Today we're going to be reviewing the Magicshine Ray 2600 bicycle front headlight.
Most new bike lights tend to be only minor updates to legacy products such as color or battery
capacity changes. What sets Magicshine apart is it's one of the few companies that actually does
major overhauls when they introduce a new series. The new Magicshine Ray 2600 is a great example
of this as it's one of the smartest lights Magicshine has offered to date. In terms of packaging
it's very simple you have this nice graphic of a bike on here. Ray 2600 and Magicshine's orange coloring
and otherwise a nice simple cardboard box. Specs are written here on the back with all the specs
including the FL-1 tested rating which is always nice to see that's something a lot
of the cheaper Amazon lights don't have they just claim lumens that don't actually match what you'll
encounter when you're riding. Lets go ahead and take it out of the box and go over the specs.
Retail price on this is $144.99 so it's about a mid-level bike light.
It's 2600 lumen output so very bright for an all-in-one design with an integrated battery.
It has a dual led design you can see you have an led on the left and the right
with different optics on it. This one's more focused while this is a more traditional cone beam.
It has a 6700 milliamp battery and consists of two lithium ion 18650 cells in here
and it's really impressive that you get such high capacity on such a small package.
It's also usb type-c rechargeable which means you get really fast
charge times and you can also discharge it to use this as a power bank on other devices.
It's a really nice feature and you can use the same usb type-c cable you already own.
What makes this the smartest light front light that Magicshine has integrated an
ambient light sensor which automatically switch between day and a night mode. In terms of what's in
the packaging you can see we have the light the simple cardboard cutout that holds it in place.
We get the front uh handlebar mount that we've seen a lot of Magicshine lights, it's a little
strap design that goes through with a bolt to provide a little tension. It's a garmin style mount
so that means you can use any style garmin compatible device which is a really nice feature.
It doesn't use a proprietary mount and underneath it you'll see more accessories you get the usb
type-c charging cable. Again really nice you can reuse cables from your cell phone or other devices
multiple strap options for the mount this lets you use it on aero bars
on shorter bars or mountain biking bars using the same mount. A little allen key as you need
that to install you get an adapter for GoPro to garmin that means you can use other GoPro mounts
put this on there and then actually mount your light on that. One of the great advantages of
having a Garmin style mount you can use all these built-in accessories. Instruction manual
and we also have the optional usb type-c wired remote so this lets you remount the power button
somewhere else it's about ten dollars separately and you can see very simple design you have an
o-ring to mount it and then a little toggle button. This lets you put it closer to your hood
or wherever you want although the cable is fairly short so you can use this for a helmet mount
as it's too short for that. Now let's take a look at the weight of the Ray 2600 so the headlamp by
itself that comes in at 192 so a little bit on the heavier side due to the dual lithium-ion battery
itself. The handlebar mount with the stock little strap on there that's pretty light at only 16
grams and then the remote wired switch with the little o-ring to mount it that's only 14 grams.
So now let's go over the fit and finish of the Ray 2600 headlamp.
Visually this light looks a lot like the other magic shine commuter style all-in-one lights
it has a rectangular body with these rounded corners to it and it uses an aluminum housing
so it feels really premium and looks quite premium as well especially compared to plastic body lights.
You have a two button interface on top which is nice to see. You don't actually have to
go through flash modes and the button interface the two button interface allows you to navigate the
menu a lot easier. Minimal branding Magicshine on top,
Ray 2600 written on both sides. Little details like this cut out here the fins in the housing
a little cut out in the headlamp to provide a side visibility when you're riding.
Then you have a dual led setup what's unique about this is that it actually differentiates
between the leds. So unlike the MJ or the Monteer where all the lights kind of look the same
here you have a standard lens so just a big cone style beam so a light up the road and the trees
so great for trail riding while the one on the left here you can see has vertical diffusers
to really diffuse the light out and then a little diffuser down here in the middle to point it
downward so great for road riding or urban riding where you don't want to have a lot of glare.
There is no drl like the Allty and there is no runtime display like you'll get with the Allty 2000.
