Contents
- Pricing & Availability
- What comes in the box?
- Design & Construction
- Size & Measurements
- User Interface
- Emitter & Beam
- Mode Chart
- Runtime
- Driver & Regulation
- Switch
- Carry & Ergonomics
- Batteries & Charging
- Competition
- Conclusion
Pricing & Availability
Acebeam sent me this light in exchange for an honest review. Here is the official product page and the Amazon page where you can see current pricing.
What comes in the box?
The box is simple and has a window on the front to show off the light. The following items are included in the box:
- The light itself
- Battery (inside the light)
- Spare o-rings
- Short USB A-to-C cable
- User manual
Design & Construction
It’s a cylindrical design with some facets and cooling fins that add grip and cooling, but make it look a little busy.
Build quality is great and it feels well made. The anodizing is expertly applied and a bit chalky. The head threads are raw but they’re still fairly smooth and easy enough to start. The tail threads are reverse threaded, anodized, and trapezoid cut. You can’t do battery swaps through the tail, so you’ll probably never have any reason to remove the tail.
Size & Measurements
Wurkkos TS10 | Lumintop FW3A | Acebeam Pokelit 2AA | Mini Maglite 2AA | Convoy M1
| Measurement | Measured (mm) |
|---|---|
| Bezel Diameter | 18.3 |
| Maximum Head Diameter | 18.3 |
| Length | 144.2 |
| Switch Diameter | 10.0 |
| Switch Proudness | 4.5 |
| Lens Diameter | Inaccessible |
| Lens Thickness | Inaccessible |
| Reflector Hole Diameter | Inaccessible |
| Reflector Diameter | Inaccessible |
| Reflector Height | Inaccessible |
| MCPCB Size | Inaccessible |
| Body Tube Diameter (internal) | 14.9 |
| Body Tube Diameter (maximum) | 18.3 |
| Body Tube Diameter (mode) | 17.0 |
| Body Tube Length | 112.7 |
| Ride Height (sticking out of pocket) | ~23 |
| Pocket Clip Space (for pants material) | 2.5 |
| Pocket Clip Space (at mouth) | ~4 |
| Pocket Clip Width | 6.6 |
| Pocket Clip Thickness | 1.0 |
| Pocket Clip Slot Width | 8.1 |
| Pocket Clip Slot Diameter | Couldn’t remove clip to measure |
| Tailcap Diameter | 17.8 |
| Tailcap Length | 17.4 |
| Driver Diameter | 13.8 |
| Included Battery Length | 99.1 |
| Included Battery Diameter | 14.6 |
Weight without battery: 42g
Weight with included battery: 85g
User Interface
Pokelit 2AA uses a forward clicky mechanical switch. That means that clicking on/off by pushing the switch all the way works like normal, but you can also do momentary activation by pressing the switch half way. There are only two modes (low and high) and it always starts on low. Always starting on low is a great thing on a light with a mechanical switch (low-mode shortcuts only work on lights with an electronic switch). It’s also good that there’s no strobe mode that can get activated by accident. That’s about it for the good though, unfortunately.
There’s a slight delay between pressing the switch and the light turning on. It’s not a problem for constant-on use, but it’s frustrating when trying to use the switch’s momentary function. You have to half-press the switch and wait for a split second to make sure you’ve pressed it far enough without clicking the light on. It’s made worse by the mushy & hard-to-press switch. I got somewhat used to it after about a day, but it’s still noticeably firmer than my other forward-clicky lights, and I mis-click and end up in low mode too often.
Half the time I end up pressing it so far that it clicks, or not pressing it far enough to turn it on. The reason I like forward clicky switches so much is that usually they allow me to jump straight to the mode I want almost instantly, but I can’t do that on this light because of the delay.
The mode spacing is quite poor. There’s a huge jump between Low mode (15lm) and High mode (635lm). Adding a mode in-between would be very helpful for conserving battery life, reducing heat, and not being too bright for some situations. It would also be hugely beneficial to have a moonlight mode, since this is clearly designed to be an everyday carry light.
