Greetings All !
I've been a Nitecore fan for years and owned several models, with the MH23 and SR7GT my favorites.
Initially excited by a new release, out of the box (away from the tube light) thinking appeared to be really appealing, until reading the details, the waters got quite muddy.
Foremost, the unusual rectangular form factor and "non-removable" cell design made me think it had a proprietary high-current rectangular LiPoly or some such. In fact using the excellent Samsung 48G 4800mAH 21700 cylinder cell is a fantastic choice for high current (35A continuous) and long runtime, but I thought there would be 2 cells, not just one...
Nitecore claims 100mOhm was the best contact spring resistance they could achieve with a design allowing replaceable cells, so they opted to build in the excellent 48G Samsung with welded contacts to lower the resistance by a factor of 5 to 20 mOhm, maximizing current delivery.
A nice evolutionary step forward, It also features a USB-C charging port at 18W and rapid charge circuit with a charge time of 30 minutes, eliminating the 2.1A bottleneck of conventional micro USB charge ports.
The design is meant to optimize current capacity match to the driver array, providing a stable 100W of power. Alas, the SEVEN SECOND fixed timer for (10,000 LUMENS !!!) is a crushing disappointment. In fact, the default high level is just 1000 lumens with a max 2 hour runtime AT THAT OUTPUT. Only a bit more than most single 18650 XPL designs.
The high level can be programmed between 400 and 2000 lumens in 100 lumen increments. It has a nifty OLED status display. Not confirmed, but it has a (nosebleed) $400 MSRP price tag, NOT for the faint of heart. Last, color options, Henry Ford Black HA-III, that's IT (sigh)
Most alarmingly, really disappointing lackluster candela measurements. Only 2,050cd (!!!) at the default High output setting of 1,000 lumens (for 2 hrs). 25,000cd for the Seven Seconds of 10k lumen TURBO!!
Overall, a radical departure from the tube light norm, likely a midrange "wall of light" Uber flood design, with a very high price tag given its limitations. Regrettably I think it's Nitecore's response to the misleading Lumen Wars marketing trend, despite several innovations.
Cheers!