/runtime ratio, 1-lumen lower low, reversible clip, can tailstand (even if a bit wobbly), crenelation, better than average lanyard, and even came in a really nice box.

There are the few downsides that you mentioned though. Most of all both flashing modes being on the Daily mode. If the Strobe had been on the same mode as turbo it might not have been such a big deal but the two together in sequence can be a pain, even in a light with memory, even more so with a flawed UI.

Nitecore seem to have done a few improvements to these JetBeam lights through the Nitecore MT series but the fact that the flashing mode are once again not hidden and the lack of an actually low brightness level just doesn't cut it with the other flashlights available in 2012. I have to admit that at least they are selling the MT lights at a competitive price. I just hope Nitecore will fix these shortcomings as I think they can make really good lights and could really cut their own niche in EDC-sized flashlight market.

I find this whole review/thread very disheartening. That UI is a mess.

I dunno if the UI is a "mess", but it's annoying. I'm glad I gifted the light.

Speaking of, I forgot to say this about the clip: The guy who now owns the light carried it in his pocket and used it for 3 or 4 hours on the job. At the end of this time, the clip was gone. He didn't even notice it. It snapped loose and was lost somewhere in one of the cars he was working on, or in the bay or in the parking lot or something. The point is, the clip snapped off in my back pocket within an hour or so of carrying it there and within a few hours of my friend using it. It's rather weak. He likes the lanyard though.

Now, which new 2 AA light to buy...

Brian.

Shame about that light, you should've gone with a Fenix

Got one in the mail as we speak. I just got my jetbeam pa40, btw i like the cool better than the neutral, the neutral is too warm for me. Anyhow love the build on it and hoping this 2aa model will be nice also. I like the grey finish, red orings and BIG square cut threads. I hope they work as good as they look, was so close to getting the nitecore mt2a instead but for some reason it seems dumbed down, its got regular black finish, black o rings, square but smaller threads so i dunno. the mt2a claims to have way higher ansi lumens and runtime than most in the segment i feel there probably inflated im assuming. It seems the spacing on that one are better than the jetbeam but im not so picky on that part. In regards to the clip scratching the finish that sounds terrible, is there any trick to removing it and not scratching the finish anyone has determined, i don't really use clips on 2aa format.

StevenLVNV said:

is there any trick to removing it and not scratching the finish anyone has determined, i don't really use clips on 2aa format.

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Very, very carefully.

StevenLVNV said:

Got one in the mail as we speak. I just got my jetbeam pa40, btw i like the cool better than the neutral, the neutral is too warm for me. Anyhow love the build on it and hoping this 2aa model will be nice also. I like the grey finish, red orings and BIG square cut threads. I hope they work as good as they look, was so close to getting the nitecore mt2a instead but for some reason it seems dumbed down, its got regular black finish, black o rings, square but smaller threads so i dunno. the mt2a claims to have way higher ansi lumens and runtime than most in the segment i feel there probably inflated im assuming. It seems the spacing on that one are better than the jetbeam but im not so picky on that part. In regards to the clip scratching the finish that sounds terrible, is there any trick to removing it and not scratching the finish anyone has determined, i don't really use clips on 2aa format.

Click to expand...

It's true, the MT2A is in the usual "boring" black. It seems Nitecore fixed the lottery-UI issue though: with the PA20, when in Turbo if you use soft-press from off or switch off and on quickly, the Daily mode will cycle through the UI defeating the purpose of having a memory. Once you loosen the bezel, you won't find the output mode you had last used anymore, unless by pure chance.

Other than that, the MT2A might stailband better and maybe have a better clip and slightly better anodizing. The MT2A Low though is 15 lumen which is too high, in that respect I find the PA20 better.