I hope Acebeam releases a version 2 with no delay and a ~1lm > ~100lm > ~600 mode spacing. That would solve all of my complaints with the UI and would make it a much more usable light.
Emitter & Beam
Acebeam chose the perfect emitter for this light: Nichia 519A 5000K. It’s neutral white, very high CRI, relatively efficient, relatively bright, and generally has good tint. I hope they choose to offer more color temperature options in the future too.
They also paired it with a perfect reflector that produces a wide and crisp hotspot with wide spill. There’s no corona around the hotspot, it’s a sharp edge. Every time I use this light I’m struck by how perfect the beam is. It is absolutely flawless.
In the beamshots above, the trees where I’m aiming the hotspot are 175M away. In the beamshots below, the park bench where I’m aiming the hotspot is 42M away. These photos are a little bit underexposed so the lights look a little brighter in real life.
Mode Chart
Disclaimer: All of my measurements are taken at turn-on. Lumen measurements were taken on a Texas Ace 3.5″ Lumen Tube. A candela measurement was taken at 10 meters with an Opple Light Master III on the highest brightness, and other candela figures were calculated relative to that. CRI, CCT, & DUV data was taken for each mode from a few feet away at the center of the hotspot with the Opple Light Master and Waveform DUV Calculator. Runtime tests were performed with the Ceilingbounce app on my smartphone. All of these tests were performed with a fully charged included battery unless otherwise specified. I cannot measure moonlight directly, so moonlight readings are calculated based on the brightness relative to the next-lowest mode. None of this is professional equipment, so take all of these measurements with a grain of salt.
Above are the official specs, followed by my own measurements below.
| Level | Lumens | Candela | Throw (Meters) | CRI (Ra) | Color Temp. (K) | DUV (Tint) |
| High | 635 | 1800 | 85 | 97 | 4890 | 0.0020 |
| Low | 15 | 43 | 13 | 98 | 4730 | 0.0038 |
Mode Spacing: is quite poor as I discussed in the UI section. There’s a massive jump from Low mode to High mode, so there needs to be another mode in-between. Lowering low mode to 1lm or less would also be great.
Runtime
Note: Before doing any testing I calibrated the thermal sensor. All tests were run with the thermal ceiling at the default 45C.
Performance: is pretty good on High mode. Approximately 45 seconds of runtime before a big stepdown to ~300 lumens, then a slow decline to 200 lumens & shutoff just before the two hour mark. Low mode starts out strong and slowly dims. The quoted runtime is 23 hours, but my light was still running at over 26 hours so I ended the test, thinking the battery may be over-discharging. To my surprise, it was still at 3.7V and probably would have ran for several more days at that dim (~1lm) level.
Thermal regulation: There’s a stepdown around 45 seconds and I’m not sure whether it’s timed or temperature-based. The light gets quite warm (especially toward the head) but not too hot to hold.
LVP: is present and works well. Every time I measured the cell after LVP shutoff it was around 3.2V.
Driver & Regulation
The driver is very small and appears to be crimped inside a pill. I did not attempt to remove it. There’s a brass post for the positive contact right in the center, rather than a spring. Acebeam told me this is a boost driver, but it doesn’t live up to the great regulation performance I usually expect from boost drivers.
This regulation (or lack thereof) is bizarre. High looks relatively well regulated, still producing great output even with a very low battery. However, low mode drops off like a rock once you use up the first third of your battery’s capacity. It’s like low mode goes away and is replaced by a moonlight mode. I’ve never seen regulation this bad on such a low mode. It’s particularly strange and disappointing coming from Acebeam who typically make very high quality and well regulated drivers. With that said, it didn’t really cause any problems for me when actually using the light.
Note: All regulation measurements are taken at turn-on so they do not reflect any thermal or low voltage stepdowns that may occur. A value of 0 indicates low voltage shutoff immediately upon activation.
PWM: No PWM is visible to my eyes or camera, nor audible to my ears.
Parasitic Drain: Pokelit 2AA uses a mechanical switch so there is no parasitic drain.
Switch
There’s a forward clicky mechanical switch on the tail of the light. It sticks out way past the tailcap so tailstanding is not an option. This switch has a unique boot design I’ve never seen before, and the tailcap is reverse threaded for some reason.
