Stupid lights are this channels thing- I mean so are stupid knives, but originally just
stupid lights, and stupid jokes.
I'm talking about something that shoots a beam farther than your eyes can clearly see,
light output that gives neighbors reason to plot your murder, and the Acebeam X70 is right
there at the top of stupid mountain with me.
If you ever ask WHY you shouldn't be watching this damn video to begin with.
However before you click away the answer is BECAUSE.
Now it doesn't throw the farthest- however at the time of this review, not counting modded
lights, customs, or theoretically in six months when they release an upgrade- this is the
brightest production handheld flashlight you can buy as of December 2018.
The Imalent MS12 is the runner up, but parsing through online reviews the X70 is rated by
the manufacturer and tested by reviewers to be a brighter light.
Big bright LED flashlights come with caveats though.
They need an enormous amount of power in the form of lithium ion batteries, and need an
effective way for the flashlight to get cool as it generates massive heat- reviewing them
hasn’t seemed to work.
Most flashlights don't have active cooling, and rely on step downs, thermal regulation,
and the mass of the flashlight body to keep the flashlight from melting itself and the
flash from your bones- which honestly ruins the fun.
Good flashlights are supposed to hurt.
The X70 tries to manage the heat by being quite large, and having a handle with a built
in fan to blow air over the fins and cool externally.
But before we get into that let's look at some dimensions, like the overall length and
weight.
No sheath- which would be a dumb thing to ask for.
(Voice off screen) ID LIKE TO BE ABLE BELT CARRY IT.
And how about the head diameter and the handle grip area.
The X70 isn't a cheap light at about $550, and it isn't small either.
I have the 32,000 lumen Imalent DX80, which itself isn't small, but still smaller comparatively,
and the larger BLF GT, and for comparisons sake here is a zebra light every day carry
pocketable light.
The X70 produces its light with 12 Cree XHP 70.2 LEDs for general floodier light and 1
cree xhp35 to help add some throw in the center.
The light has a built in battery pack that you charge with an included AC adapter, and
the battery pack Acebeam says is comprised with 8 Sony VTC6 18650 batteries, which if
you know anything about rechargeable batteries, hopefully you don’t- but if you do, they
are a very good high drain lithium ion.
When the light dies, remove the end cap, and put the plug in the charger, it turns red
and you sit wait for it to turn green, my charging time was around 3 hours, even though
the clock says less because I kicked out the plug on my alarm clock.
I’m not doing another charging time lapse- sorry.
On the back is the battery charge indicator and on the side there's a LED light that gives
some basic info on how much juice you got left... green means it's juiced, and red means
it needs to be juiced.
And if light stops coming out of the front it means you didn’t notice the red light.
In the box you get a carrying case, the light, an AC charging cable, A 12v car adapter, some
spare o-rings, a strap, and the detachable handle, and some manuals and warranty cards.
You will need a single 18650 battery for the handle fan, that isn't included.
I would recommend a good 3500 mah protected cell.
I didn’t test to see if the fan has a low voltage cut off, which is why I stuck with
protected cells.
But it does work with protected and unprotected cells both.
I’ll link a battery in the description.
Let's do some testing.
How about some output measurements.
My figures and ace beams are on the screen.
First is Ultra-Low.
Only on a 60 thousand lumen light would 600 lumens be considered ultra low.
Next is low.
Remember I use a DIY lumen pipe tube for this.
I did a video on how I measure my lights last year.
Now Mid.
Use these as estimates only- watch other videos, and read other online reviews of this light
to see what other reviewers got.
High Eco.
Please never take anything I measure as the final word.
High Power mode.
Everyone measures their lights differently.
Turbo Eco mode.
However you can trust that lights I review do have relative brightnesses to one another.
And Turbo Power.
As in you can gather this light is objectively brighter than the DX80.
Note that I get 57,000 lumens on startup, and it does start dropping quickly- these
are tested with the fan set to the highest mode.
If you don't use the fan or on a lower mode, expect it to drop quicker.
Of note too, this lights head barely fits my measuring device, so expect that the light
is probably brighter than my readings, because of some minor losses from light escaping from
the sides.
Let’s check out the UI… and if I decided to use lotion before this segment.
There are some people who find this less interesting than the runtimes.
(Voice off screen) I THINK ITS ALL BORING Make sure before your first use you remove
the battery tube and take away the clear piece of plastic locking out the light.
