Thanks for tuning in today we're going to be reviewing the Monteer 3500s and Monteer 8000s
bike light combo. With 11 hundred combined lumen output the Magicshine Monteer 3500s
and 8000s is one of the brightest and best headlight combination Magicshine currently offers.
Individually both the Monteer lights offer impressive output and affordable price points
but are even better together. Now we've already reviewed the 3500s and 8000s separately but
we're excited to see how they perform together. This combination includes a helmet mount and the
individual 3500 and 8000s in their individual packaging. Now in terms of the packaging it's
pretty simple you have the same cardboard box for each of the lights they're pretty large and
robust so you can easily travel with these. You have nice reflective graphics on here and
Magicshines iconic orange and black color scheme. The 8000s is the exact same size just a different
graphic on front and slightly different labeling and as i mentioned you also get the helmet mount
which is a little strap design that can go over your helmet for Garmin or GoPro accessories.
Now go ahead and take these out of the packaging and over the specs. We'll start with the 3500s
so this is 199.99 and what you get with this light is the battery pack which is the 5200 milliamp
mj 6116 and consists of four 18650 battery cells in here. You get the 3500s headlamp
and it's a nice wired setup so very lightweight and this is the one you want to put on your helmet.
You can see five led design you get a simple
handlebar mount but because we're gonna do the combination we'll use the helmet mount instead.
Then you also get some accessories with this which includes the straps
also optional straps for the handlebar mount and you don't need this if you're going to do
helmet mount and the tool to attach it. The micro usb charging cable and this has 1.5
to 75 hour run time depending on which mode you put it in. It also has the Garmin style
mount which is great so you can use this a lot of generic mounts and offers the impressive
3500 lumen maximum output. What's unique about the 3500s is also that it has the longest beam throw
so it has a 350 meter max beam distance which is why it's so good for helmet mounting.
Now I'll jump to the 8000s, retail price on this is $399 so quite expensive but a lot of
power. You get 8000 lumens and to achieve that high output you have a 10 000 milliamp battery
which is one of their biggest batteries the 6118. This consists of four 21 700 lithium ion cells and
it is a aluminum housing again with the same garmin style mount so really easy to mount.
Then you can see with this a really aggressive aluminum housing with fins directly built in
and a 5 led design it's much larger than the 3500s as well to achieve that higher output
and bigger beam spread. What's nice about the 8000s is it's perfect for handlebar mounting and
Magicshine even includes the out front mount so this is a little stubby out front mount it's an
aluminum construction so very robust and one-sided. So you can easily mount this on here and then hit
the road with that and just like the 3500s you get a bunch of additional accessories which
includes the straps to mount the battery pack to your bike, the cable of course to connect it.
iYou have the charging cable this is a usb type-c which is really nice to see
and optional little spacers for the handlebar mount and the instruction manual. With the
combination Magicshine also offers this at about 610 dollars but it's currently listed for 580 so you
get a little bit of a discount buying them together and you also get the helmet mount the MJ-62776.
This is designed for GoPro or Garmin so it has a little adapter so we're gonna pull this out
so you can see it consists of basically a three strap design.
Here's the main piece and this has the gopro connection and then you have the garmin adapter
to that and this lets you run any light you want on here and the nice thing is with the gopro
to garmin you have the adjustability. So you can simply place it on here and then really adjust
it as needed you have a little strap that goes on here and then a three strap design and if your
helmet already has a mount you don't really need this one but if you don't you can easily put this
on any helmet so it's a three strap design that go around the sides and the top so depending on
your helmet you can either do the two sides or all three. There's quite a few components here so we'll
start with the helmet mount that consists of the two velcro straps that you need with your helmet
and then the actual bracket that comes in at 38 grams. Then the heavy components are going to be
the lights and the battery packs because these are wired setups you get these big bulky batteriesi.
So you have the battery pack with the cable attached and then you have the headlamp the 3500s
comes in at 392 so almost a pound. Then the big one will be the 8000s which is obviously a
much larger light with the outfront mount and the big battery pack with its battery cable
you'll also need the two velcro straps to attach it to your frame
so that comes in at 602 so definitely on the heavier side for the full combination.
Now let's take a look at the light setup on the bike. We have the 8000s
here on the handlebars really big light and you can see that compared to the 3500s
quite a bit larger they both have similar profiles but the 3500s is smaller and you can see that it
has a lighter weight smaller body which makes it better suited for the helmet. It's also better
as a spotlight while the 8000s is very much a floodlight it's a wide even beam
so it's great to have to point toward where you're riding and this really flood
around you for a nice lit up road. In terms of the wire length you can see it's fairly short
you will need an extender if you want to put this down onto your bike but it works well if you have
a backpack so you can put the battery pack in your backpack. You also have the big battery pack
for the 8000s here on the bike it's a little bit bulky but the little velcro straps do work well.
Here's another angle of that you can see the wires just wrapped around i usually wrap it around the
stem as there's a little bit extra length and the velcro straps do work pretty well even over
rougher terrain because it has a little rubber strap underneath it so it won't scratch your bike.
Here you can see a shot of the light combination together during the day and they're super bright.
There is no beam cut off here so you want to be careful about riding with this during the daytime.
As you can see the beam is nice and even that's actually what you want for trail riding so you
can see the trail and everything around you as you go up or down gradients. Now there's 15
total modes and there's three main options within those 15 you have spot flood hybrid hybrid runs
all five leds flood is the top three spot is the bottom two as you can see the spot is a little
more tightly focused while flood is a little wider . For the 3500s we recommend just leaving in spot
and the 8000s leaving hybrid to get a nice wide beam. Now there's 15 total modes again for
each light so it's very easy to get lost within each of those main modes you have five options
so there's quite quite a lot of options and almost too many honestly. Here you can see the 3500s just
helmet mounted by itself and while it is bright and you can see around you you can see the front
of the bike is fairly dark and the side to side is fairly dark so that's one reason why adding
a handlebar mount light can help with that. So with you can see as you turn around the 3500s
lets you see ahead of the corners but now when you combine the 8000s here everything is lit
up around you so you can see all the obstacles in front of your bike and to the sides so it's
a really impressive combination. The 8000s is super bright on its own but you can see as you go
around corners the 3500s has that long beam throw and lets you see obstacles before you get there
so especially if you're doing descents or faster rides it's really important to have that
situational awareness so you don't end up at a sharp corner and not know it's coming so it's an
impressive combination and although it's expensive it's not that expensive given the almost 11 000
plus lumen output. Now let's go over the pros and cons of the Monteer 3500 and 8000s combination.
What we like about it is the impressive output with over 11000 lumens it's more than bright
enough to light up the trail. It also has universal Garmin style quarter turn mount for both lights
so you can use a variety of third-party mounts instead of having to use proprietary systems.
Also the combination of flood and spot lights is really impressive so
3500 lets you see around corners while the 8000s really lights up the road. In terms of cons both
of the lights lacked DRLs that'd be something nice to have especially for daytime riding and
there's no available remote for either which is probably the biggest negative for these lights. So
you have to control each light individually with the one button interface and speaking of that
it's easy to get lost in those 15 output modes for each light. So you definitely want to stick
to one of the modes and just cycle through the intensities instead. Taking everything into account
we give the light combination nine out of ten. It really is the ultimate bike light combination
that really turns night into day. Thanks for watching this review don't forget to like and
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