Most lights have a rubber boot over the switch. On narrow penlights with a forward clicky switch like this one, the boot sticks out a lot and usually has some side-to-side play in the boot. Acebeam eliminated that side-to-side play by using a switch boot with an aluminum sleeve to keep it perfectly straight. That reduced the water resistance of the switch, so they added an o-ring inside to maintain water resistance. The o-ring added friction and the switch wouldn’t pop back up when you release it. To fix that they added an extra spring.
The result of all that is a switch that’s a little bit grainy, mushy, and hard to press right out of the box. Initially I disliked it, but I’ve either gotten used to it or it’s broken in, so it doesn’t bother me anymore. (The delay in the UI still drives me bonkers though.)
Carry & Ergonomics
Ergonomics are fine. I have no issues reaching the switch in a reverse or cigar grip. It’s not uncomfortable but it’s not a sculpted ergonomic masterpiece either.
A pocket clip is included for carry and it works very well. There’s enough space for pants material at the mouth so it grabs pants material nicely. There’s enough space in the loop part near the tail too, so it seats fully. It’s bidirectional too, so you can clip it to your hat if you need to (though it’s a little long for that). It comes pre-installed and it’s so secure that I could not remove it easily, even with pliers. It’s not deep carry by any stretch, but the light is so long that the bit sticking out is pretty trivial. It’ll help it clip better to shallow pockets too.
My only minor grips are where the clip lands and the clip’s color. The clip lands on the ribbed portion of the battery tube, which may wear on pockets. I also found that on very loose material I had to lift the clip to get it to slide down past the edge of the pocket. The black version of the light comes with a blue clip which gives off a very Olight vibe. This is clearly aimed at Olight i5T Plus which was released a couple of months prior, and the blue clip makes it feel a little too much like a copy. The other color options come with a black clip.
Tailstand: does not work at all because the button protrudes so much
Batteries & Charging
Pokelit 2AA includes a very special battery for day-to-day use. It’s a unique “14100P” size which I’ve never seen before and it has a USB-C charging port on it. It’s exactly the same size as two AA’s put end to end and the voltage is fairly close too. I really like this battery solution because you get the convenience of easy USB-C recharging day-to-day but you can always swap in two AA’s (Alkaline or NiMH) in a pinch if need be. You can even use this rechargeable battery in other devices that use two AA’s in series. I tried it in my old incandescent Mini Maglite and it worked great! 14500 cells are not supported and using them may damage the light.
Charging is built into the battery rather than the light. There’s a USB-C port on the side near the positive end which supports A-to-C or C-to-C cables. It can’t be used as a power bank, but that makes sense since it’s such a small cell.
Competition
Here are some lights in the same class and how they compare.
Olight i5T Plus: Cleaner design with cool pebble pattern, 3 color temp options, low CRI, similar brightness levels, (probably) better switch, weird fade-on “feature”, more expensive, no rechargeable battery included, should have a normal rubber switch boot
Acebeam Pokelit AA: Almost exactly the same as Pokelit 2AA but shorter, lighter, has a medium mode, has mode memory, and uses a less-nice Nichia 219F emitter
Fenix E20 V2.0: Cleaner design, wider head, shorter length, reverse clicky switch, cool white only, low CRI, four modes, lower max brightness, always starts on low, clip is not bidirectional, normal rubber switch boot, no rechargeable battery included, more expensive
This section is not comprehensive. If I didn’t include a particular light here, it doesn’t mean it’s bad or doesn’t deserve to be here. I simply cannot list every possible competitor.
Conclusion
Pokelit 2AA is love/hate for me. Acebeam nailed the emitter choice, beam profile, battery setup, and pocket clip. But, the UI & regulation leave a lot to be desired and make it frustrating to use sometimes. As it stands now, it feels a bit un-finished to me, like a prototype that still has a few kinks to work out. I hope Acebeam decides to release an updated version in the future with the issues fixed. Then it would be the best 2xAA light on the market, hands down.
Thanks to Acebeam for sending me this light for review!
