thanks for tuning in today we're going
to be reviewing the Magicshine
Monteer
3500s bicycle headlight.
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The Monteer series of bike lights are
one of Magicshine's highest performing
and most affordable options. It's really
impressive they all have multi-thousand
lumen output
everything from what we have here the
Monteer 3500s
all the way up to the crazy 8000s with
8000 lumens of output.
These are all verified output as
well so if you're looking for a really
bright headlight the Monteer series is
something to look at.
Now again this is the most affordable
variation and in terms of packaging it's
really simple
you have the nice hard cardboard box
glossy graphic on top
and their iconic orange black color
scheme.
Basic information about the light on the
back
so I'll go ahead and take it out of the
box and we'll go over the specs.
Retail price on this is $199.99
and that's for 3500 lumens of output so
really impressive amount of output
and again that's FL-1 tested so it's not
like your amazon lights that are all
10000 lumens but 20 bucks.
It has a five led design and these are
Luminus
SST-20 LEDs. So you have two spotlights
and then three flood lights so a nice
balanced beam.
In terms of battery pack you get a
5200 milliamp lithium ion battery design
this is four
18650 cells inside
and that gives you 1.5 hours on max
output
all the way up to 75 hour runtime on the
lower setting.
It's a micro USB charging battery pack
and can even be used as a power bank for
other devices.
As with all of Magicshine's newer
lights they all use a Garmin style
base directly molded into the headlamp
so really easy to mount this on your
helmet
on your handlebars or anything with even
third-party mounts.
Also this is one of their furthest
reaching
headlamps as well so it's 350 meter max
beam distance so it really lights up the
way so perfect for off-road riding.
In terms of what comes in the box here
quite a few things you get the
MJ-6116C battery pack you get the headlamp
you get their simple handlebar mount and
this is a pretty simple design it has a
little allen key
that you can loosen and tighten to
accommodate different handlebar
diameters.
If we take out the nice foam padding you
have more accessories underneath
you get the magic straps this is to
mount it onto
the battery pack onto your frame you get
different extensions for that handlebar
mount
to accommodate different lengths of our
diameters of your handlebar.
You get the cable for the battery pack
so when you're not using it on your bike
you can actually pull this off and then
use the power bank and when you want to
use it you take off the
grommet and then put this on.
Micro usb charging cable
for the battery pack a little allen key
for the handlebar mount
and then the instruction manual as well.
Now let's take a second to look at the
weight
of the 3500s so the headlamp by itself
that comes in at 108 grams.
The little handlebar mount with the
default strap on there
is 14 so really like it's just a plastic
mount
and then the battery pack if i take off
the grommet
you need the battery pack the cable to
attach it to the light
and then the little velcro strap to
attach the
battery pack to your bike that comes in
at 290 so heavier than the headlamp
itself just due to the
lithium-ion cells.
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Now let's take a closer look at the fit and
finish of the Monteer 3500s.
This is the most affordable
variation on the Monteer line but
shares the same style as the other
Monteer lights.
You have an aluminum body with these
nice fins cut right into it
a single button interface on top that's
back illuminated to show the battery
status. It
goes green red or blinking red to
indicate the state.
You have a rear wire that comes out to
the battery pack
and then a simple five led design
so with these you have three flood
lights on top
and those give you 32 degrees spread
while the two LEDs on the bottom are 21
degrees spread and together
at full power you get the 3500 lumen
output.
Pretty simple design you can actually
see the little dimples on the diffusers
of the light
so pretty simple and then nice design
there's no
anti-glare design here so you will blind
others on the road so definitely better
for mountain biking or trail riding.
You can also see the leds are a little
inset so when you're
out of the saddle you actually don't see
the lens and that's a nice feature
although it would be nice to have some
side indicators to
have some side visibility when you're on
the road.
Otherwise really simple design and
what's nice about a wired setup is this
is super lightweight
and it just consists of LEDs. The wiring
is also really nicely done you can see
it's very
durable a lot thicker than some of the
older Magicshine lights with a simple
a round plug design. The other really
notable thing about these are the
battery packs Magicshine's really
stepped up the game
when it comes to batteries this is the
6116
design it has four 18650 battery cells
in here so
two in the front two in the rear. Really
powerful and what's cool about these
the power plug is actually removable
so if you want to run this as a power
bank you can do that you just pop this
off take off the strap
when you want to use it on your bike you
pop it in
you can also look at the battery status
and plug in other devices using the usb
port here or the micro usb.
If you click that button you get a three
led indicator
that actually shines through the cover
as well it's a really nice feature
not quite as cool to say some of the
Lupine smart cell lights which have
audible
and light taillight modes that actually
light up
but really nice to have so you get more
data on what your battery status by
just checking that or the little
indicator on the light.
It has the straps mount built directly
into the body of the
battery pack and a nice thick rubber
gasket here
so won't mark your frame. I found these
straps work out really well
you put it on top and has a little
silicone stripes here
little grippy rings on here so really
hold this place well even over tough
terrain.
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Now let's take a look at the light
output of the 3500s.
As you can see here from the side shot
of the light
it has a very evenly distributed
vertical distribution there's no beam
cut off here
and that's actually something you want
especially off-road. As with the other
Monteer lights there's actually 15 total
modes and they're distributed between
three primary options you have spot
flood and hybrid.
