Olight

New to the forum so excuse my inexperience.

I am more of an EDC back ground and i am just wondering why Olight has such a huge following?
I am more of a fenix fan by the way.

They're compact, tough, decently powerful and most importantly, do a TON of marketing and sponsorships.

:welcome:

Olight makes great flashlights, that are feature rich and always on the edge of performance. They are well made, perhaps one of the best of all the Chinese-made brands, especially considering that they pot most if not all of their lights. They are a great gateway, and also great for general folk who aren't tech savvy or don't care to have to learn how to use a flashlight.

They have a very strong marketing approach, and have a great handle on driving interest in limited edition products in enough quantity that they 'infect' everyone. Their marketing team is really truly stellar, they know exactly what to do and how to push it to get great results.

The only valid complaints of Olight are lack of variety in emitters, particularly less neutral/ warm and no HCRI options on the whole, and their use of proprietary batteries in some of their lights, necessitated by their bespoke charging systems.

Olight makes the highest quality production flashlights I have ever seen and I own over 300 flashlights. They also have the most efficient drivers. For example per Maukka's test, their old H2R 4000K XHP50.2 I tested at 77CRI has an efficiency of 135lm/w whereas the Zebralight H600fc MKIV w/ 4000K XHP50.2 90CRI only makes 89lm/w. The difference in efficiency between the two emitters is 20% max, which means Olight driver is the reason for the huge efficiency lead. The more recent Olight Perun with XHP50.2 can do 500 lumens for 4 hours!!! Olight is truly king of driver efficiency! Only problem is Olight have very limited NW and HI CRI options and I think they stopped offering these altogether. Also the tint on their emitters are usually above BBL, which means greenish tint. If Olight starts making an emphasis on light quality, I would buy almost every one of their lights.


Fenix also makes very good drivers and have similar issues with only offering CW and no HI CRI option. Olight UI is easier to use than Fenix that uses the dreadful click and hold to OFF. I like Fenix's rotary control on a few of their lights though.

I've only owned one Olight, so I really have no authority to make claims about them. Most Chinese brands don't really interest me. I will say however that the one I had, had a very great beam to it, and a nice neutral-white LED. Absolutely artifact free and uniform with no hot spot whatsoever. That is something I liked about it. Even Surefires MV reflectors have some spot, but that's something I came to like.

Also, their interfaces tend to be straight forward and intuitive, and that together with the magnetic charging many of their models offer makes them very user friendly and great for non-flashlight people. And they make up the majority of the market after all.

On top of excellent build quality, aesthetic goes a long way too and I think that can play a significant part in consumer satisfaction. They go for a clean and minimalist approach in their packaging and designs. Unboxing my Warrior X Pro was like unboxing an iPhone. Super satisfying. I kept the box.

Eicca said:

On top of excellent build quality, aesthetic goes a long way too and I think that can play a significant part in consumer satisfaction. They go for a clean and minimalist approach in their packaging and designs. Unboxing my Warrior X Pro was like unboxing an iPhone. Super satisfying. I kept the box.

Click to expand...

I keep mine as well, although I am torn between the new packaging and the old Olight packaging. Back in the day I bought an M21 and the case it came in...just surprised me. Although considering what I spent on it I guess one could say that it should have been expected. I still have both the M21 and M21X2 and their cases. I paid significantly less for the M21X2 although it was and still is a very usable light. The M21's SST-50 has been replaced with an XM-L and is now on par with the second version at high output. I prefer the newer ones double-tap to turbo over the old light's straight twist to change modes.

I feel like Olight is genuinely improving. Even though I think they need to stop with the push of proprietary cells in their lights, they do seem to listen to their customers. Although sometimes I think they are only listening to the most vocal of their customers who are flashlight collectors, calling for features and designs that don't really make sense in real world use...they do get people to buy.