I've been a Fenix owner for several years now, and I've always found their PD series lights to be a good balance of size and performance. When the PD31 special came out I found it at the time to be a good deal more chunky than the older lights, but still acceptable for carrying in a pocket. Now this light is showing its age (in terms of max lumens and lumines/runtime) and so I was interested in the new PD35 2014 Edition - until I read the dimensions. This takes the length up to 139mm, or almost +2cm on my PD31 special. To understand what this would do I taped some dimes to the back of my light to get the equivalent length, and put this in my pocket. Or I tried to. It no longer fits completely inside my pocket alongside my wallet, and is awkward when sitting.
The newer PD series lights are clearly powerful, but have they lost their edge when it comes to trading off size and performance? For myself, I would say yes. I'm interested to hear what others think - especially owners.
As far as why the design has changed, I would guess at a combination of larger heatsink and double springs for batter impact protection. I wonder if a different heatsink material or design could allow the light to be shorter. I'd even take a flat-bottomed tailcap option with all of the controls on the side.
The newer PD series lights are clearly powerful, but have they lost their edge when it comes to trading off size and performance? For myself, I would say yes. I'm interested to hear what others think - especially owners.
As far as why the design has changed, I would guess at a combination of larger heatsink and double springs for batter impact protection. I wonder if a different heatsink material or design could allow the light to be shorter. I'd even take a flat-bottomed tailcap option with all of the controls on the side.
