I really like flashlights. It’s almost an addiction. Infinity offered up its flagship 7,000-lumen torch for me to give a whirl, and I jumped on it right away.
TL;DR: It’s big. It’s bright. It’s rechargeable. It’s got a bunch of modes. It has a focus ring to make it a true spotlight or more like a traditional flashlight. It’s far cheaper than I was expecting. It doubles as a baton. I can almost see the future with it.
Things I don’t like
Holding the power button for three seconds switches demo mode on and off, which is really annoying. Demo just sends the flashlight through all the modes, flickering, flashing, and dimming before auto-offing. Usually, holding the power is how you’d dim most flashlights, so this is a bit weird and annoying.
It’s massive. It’s literally just over a foot long (13 inches / 33 cm). Sure, it’s rugged and made of aircraft-grade aluminum, and you can almost send Morse code to the ISS with it, but it’s not easily packable and certainly not fitting in your pocket. On the flip side, however, should a rabid elk attack you in the forest, you’ll at least have a fighting chance of survival by either blinding it or fending it off with a 1.6 lb (0.73 kg) club.
JS @ New Atlas
It has a ring connector at the bottom, handy for attaching something like a paracord wrist strap or the world’s smallest carabiner, but because of the way the twist mechanism works at the bottom to access the charge ports, you’ll have to remove whatever you’ve attached in order to access charging ability. A bit of a double-edged sword.
Which leads me to the fact that there are two USB-C charging ports on this flashlight. One labeled “in” and one labeled “out.” Yes, you can use your flashlight to charge your phone if you’re in a pinch. Though they’re clearly labeled and the “in” is red while the “out” is black … it’s impossible to see which is which in the dark. I’m not sure what would happen if you were to reverse-polarity the X1 by accident. I’m not keen to try, but I’m 100% certain it’ll happen at some point.
JS @ New Atlas
There appears to be foreign debris of some sort on the LED array. It’s probably harmless, but not super confidence-inspiring from a QC standpoint. Hopefully it doesn’t cause the X1 to burn out prematurely.
Things I do like
Flashlights help you see in the dark. And whoa, baby! This thing is BRIGHT. It’s the brightest flashlight I’ve ever used in my life. Brighter than my Maglite, my Streamlight, and even brighter than my Stanley FATMAX spotlight (which is far more cumbersome than the Infinity X1).
It comes with a rechargeable li-ion battery, and it comes with a battery cartridge that holds nine AA batteries. Surprise, surprise, it even came loaded with Duracell batteries … though, when I compared the strange-looking Duracells it came with to an actual Duracell AA battery I had on hand … they looked a little suspect. Either way, it’s pretty cool that you have choices for power, though the max output goes from 7,000 lumens down to 1,500 lumens when running alkaline AA-power.
JS @ New Atlas
There’s a small ring light around the power button that tells you its state of charge (SoC). Green, yellow, and red, giving you a quick visual as to how much juice is left. Four levels of dimmability are great for not only conserving power, but also tuning it down when you don’t need an artificial sun in hand.
JS @ New Atlas
Speaking of, the beam is round. Nothing annoys me more than square beams, so I’m happy to report that the X1 beam is round.
JS @ New Atlas
It’s rugged and IPX4 rated. I’m not afraid to drop it (as long as it’s not on my toes, please not the toes!), I’m not afraid of it getting wet, and because of the marketing photo on Infinity’s website, I’m not afraid to run it over with my car, not that I’ll actually try.
And on that note, it’s really cheap! I didn’t know what the MSRP was when I received it. I honestly thought it was going to be in the US$150+ range based on looks and feel and output alone, but when I looked it up for this review, I was shocked to see it was only in the ~$50 range.
Infinity X1 7000 Demo at Night
All-around specs and thoughts
The X1 uses a slide-focus to go from a blinding spot beam to a wider, softer pattern, depending on what you need. The spot is good for about an 820-ft (250-m) throw at full power. The X1 is rated using actual FL1 standards, which means that yes, the X1 does deliver an initial output of 7,000 lumens at full blast; however, the light will auto-dim itself after a bit to save itself from thermal meltdown if it starts getting too hot. It’ll even go so far as to auto-dim if the light is too close to a surface to prevent overheating, which I find to be pretty neat. It does get hot fast. It also has a mechanical sliding locking switch to prevent it from being accidentally turned on while in your rucksack.
JS @ New Atlas
The li-ion battery should give you about 1.5 hours of runtime at its brightest level. Medium – 3,000 lumens – is good for about 3.5 hours. Low will halve the output and double the runtime to about 7 hours. And finally, “eco mode,” everyone’s favorite catch phrase, knocks the light down to 400 lumens (which is still about 8x brighter than your iPhone light) but gives you around 17 hours of use. It also has an SOS mode, just in case.
Infinity has a couple other options if you don’t need the full-7,000-Monte. like the 5,000 and the 3,500 lumen versions.
Will I take it camping with me? 100%. A bear can’t catch you if it can’t see anymore. Will I take it hiking? 0%. I’ll stick to my 5.11 Response XR1 headlamp and EDC PL pocket flashlight for day trips. Still, it’s going to make a great addition to my collection of nighttime illuminators.
Product page: Infinity X1
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