I have already done this, and unfortunately for the stupid people I threw it in the trash
weeks ago- so I can't reenact it.
It's pretty simple, one button operates the light, and one operates the fan.
My advice is that if you're using the light, use the fan- you might could skip it for the
ultra low mode.
Press the fan button once to turn it on press and hold to turn it off, it has a high and
low mode a quick press while on cycles between the modes.
I have found the fan lasts on high more than two hours, but less than 5 hours continuously.
If you’re out and about bring a second battery for the fan, just in case.
Ok let's turn on the light a single press turns the light on and off, note that the
button is technically on the underside when using the handle.
Press and hold from off for ultralow.
Ultralow is not saved into mode memory, even if you prayed and sacrificed that goat, and
can only be used as a shortcut.
From there to advance into the three main modes, blink your eyes twice, click your heels,
and press and hold... low mid, high and back again.
Double click from on or off to do turbo.
To toggle between eco and power mode... press the button quickly while off ten times, two
blinks after this action means its in eco, three blinks in power mode.
There is a way to turn just use the outer ring LEDs or just the center, however I won't
show you that for two reasons.
Reason 1, this doesn't make sense (shot of manual).
Reason 2, Sky Lumens or Vinh says on some lights the center LED smokes if you choose
to operate it by itself.
I see no logical reason to do this, so I won't.
And if you say you'd like this to be your only light and you might need to just use
the throwy or just the floody light, and this is going to be your only light you’re either
a liar, or no one likes you.
Also too the fan and handle is removable, you can hand or flat head tighten in.
It attaches to the opposite side as a button using a standard photo tripod mount.
Runtimes bro.
My guess here is that my high and turbo mode runtimes differ from Acebeam’s considerably,
because the light has a pretty active thermal regulation, and it stays brighter and will
get brighter as the light cools, and dims when it heats up.
That and the fan, using the fan keeps it cooler longer than just relying on the light uncooled.
The room I did my runtime tests in was about 65 degrees in the basement.
Some lights with thermal regulation just have a stepdown and the lights brightness won't
raise again...
I would describe this light as reactive to temperature.
This section simulates what it would like if you turned on the light and let it run
on the floor in your basement.
So the neighbors don’t call the cops again.
Turbo Power Mode.
I measured startup at 57,624 which is an excellent use of my time.
At a minute in we hit 51,000 lumens.
Two minutes it drops real big and we’re at 14,042 lumens.
At 3 minutes in it gets brighter, I would assume because the active thermal regulation.
A less sexy way of saying would be it gets brighter when it cools down.
And dims when it gets nice and hot.
On these tests I have the handle fan set to high.
It jumps to 29,301 for a minute or two.
Dims and rebrightens, because that’s a real word, by the 10 minute mark.
Then for a few minutes it stabilizes at 20k lumens.
Then jumps around from 18k lumens to in the low 20s for it’s short 30 minute runtime
before it comes out.
Handle fan still had plenty of juice less.
For us people who hate interesting conversations the handle battery had 4 volts left.
Ok how does Turbo Eco differ?
Hey where did everyone go.
At 30 seconds in we’re a little over 32 thousand lumens, 2 minutes still floating
above 30 thousand lumens.
5 minutes in we start our big dip in lumens and hit a low of just over 6000 lumens about
9 minutes in.
Then it bumps back up and it fluctuated from 16-18 lumens before it shuts down at 34 minutes.
Now High Power mode, or Power High mode.
30 seconds in we are about 22,000 lumens- 5 minutes in we’ve lost less than 2% or
a hair under 20,000 lumens.
10 minutes in we’ve only lost right under 3%, 20 minutes in we’ve even got brighter,
which is still right around 20k lumens.
25 minutes in we have a harder drop, to somewhere in the mid 18,000 lumen range.
30 minutes in we’re still over 13,000 lumens.
When we finally finish at 35 minutes in we’re in the 14,000 lumen range.
Amazing.
High Eco.
High eco is really interesting.
Ok no it’s not.
It starts out above 14,000 lumens, and at 10 minutes in it has dropped less than 2%
so it’s still above 14,000 lumens.
Wow.
And up until the 44 minute mark it actually recovers the little bit lost.
It cuts out at 57 minutes with a little over 10k lumens coming out.
Now about mid, you might remember I measured this one at 7261 lumens.
Now that we’re operating in a more manangeblae lumen mode for this size light, we get relatively
constant output for the runtime.
