Nitecore EC25W Review/Rant

kbriggs

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My first post here. I recently became interested in high performance flashlights after a friend bought a Fenix TK41. I wanted something in a smaller form factor that was just as bright, used a rechargeable battery, and was less expensive. My previous flashlight was big and heavy a triple D-cell Mag Lite. Anyway, after reading/watching lots of reviews, I decided on the Nitecore EC25W (http://www.nitecore.com/productDetail.aspx?id=73), the neutral white version, which was a couple dollars cheaper than the regular EC25 version. I paid $51.57 with free shipping from fasttech.com. I noticed today they've raised the price to $55. It took 10 days to ship it from Hong Kong to Houston. I've only had it for one day so I may append my comments below after some time. These are my first impressions and they include lots of gripes and suggestions for improvement regarding the UI.

First of all, I love the form factor. It's palm sized and takes a single 18650 rechargeable battery, maxes out at 860 lumens, and was a lot cheaper than the TK41. The fit and finish of the EC25W is beautiful, it looks very well made to me. I saw some people complaining about the belt clip. It only wraps around the light about 60% but I had to tug pretty hard to pull it off. It's not going to pop off on its own.

The light output seems excellent to me. The only thing I have to compare it to is my old Mag Lite, which I thought was good at the time. The Mag made a decent hot spot but the outer flood area is poor in comparison to the Nitecore, which lights up an entire wall with a beautiful white hotspot and outer flood area, especially on the high output modes. The EC25W operates on a single pushbutton located at the head of the device, easily accessible with the thumb. So that's all good.

Now the complaints. I write software for a living and I know a good user interface when I see one. This one ain't it. It's too complicated and annoying. The pushbutton operates in 5 different ways: half click, half click and hold, full click, full click and hold, and double click. To turn it on to normal daily mode is a half click. There are 5 brightness levels (60, 120, 285, 540, and 860 lumens). To cycle through the lower 4, you just make consecutive half clicks. That's fine but why leave out the highest (turbo) mode from that sequence? You have to press and hold a half click to get to it. That is an extra and unnecessary procedure I have to memorize. Or with the light off, do a full click to jump directly to turbo mode. But if you do that, you can't get back to the lower modes. A half click just toggles between high and turbo. So you have to turn it off with a full click and back on with a half click.

The EC25 also has three special modes: strobe, SOS, and beacon. They work great. To get the strobe, you double click the button. But if do that from the off position, all that does it turn the light on and back off again. You have to first turn it on with a half or full click and then do the double click. Annoying and another unnecessary procedure to memorize. Now you would instinctively think that to toggle between strobe, SOS, and beacon you would just issue half clicks just like would to toggle the daily modes. Nope, doing that takes you out of special mode and back into daily mode. To toggle between the special modes, you have to perform a full click and hold for over a second.

Most annoying are the "off" modes. There is standby mode and lockout mode. I don't want or like either of those. I just want an "off" mode period. In standby mode (initiated with a full click), there is a blue LED surrounding the pushbutton that blinks every two seconds. The idea is that you can find it in the dark. But it is annoying. Even in a lit room during the day, that blinking blue light catches your eye and you'll be constantly staring at it. It's worse at night. I tried putting it on my nightstand next to my bed last night. The blinking drove me crazy. I tried turning it around to face the other way but I could still see the blinking reflecting off the wall. Imagine having a nightlight in your bedroom that blinked on and off constantly. And it doesn't accomplish its goal anyway. Imagine reaching to grab something but closing your eyes for two seconds and only opening them briefly in between. The blue LED needs to glow solid to find it.

So the only other option is to go into lockout mode instead. But to do that you have to do a full click and hold for two seconds. But to turn it back on you have to do the same thing. I don't want to wait two seconds, I want it on when I press the button. Also, it doesn't remember your last setting coming from lockout mode. It jumps directly to the second (120 lumen) level. If you handed the flashlight to someone else in this mode they would never figure out how to turn it on. They would be clicking that button and nothing would happen. They would just think the battery was dead. The purpose of the lockout mode is to keep it from coming on accidentally. But that's never going to happen even in standby mode. The button is recessed into the body. Even just a half click requires pushing it down below the surface. A full click even mode.

