Thanks for tuning in, this is The Sweet
Cyclists, today we're gonna be reviewing
the Magicshine RN 1200 LED bicycle
headlight. Here we have Magicshine's
latest headlight the RN 1200.
What's really cool about this is that they've
actually reduced the price and increased
the output from the other
headlights. I'm gonna go ahead and
take it out of the packaging and while
we do that we'll review the specs. The
retail price on this is $75, so cheaper
than the other Allty lights. It has an
impressive 1200 lumens of output and it
has an integrated 21700 lithium-ion
battery with 4,000 mAh capacity
which is really cool to see and that
contributes to the shorter body as well
as USB Type-C charging. Magicshine
also claims that it is one of the
world's first to have USB Type-C
charging and discharging. You can
actually charge this use any power bank
or charge your devices by plugging into
this USB Type-C port.
They've also added this anti-glare
designed into the lens and this helps
reduce glare for oncoming traffic. It
also has the Garmin mount
here so really easy to mount this
on your own out-in-front mount or any existing
mount you might have. Inside the box
you'll find a couple things, we have
the Garmin mount and this is the same
as the well we've seen with the Monteer
1400 but with the Garmin style top on it.
Really easy to use but I find a little
bit annoying to install this kind of
mount, you have to hook this in and then
tighten down the bolt. You also get a GoPro
adapter so this attaches to your GoPro
mount and then has the Garmin on top so
a really nice little addition to have
here. You have secondary
mounting straps for the handlebar mount.
You get the USB type-c charging cable
which again really cool to see. Also there is
a instruction manual and tool included.
Now take a moment to look at the weight
of the RN 1200 headlight.
The headlight by itself comes in at 160
grams so fairly heavy actually
because of the metal body while the
handlebar mount at 16 grams.
I would recommend using and out
in front amount instead.
Now lets go over the fit and finish of the RN 1200
headlight. We'll start with
the lens, what's really cool here is
that they've actually integrated a soft
beam cutoff. These are horizontal
deflectors, and deflect the
light downward to prevent people from
being blinded. It has a single Cree LED, you
don't get the DRLs that you get with
some of the Allty headlights which is one
negative. Also with the anti-glare you
really should not be mounting this headlight
upside down because if it is upside
down you're actually
deflecting the light upwards and causing
more glare. If you want to run
this upside down you really have to run
at a much steeper angle. The housing is a
nice all-metal body, you have these
little indentations here for a heat
dissipation. You have RN 1200
printed on here and it feels really nice,
it's fairly light with the Magicshine logo
on top. This is IPX7 rated which is
pretty impressive,
it'll definitely be able to handle wet
weather days without an issue. With
the integrated battery they were really
able to package it really nicely. The
power button on top is pretty large
and rubberized, it's not as cool-looking
as say the Allty 1000 with the
illuminated ring, but the feature they've
added here that I'm really excited to
see is the power indicator. With the
light off I can simply press once and it'll
illuminate with a three-level battery
indicator. It'll be green between 21 and
a 100, red between 11 and 20 and then
flashing red and anything less than 10 percent.
They've also
improved the user interface on these,
it's a long press to turn it on and single
press to cycle through the three
different constant modes. You have low,
medium, high and the nice thing about
this is you won't accidentally cycle through
flash. To access the flash modes you
double press, so this is really nice.
While in the flash mode you can
short press between the two options. You
have a normal flash and then a
faster flash. What's great about this is
when you're commuting you won't
accidentally go into flash mode when
trying to adjust the power output on a
dark trail which can be really
disorienting. Mounting wise what I really
love about Magicshine lights
are the Garmin mounts that's fully
integrated. This is really nice to see
here and it allows you to use
this light on any out-in-front light
mount you already own. It is really
compatible so you don't have to have a
proprietary system, you can always go buy
a mount from any other retailer. The
other really cool thing about this
is the USB Type-C charging. On
the back side you have this really large
rubber gasket and that covers the USB
Type-C port here.
What's really cool about this is not
only does it have the USB type-c charging
but you have
discharging. Now lets take a moment to look
at the mount itself, I
actually don't like these mounts. It is
has a plastic body and you have a rubber
strap on the bottom with this little pad
here. It works pretty well but I really
prefer out-in-front mounts and
with the Garmin compatibility I think I
would definitely invest in the one like
the Magicshine TTA mount.
What I also want to show here was
hat the USB Type-C to Type-C actually
works. You can see the light charging
here, I have the USB type-c cable running
to my Thinkpad. That's the feature you
don't typically see as USB C2C
require some additional details with how
the wiring is implmented. What I also want to
show here was that the USB C2C
works, typically with USB Type-C devices
they might have the USB type-c port but
they're not fully implemented so it's
really cool to see here. Also you can run
the headlight at full power while it's
being charged, so another really cool
feature. This means you can run a power
bank if your battery runs low you can
plug in a power bank here and continue
to ride as well as charge your own
devices so this will do a USB Type-C
discharging as well.