It drops 1% overall in brightness over the first 20 minutes, and then actually climbs
from it’s initial brightness.
Remember that light meter in there just assigns an arbitrary numerical value to how the lights
behaves during the runtime- to help back up what your eyes are seeing during this time
lapse.
I get the 7261 lumens figure from testing in my lumens measuring tube, and assigned
that 444 number as it’s maximum output, then use online calculators to help figure
out the rest.
Acebea, says we get 2 hours, we get a little less.
That’s still pretty good for the light being able to sustain over 7000 lumens for two hours.
Let’s test your patience even more with low.
Acebeam says it runs at 3250 lumens for 5 hours.
I get a reading of just under 3000 lumens and it runs continuously with almost zero
fluctuation in brightness.
Remember if I suspect anything, it’s that I’ve lost 66% of my viewers at this point
and also it’s my device is under reading the lumens 4 hours and 40 minutes it shuts
off.
But we can’t go home quite yet.
Yeah that’s right I locked the door
And let’s set the room on fire with Beamshots.
Here are the lights I'll be comparing it to.
Pulling out the Storm of Ra, my only other light with active cooling, and also a battery
drainer much like the X70.
Ok first up let's do a Zebralight.
It's an every day carry light, slightly over 1000 lumens... this is a frame of reference
light.
For the jerk that will show up and has no concept of what a flashlight looks like on
video, compared to his own eyes, and shoots off his mouth.
Ok now the X70 on turbo power mode.
This section compares max brightness of my lights, and serves as a reinforcement for
my estimated lumen output ratings.
So you can see oh yes this light is brighter, or floodier or throwier than another equally
boring flashlight because my camera is set to manual.
So while I measure it at 57000 lumens at startup you can also see it's visibly brighter than
the 32k lumens of the Imalent.
It's also throwier, so it'll light up more around you and in the distance than the Imalent.
Tints on both are very similar- I would consider them both cool whites, a
little yellowish in the center that gets bluer as it gets further away from the center.
Since the X70 has a handle you can hold it much more comfortably, if you’re not wearing
gloves- vs the DX80.
I objectively like the X70 more because of the handle and the overall brightness.
Ok my third brightest light the X80, also a coolish white.
When lights are this bright I tend to not notice the cool white as much on the brighter
modes.
The X80 is much smaller, and there has since been an upgraded version... the GT released
that's brighter.
Since it's tiny it doesn't sustain brightness levels anywhere near that of the X70.
I reviewed this light, so check out that review for the details.
This one is very very floody for a light, which means it scatters around you much closer,
and the beam doesn't travel as far into the darkness.
Next is Acebeam neutral white tinted X45.
For a time many of these lights were the brightest ever, like this one.
I like the refinement of the UI on the X70- only one step to get to turbo instead of two.
This is still a ton of light.
I mean no one cares about 14k lumens now, but in a simpler time two years ago we did.
Now the Storm of Ra.
This one has a beam distance that travels much further than the X70, but the light is
much more directional, and by far the throwiest light in the bunch.
I put this one out over a year ago, and it’s only sitting at 7200 views.
People often ask me why I don’t do light reviews much anymore.
Because they take countless hours of testing, people always ask for more testing, and really
no one cares.
The storm light is more of a niche hand built light, there's a coolness factor the storm
has that other lights don't.
This one also has extremely short runtimes, but it can sustain a high level of brightness
because of the fan.
Ok steadily going back in time to less bright flashlights that at a certain point in time
were the brightest lights ever.
The Noctigon Meteor.
I still use this light often, and like it.
It’s compact, has a nice tint, and 7000 lumens is more than most people need.
If my other videos had a 10th of what this one did, I’d do more light reviews.
Ok I think we’re about done.
The Acebeam X70 is a pretty bright light with an amazing amount of output.
It’s not for me to try and convince a single soul why they need sixty thousand lumens,
that’s what bad spending habits are for.
I don’t know how much more light a person would need, and this one nearly maxes out
my lux meter.
I’d need to rethink how I measure lights and build a new device to measure anything
brighter.
My advice is to just use the handle and fan at all times.
It should extend the life of the light and LEDs.
In my countless hours of testing this light I personally found no QC problems.
Check out my links below the video.
Thanks to Acebeam for donating this light to the channel.
If you like this review, subscribe to the channel, give the video a thumbs up, leave
a comment, watch the video at least 10 times, follow me on Instagram- where you would have
known I was going to review this light weeks ago and thanks for watching.