A lesser complaint are the output levels. Four would have been plenty but if you're going have 5 then make the lowest one a very long lasting moonlight mode. The currently low of 60 lumens is decently bright on its own. I would have spread them out at 2/50/200/500/860 instead of 60/120/285/540/860. In fact, if you look at the Nitecore PT25, it's almost exactly that: 2/50/180/550/860 with that 2 lumen mode lasting a whopping 325 hours. Nitecore should have put the PT25 spread into the EC25.

One minor complaint. When you go into lockout mode or screw the battery in, the blinking blue LED will give you an indication of the battery voltage. For example 4.1 volts will blink four times, pause, and then blink one for the tenths. I thought that was cool at first but after thinking about it, who cares what the voltage is? I want to know what the percent charge is. Is 3.7 volts nearly charged or nearly empty? I have no idea. And if it's 3.9, I have to sit through 12 blinks and a pause to get that information.

Here are my suggestions on how Nitecore should fix this UI:

1. A full click turns the light on (remembering its last daily mode). A full click turns it off. Period. No blinking blue lights. No lockout mode. If you insist on having the blue light option, require a full click and hold to get there. And leave the blue LED on solid and dim it so it's only visible in the dark.

2. Half click when off should not do anything. Half click when on should cycle through all the modes. When in daily mode, all five levels. When in special mode, all three levels.

3. Double clicking should take you to strobe mode but it shouldn't matter if the light was already on or not. Half click should cycle between special modes, not a full click and hold as it is now. Double clicking from special mode should take you to daily mode or a single full click should turn the light off.

4. Spread the lumen levels out from 2 to 860 like you do with the PT25.

5. Change the voltage indicator to a percentage indicator. One blink for 80+ percent charge. Two for 60+, three for 40+, four for 20+, five for less than 20. Or for more detail you could do it in 10 percent increments with more blinks. The user wouldn't need an exact count. If they saw lots of blinks they would know it's time to recharge.

These changes would make this light just about perfect. Comments?
 
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tam17

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Jun 9, 2011
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Review and rant as a first post..?

Welcome to CPF :)

Cheers
 

shelm

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you're complaining about aspects which the informed user already knows from the webpage description (output levels, UI, ..). it's like seeing a green car in a brochure, you order it, you get the green car, and then complain 'i dont like green i wanted a blue car!' or 'oh i am surprised myself how much i dont like green' lol.

nitcore puts out tons of new lights, 2012 was absolutely insane, and 2013 is the year of Quadray, TK35-replica and Magnetic Control Ring-series. EC25 wont be a real bestseller imo, you got it at a low price, be happy with it! ;)
 

jay_rush

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Oct 7, 2011
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i dont own this light but this is an excellent rant/review. we need more real life experiences like this and how people actually feel about a light and not just ALL graphs and figures followed by 20 paragraphs of nerd ball talk like there just just elaborating on the specifications of the light. when i saw this light announced i was going to buy it 100% then i read about the interface..... the olight s10 or even better the s20 has an amazing interface for one button unlike the ec25. u should take a look at them if u want something crazy powerful for its size (less powerful of course).
 
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greeny1

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Jan 30, 2013
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Hey I like your passion.

However I think that most of your complaints you will think are really minor once you have had the light a while and get a bit more used to it.

I've only had mine a couple of weeks and there are a few things I would change (lanyard attachment etc) but most of your issues don't bother me at all.

A 60 low is fine by me . I could probably live with one fewer of the mid modes I guess.

The 1/2 press for a second to get to Turbo is a perfect shortcut for me , from any daily mode straight to turbo and back. The idea behind the turbo mode is different in which you are in search mode and want the highest output possible.

The battery status display is great, once you get to understand your battery it will be really useful. How could nitecore possibly know what percent of the capacity is left! this will vary battery to battery. They can tell you what the voltage is though and you will get to learn at what voltage turbo is no longer available (seems to be about 3.7) etc.
 

kbriggs

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you're complaining about aspects which the informed user already knows from the webpage description (output levels, UI, ..)

I knew the output levels and I said that was a lesser complaint. The web page description does not show the detailed click requirements of the UI and certainly doesn't mention that the blinking blue LED is going to bug the crap out of me. :ironic:
 

Verndog

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Sorry, I could not get past the "have to memorize the 1/2 press hold" for Turbo. :duh2:

Love the light personally, yes it needs a lower low but it suits the majority of my needs great! And yes I love the UI....all the garbage never to be used is well hidden as it should be.
 

