Review: TrustFire T4 (Tactical, 1x18650, XP-L Hi)

Budda

Enlightened
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
590
Location
Italy
I received the TrustFire T4 for the review from TrustFire for the review.
The T4 is a tactical light, with a XP-L Hi and it is powered by a 18650 cell.
You can check out more about the T4 on their website: www.trustfire.com


The T4 comes in this box
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Inside the box: The light, sheath, lanyard, manual, spare o-rings.
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The T4 is a medium sized tactical light, with a head that is bigger than the body, and inside the head there's a smooth reflector for focusing the XP-L Hi emitter.
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The tailcap threads are square cut anodised, allowing physical lockout
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And the cigar grip is screwed on
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At the head there's a spring, and the thickness at the body is defenetly something
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The tailcap is easy to access, since the mechanical forward switch protrudes. There's a hole for lanyard.
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The sheath is made of light denier cordura, it is MOLLE capable and has a plastic D-Ring.
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UI
The T4 has 2 modes, one with the head fully twisted and another one with the head partially untwisted.
With the head fully screwed on the body, the light has only high mode.
When the head is partially unscrewed, you can cycle through all the modes (low, mid, high, strobe, sos, beacon, in loop). The light has memory mode.


Beamshots at 0.5 meters from the wall
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Output and runtime
Both measured with a TrustFire 18650 battery with 3500mAh and PCB
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My thoughts
The light is well built and finished, although the anodisation looks more shiny than the one of other flashlights I reviewed in the past with HA III. The sheath is made of light cordura, and the Velcro could be more thick and grippier.
The output is pretty much consistent with the specs (except for the low mode, I could not measure the output, but to my eye it seems around 1 or 2 lumens); the regulation could be better at High mode (although someone could make the point that other lights of the same segment have a more significant stepdown after a few minutes of running). The claimed " intelligent temperature control setting" does not provide any meaningful difference when running the light cooled down or not.

The UI has a couple of issues.
In theory, the interface with the 2 head position, is a great interface and it is adopted by many light manufacturer. But on the T4 there's what I can consider a bug.
If you have your T4 with the head unscrewed, it is at the level you have set. If you keep the light on and screw the head, the light remains at that level, and does not go to the high mode (the only accessible mode for when the head is screwed completely). The same happens if you turn the light on with the head screwed and then untwist the light, the light remains at high mode.
So in order to switch between the 2 level groups (high and one of your choice between low-mid-high-sos-strobe…), you need to turn the light off, either twist or untwist the head, and turn it back on.
The other issue I found on my sample is that the little bent contact points at the head, that allow the light to know if you have the head fully screwed or not, can come too compressed and so won't travel upward much. I used the tip of a knife to re-bend them into the original shape and I did not have the same problem again.

I would like to see this light come with a NW tint.

Thanks to: Anto, Zampa, Won.
 
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