Instead you get a two button interface and the built-in light sensor that's actually
right here on the top button. It's the first time we've actually seen the light sensor
on a Magicshine light headlamp. They have it on the Seemee tail lights and it's one of our
favorite features as it lets you just leave it on there and let it switch between day night mode.
On the back you also have the usb type-c charging port and this actually gives you fast charge times
allows you to use the same cable a usb type-c cable and also lets you use it as a power
bank for other devices. The other thing is you get this remote control too it's a usb type-c
so it's fairly short but if you were to mount this on your head like on an out front mount
you could put this down near your drops and then control the light so nice feature. We'll show
that on the bike a little bit later. Now let's jump into the interface you'll notice that when
I press it actually goes red when I click the top or bottom button. This indicates we're in
the lockout mode and lockout mode is kind of known as the transport mode with other lights.
This is great for transporting the light throwing your backpack or storing it and making sure it
doesn't automatically turn on or accidentally turn on if it hits something. To disable the
transport mode hold both buttons and then you'll wait a few seconds and the color on the backlight
should change. So you can see now we're green the other thing is this has essentially two
modes, you have a smart mode and a knock smart mode in smart mode it uses the light sensor
and switches between day mode which is a 50 lumen output mode and then at night it switches back to
one of the pre-selected 14 modes. So to change that click both buttons you can see it's flashing blue
flashing blue means you're in the non-smart mode to confirm double press both the other nice thing
is here you can see the backlit buttons so with the light off i can click it and it'll show me the
color. It'll either be green red or flash and red we wish there were a little more granularity but
the nice thing about this is before you ride you can click it and if you see red or flashing red
throw it on the charger before you ride. Now to turn it on press either button then you
can actually use the dual buttons to go up and down in intensity. That's a really
nice feature you don't have to cycle through all menus you can just press up down and you
don't have to go through flash and that's one of the biggest advantages of this style interface.
So to do flash it's a double click and it has two different flash modes
and you double click and go out but the nice thing is to change intensity while you're on the road
just press up and down quickly and you don't have to hit that flash mode which can be really
distracting when you're riding. The smart mode is probably one of the coolest features of
this light so we'll turn it off again we'll go into smart mode by double clicking the buttons
you can see i'm in flashing so i'm going to press up and it should stop flashing so i pressed up
stop flashing. To confirm double press you get the green so now we're in the smart mode and what's
nice about smart mode again just like the Seemee tail lights it'll automatically go between the
50 lumen mode and whatever of the 14 modes you picked. So we'll turn the light on again
and what you'll see is i'll throw down the normal mode and now i'm in the 50 lumen mode
so you can see quite dim and if i cover up the light sensor to simulate night time
you can see i'm back into the mode i pre-selected.
So you can see i'm in night mode and then i hit day mode again and i'll automatically switch back
so it's great if you're going through a tunnel or if you just ride between morning or night times
or it's day and night you don't have to press any buttons. The light automatically does
the work for you and switch between the two and you can see pretty responsive as well.
Now let's go over the light output of the Ray 2600. What's nice about this is a dual led design
and you can run the left by itself the right or a hybrid mode and as you can see here the left and
right are quite different. The right mode has a lot of deflectors to focus the light downward
and as you can see here from the beam profile most of the light is underneath that horizontal line so
you have much less glare than standard lights. On the left you have a standard cone beam and you
can see it's pretty much centered in front of you right along the line and in hybrid mode you get
both so you get that flood lamp and a spot lamp it's really obvious to tell the difference between
these. Also from the side profile here you can see the side profile of the standard beam and has a
nice cone beam so great for trail riding but has a lot of glare. Then for comparison here is the
right side led by itself and you can see it's much more focused a lot of that illumination is on the
ground rather than being above you. Now there are about 14 modes with the light so you can run eco
low medium high and you can see the run times vary quite a bit with eco being very dim and high being
about half the maximum for the left and right and then the full 2600 in the dual mode. The beams are
very different so especially when you're riding you can really tell the difference and the jumps
and lumens are quite obvious between low and high. Thanks to the up and down arrow interface
it's much easier to navigate them so as you can see here once you go to 1300 it's very bright
and these shots actually don't really do the light justice they're a lot brighter than they look
here. Then with the hybrid mode you get the combination of two with the full 1300 at medium
and then if you go full 2600 it's an impressive one and a half hours run time so more than enough
for dark trails. We normally ride with the medium or high there's also two flashes with 330 lumens
one very fast flash and then a more steady flash so enough variation that's useful on the road.