In spot you're operating the bottom two
leds in flood you're doing the top three
and in hybrid you're doing all five.
With spot you have more narrow beam
while flood has a wider beam on those
top leds
and unless you see them side by side
here there's really not much of a
difference it's just a slightly wider
distribution
while hybrid is the best of both with a
brighter beam.
So now let's cycle through all 15 modes
there's five modes
per type so with spot you have eco low
medium high and then a flash. You have to
cycle through flash if you want to
change the intensity within a mode and
that's really annoying
especially if you're riding off the
trail you want to cycle through really
quickly.
You can see the run times are quite
distributed so you have very
high runtime and eco modes which are
very dim
even down to 100 or 200 lumens so
definitely not useful for night riding but
better for daytime riding.
As you go up in the modes there's
big jumps in lumen all the way up to
that 3500 for the full hybrid mode.
As you can see from the beam
distribution it's pretty nice you have a
brighter section
down the middle and then dimmer sections
around you. There is pretty good spread so
even on its own
this is enough output to really light up
the road especially in the full hybrid
mode.
The run times as you can see
definitely drop as you go in higher
modes but as long as you stay in the
medium
range you definitely have multi-hour run
time. Now here you can see
the Monteer 3500 mounted on a handlebar
and I'm in the higher hybrid modes it
has a pretty good beam distribution
obviously it's very hard to tell between
the different modes so i typically just
stay in hybrid
but especially when you ride in medium
or higher there's definitely plenty of
light and as you can see
really bright down the center and then
enough spread around you to really
see around you especially on sharp
corners or really technical trails.
Now you can also helmet mount the 3500s
because it's such a compact light as
long as you
route the wires down to the battery pack
as you can see here it works out really
well. Because it's higher mounted you get
less shadows from the trail
and with that long beam of the 3500S
you can really see
far down the trail and especially in
hybrid mode or with flood mode
you have enough spread around you to
still see around you to keep the road
lit
up. This really helps on technical
trails or sharp corners so you can turn
your head and really direct it.
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Now let's do a comparison between the
Monteer 3500s and other
headlights on the market. As you know
we've done a lot of Magicshine lights
reviews here so we can compare them to
other models.
What i have here is the Monteer 8000s
and the 3500s. The 8000s is the monster
8000 lumen version
you can see a very similar design five
leds but obviously the leds are stronger,
bigger battery pack and you get a bigger
body here so
for better heat dissipation. Same
aluminum design
similar cable routing just bigger about
yeah maybe 23 bigger very intimidating
too when you put them side by side.
So it's actually a really good
combination which we're going to have a
review for
you can actually ride with these
together and that's kind of the ultimate
bike light set for mountain biking or
trail riding.
Now if you're looking for something a
little more compact the uh
MJ-900 series a really good option. This is
the MJ-906 so 4500 lumens a bit brighter than
this
but the Monteer has the bigger spread
and with the
more wide lumen led setup
you get a wider beam and you get both
spot and flood options.
The 906 here is a little better suited
for road riding as it has a
daylight running light built in directly
and these little diffusers to help
kind of reduce some of the glare. You can
see it's also a smaller design
which actually uses the same battery
pack with the 902s
which has a similar body the 906s has
the bigger battery pack to achieve the
higher lumen output.
The 900s is also a good option this is a
1500 lumen
design daylight running lights it has
the one led design
so smaller beam more compact about half
the size smaller battery pack
so it depends on what you're looking for.
If you want daylight running lights
the 900 series is a good option.
If you just want a big wide beam with a
really far
beam distance then the Monteer is a
good option. There's also
more compact variations for commuting
there's the Allty 2000
dual led daylight running light and
the
batteries are built in so you can see
it's a bigger body.
You pretty much have the whole battery
pack attached to it
same Garmin style mount but obviously being
an all-in-one design
is a lot more convenient than having the
battery pack. If you want more power
obviously the wired battery pack is the
way to go as you can always upgrade the
batteries
or use bigger batteries for longer
runtime.
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Now let's go over the pros and cons for
the 3500s.
What we like about it is the compact
form factor the headlamp itself is
really lightweight and compact
while the battery pack is easy to mount
on your handlebars
your down tube or top tube. We also like
the fact that Magicshine incorporated a
universal Garmin style quarter turn
mount
which means you can use the 3500s with a
variety of existing mounts instead of
having to be forced to buy
proprietary mounts from the
company.
I also like the bright output with 3500
lumens it's more enough output to see
the trail and you have a really nice
focused center beam
with a long throw. Some of the cons for
the headlight is the fact that there are
no drls.
We'd love to see the same drls that are
in the 900s series
incorporated here for daytime riding. It
also lacks a
remote for helmet mountings which means
if you mount it on your helmet you
really have to reach up
to cycle through modes which can be
inconvenient. That also brings us to its
last point
it's really easy to get lost in the 15
output modes
you definitely don't need three flash
modes and low medium high
eco on every single option. It'd be
great if they were to pair it down to
maybe five or less.
Taking everything into account would
give the 3500s an 8.8 out of 10. It's a
really compact yet bright light
it's bright enough to ride on its own or
it can be combined with other magic
shine lights
for more spread or more technical
riding. Thanks for watching for review
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