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So now let's do a comparison between the
RN 1200 and other headlights on the market.
What I've laid out here in the top
is the full Magicshine headlight lineup.
What's really cool to see here if you
can see is the progression of technology.
On the left here we have the Monteer
1400 which uses dual 18650 batteries. These
batteries are removable and replaceable
which is a really cool feature, however
it uses the older talon style mount
which is a little more finicky. It has no DRLS,
no anti-glare and it's a little
bit heavier with the all-metal body.
Then after that they came out with the
Allty 1000 which is a more compact headlight.
It uses the same 21700 battery so
pretty similarly sized however the Allty
1000 includes a DRL which is pretty cool.
It makes a little bit taller has a
little interesting side profile as well
they both have the Garmin mounts while
the RN 1200 introduces USB Type-C
charging and discharging. This is $100
for the Monteer 1400, the Allty 1000 is $85 and then
the big boy is the Allty 2000. This has
the OLEDs screen which shows you the
runtime and battery status as well as
current mode which is a really cool
feature. It has a cartridge style
battery but at $150 it's quite a bit
more expensive and has dual cree LED as
well. So you can see with the RN
1200 you get a lot of the nice features
like the Garmin mount, you get a little
anti glare instead of DRL and the USB
Type-C charging again. Really
interesting side-by-side. What I found
more interesting is when I saw the RN
1200 is that it reminded me a lot of the Fenix
BC21R V2. The Fenix is 1000
lumen and it has a similar anti glare
design. They call it the dual beam design
but it's very similar. I think the
Fenix actually extends a little bit
lower on the lens so a little more
exaggerated but again both of them are
soft
designs. If you compare that to the
Lupine SL that we reviewed with the $500
retail price that one had a beautiful
crisp being cut off. With both of these
it's more of a soft cut off but again
the Fenix adds a replaceable battery
while the Magicshine is integrated.
That's one negative however the Garmin
mount and USB Type-C charging and
discharging one-up the Fenix which
only has USB Type-C charging.
Now let's take a look at
the beam shape of the RN 1200 as you can
see here with a side-by-side image the RN
1200 has a nice dual beam design.
That's thanks due to the anti-glare lens
so as you can see you have a lot more
light on the ground versus the Allty 1000
which has a similar single Cree LED
design. This means there's less glare for
pedestrians coming at you and also ends
up being a lot brighter on the road as
you have more light around you so it's
definitely a great improvement. However
if you compare this to something like
the Lupine that we tested here where
that had a crisp being cut off all
you'll know you'll still cause glare for
oncoming traffic. This is really evident
when you look at the side profile of the
beam, you still have plenty of light
above the horizontal line something you
wouldn't have with a sharp being cut off.
Now let's take a look at the different
light output modes of the light there are
five different modes: three constant and
then two flashes. You have low, medium,
and high where high is a full 1200 lumens.
The first flash mode is a
standard on/off pattern while flash 2 is
a very erratic on-and-off. I definitely
don't recommend it at night but a good
option for daytime riding. If we look at
the light output on the road I really
liked it as it has a surprisingly wide beam
considering only its a single Cree LED.
It's plenty bright, we found medium
to be more than enough when you're
riding while low is pretty good for urban
riding and high for really a high beam
situation where you need additional
light.
Now let's go over the pros and cons of
the RN 1200. What I really like about it
is the 21700 lithium-ion cell this
battery has higher capacity than
traditional lithium-ion cells and has a more
compact form factor allowing the light
to be a little bit smaller. I also really
like the fact that Magicshine added USB
Type-C charging and discharging so
you can charge your phone and charge
this on the run to extend the run time.
You can even do a USB C2C charging
so you don't need more of these cables
or dongles to go from USB Type-C to micro
USB or USB Type-A. Also the Garmin
quarter turn style mount means you
can use the slide with almost any out-in-front
mount or other mounts that you
have that are Garmin compatible. Some of
the cons are the fact that it has an
integrated battery unlike say the
Monteer 1400 which had replaceable
battery cells. Once these cells died the
light has to be thrown out so that's one
con. It also lacks a DRL that the Allty
lights have like the Allty 1000 has.
Also with
the anti glare design of lens you
don't really want to be mounting the RN
1200 upside down as that would
actually increase the glare for
pedestrian so that's something to be
cautious of. Without a more flexible
mounting solution I'd highly recommend
leaving the RN 1200 on top or
look at the Allty 1000 if you want to
flip it. Taking everything to account I
would give the RN 1200 a 9.2
out of 10. It's really impressive how
Magicshine has improved the light output
and added more features and yet still
reduced the overall price with the light.
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This is The Sweet Cyclists reminding you
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