Here you can see some riding footage with the lower setting it's great for urban
riding so you're not blinding pedestrians or other cyclists on the road with a nice focused beam.
Then it's easy to go up and down with the arrows the little remote control is also pretty
helpful if you want to mount the button near your drops but then you lose the up and down option.
Like I said we usually ride with the medium or high setting as that's more than bright
enough and during the daytime the smart sensor automatically goes to the 50 lumen mode which is
great so you don't have to really touch it and overall riding with this it's very equivalent
to some of the higher powered Magicshine lights without all the bulk as it's an all-in-one design.
Now let's compare the Ray 2600 with some other Magicshine lights. One of the more direct
comparisons is between the older Monteer 1400 you can see very similar rectangular
design dual leds. The nice thing about the Ray 2600 is that it's almost double the capacity
of the older Monteer even though it's the same size so good testament to the increase of battery
capacities. It also has the Garmin mount instead of their proprietary mount which is another great
improvement. The other series of commuter style all-in-one lights that mad shine has is the alti
you can see this is a little smaller ulti 400 a single led with the horizontal
deflectors here for a little bit of anti-glare otherwise really simple. Again a similar design
aluminum body and as you go up in power all the way up to the Allty 1000.
You can see same size as it has a similar battery style but smaller capacity with the Allty 1000 one
button interface which is a little more confusing to use. Then you get DRLs which is nice
so that's one thing you don't get with the Ray instead you get the day mode.
The nice thing here is the dual button interface is much better than the one button interface.
The other Allty light is the Allty 2000 this actually has a runtime display screen
and that's actually nice you actually get more information here about what's going on the battery
capacity the mode. It also has a dual led design
and the drl so i like the screen on the Allty 2000 but obviously the Ray 2600 has more battery capacity.
Then the fact that it automatically adjusts between day night mode means there's less user
interaction you just leave it in there same time switch between the drl mode and the night mode.
The other thing you can see is the size of this is much smaller as you don't have the large drl
at the top instead it's streamlined only to the top portion of the body.
The other lights they have are more powerful like the MJ-900 series. So this is the 902s you can see
again dual led design but as I mentioned in the review for the 900 series the lights are too
similar. The beam style is almost identical so there's almost no advantage to using left or right
this one does has a drl which is nice but with the smart mode again you don't really need it as much.
For 3000 lumens of the 902s you have to have this giant battery pack
compared to the 2600 lumen of the Ray without a battery pack. The main difference here is
the battery pack gives you a lot more run time obviously the 2600 lumen output of this is almost
limited to like an hour and a half while the 902s can run much longer thanks to the big battery pack.
The other series is the Monteer series and this is the
the 3500s you can see much bigger more of an off-road trail design with the
five led design. One button interface which makes it harder to navigate and again a bulky
battery pack so i think the Ray 2600 offers a nice compromise between power and compact form
factor and with the smart sensor i think it makes a lot easier to use when you're riding.
Now let's go over the pros and cons for the Ray 2600. What we like about it it has a lot of modern
features like the USB Type-C charging port. It also has a three-level battery status indicator
which is a great way to check the battery before you start riding. Finally really like the two
battery interface which makes adjustments easy as you don't have to cycle all the way from low to
high to adjust the intensity you can just click up and down and directly go to the setting you want.
Some of the cons in fact there's no DRL, there's a daytime mode in the smart mode but it would
be nice to have a DRL just for that cleaner look. Because of the focused beam on the right side
this light shouldn't be mounted upside down it'd be great if Magicshine offered a
upside down mount that'll let the light stay oriented correctly but be mounted underneath
an out front mount. Finally it is a little difficult to remember to use how to remember
to use all the features you do have to hold the buttons to access the smart mode and you have
to hold it again to turn on the lockout mode or disable it taking everything into account would
give the Ray 2600 9.5 out of 10. This is one of majestine's smartest headlights and has pretty
impressive output for the size. Thanks for watching this review don't forget to like and subscribe.
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