Raiden

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I agree with the off mode but the rest is just minor. I prefer to see voltage reading rather than percentage especially when using Lithium batteries. You dont want your Li-ion batteries go below 3.8v or you could shorten the life of these expensive batteries. Just yesterday I got the Nitecore P25 and it comes with a master switch on the tailcap which makes it more convenient. The P25 is about an inch longer because of the deeper lens and a built in charger.
 

kbriggs

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The battery status display is great, once you get to understand your battery it will be really useful. How could nitecore possibly know what percent of the capacity is left! this will vary battery to battery. They can tell you what the voltage is though and you will get to learn at what voltage turbo is no longer available (seems to be about 3.7) etc.

Doesn't it detect if there are CR123's inside or an 18650? I figured if it could do that it probably could detect the amp-hour rating and other properties. The new Nitecore TM26 has an LED text display on it and in addition to a voltage readout, it has a graphical battery status function with 5 blocks on it, which I assume are 20% increments:

http://www.nitecore.com/UploadFile/Images/product/TM26/1-1_TM26_En3.jpg
 

SeamusORiley

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Dec 1, 2012
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I have the EC 25 and love it. I did not read carefully the instructions, but just got used to using the modes and the camera-like interface. After getting used to it, I did read the pdf file and learned that the on/off switch allows for me to know the battery level via flashing, which is interesting. I did not know before today that allowing a battery to go below 3.7 could shorten its life.

I paid more than original poster, who got a good deal.

As to a flashlight as a weapon, I don't understand the editing or why this is not allowed to be discussed. Is this what the strobe light is for in flashlights? Is this something not discussed? And if not, why? I did a search and did not find banning. Is it only about attaching a flashlight to a weapon, or the light itself?

I like the EC 25 very much, and ordered the white cap to it, which is nice, and have a diffuser coming in the mail this week (hopefully).

thanks in advance...
 
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dparr

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I really like how the battery voltage indicator is set up.

I don't like the percentage idea at all.

No problems with the button funtions at all. A few days of use and it's second nature.
 

kbriggs

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As to a flashlight as a weapon, I don't understand the editing or why this is not allowed to be discussed. Is this what the strobe light is for in flashlights? Is this something not discussed? And if not, why? I did a search and did not find banning. Is it only about attaching a flashlight to a weapon, or the light itself?

Yeah I noticed that edit. It was just a joke about the size and heft of my Mag Lite (that it could double as another function). Anyway, no big deal.
 

twl

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I think you'll find that many Chinese lights are afflicted with these over-complicated and generally poor user interfaces. They call them "features".

You had a Maglite which was US made with a rugged reputation and easy UI. There are other US made lights which are even better than Maglite.
Perhaps you should look into some high quality US made lights instead. The US made lights tend to focus on the quality of the construction and ruggedness, and stick with relatively simple and useful user interfaces.
 
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kbriggs

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Perhaps you should look into some high quality US made lights instead.

I would have if I could find one: as small as the EC25 (5 inches), as bright as the EC25 (860 lumens), and as affordable as the EC25 ($51). Which US manufacturer makes that?
 

Verndog

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I don't like the percentage idea at all.

Not to mention the fact it's pretty much impossible since the light takes 2 different types of cells, and voltages and capacity vary widely making the task to make this useable a waste of time.
 

E45

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Why didn't you read the product manual on Nightcore's website which explains the UI in detail. You could always return it, I suppose.
 

Norm

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As to a flashlight as a weapon, I don't understand the editing or why this is not allowed to be discussed. Is this what the strobe light is for in flashlights? Is this something not discussed? And if not, why? I did a search and did not find banning. Is it only about attaching a flashlight to a weapon, or the light itself

Yeah I noticed that edit. It was just a joke about the size and heft of my Mag Lite (that it could double as another function). Anyway, no big deal.

The OP suggested that a Maglite could be used as a club, definitely not allowed in discussion on CPF.

Norm
 
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SeamusORiley

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Yeah I noticed that edit. It was just a joke about the size and heft of my Mag Lite (that it could double as another function). Anyway, no big deal.

I didn't see what came out of your post; I was only asking about the principle.

I found, as dparr did, that just using it became second nature. I only just learned about how it blinks to show the battery level...

with the coming TM 26, I will read the manual before it arrives!

:)

By the way, I appreciate you taking the time to review the EC 25 "Cobra." The reviews here at the forum are helpful.
 

SeamusORiley

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The OP suggest that a Maglite could be used as a club, definitely not allowed in discussion on CPF.

Norm

Norm, does this restriction in discussion also include the flashing modes? Thanks for the reply.
 
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