Olight Arkfeld Ultra Review – Deja Vu

1. Pricing & Availability
2. What comes in the box?
3. Design & Construction
4. Size & Measurements
5. User Interface
6. Emitter & Beam
7. Mode Chart
8. Runtime
9. Driver & Regulation
10. Switch
11. Carry & Ergonomics
12. Batteries & Charging
13. Competition
14. Conclusion

Pricing & Availability

Olight sent me this light in exchange for an honest review. Here is the official product page where you can see current pricing. At the time of writing, it’s $120 USD. That’s a tracked link so they know I sent you, but I have chosen not to receive any commissions from sales generated by that link.

What comes in the box?

Arkfeld Ultra comes in a very nice, thick box. It’s got a matte black soft-touch coating on the outside and the top slides off to open it. Inside is:

• The light itself
• Paperwork
• Magnetic USB charging cable
• Large coin

Design & Construction

Arkfeld Ultra bears a strong resemblance to Arkfeld Pro, but it’s got sharp lines and facets where Arkfeld Pro is rounded. It’s also a unique color because of the special O-Aluminum (OAL) anodizing. Olight says that OAL is a new alloy they developed to be even better than 7075.

Build quality is excellent. It feels robust in the hand, like you could toss it out of the car on a freeway and it would be just fine. The OAL material & anodizing are supposed to be substantially more resistant to wear than the standard aluminum and anodizing used on Arkfeld Pro. I’m not hard on my lights so I’ve never had any durability trouble with previous Olight models. I’m not sure how much the average buyer will actually notice any difference.

Size & Measurements

Mini Maglite | Skilhunt EC200 | Olight Arkfeld Ultra | Jetbeam E26 | Olight Warrior 3S

Measurement	Measured (mm)
Width	27.6
Thickness (excluding clip & switch)	16.7
Length	120.6
Weight with included battery (g)	120

User Interface

Olight nailed this user interface (after you fix one thing).

That one big (but fixable) issue is that Strobe and Turbo are backward out of the box. 2C activates Strobe and 3C activates Turbo. That’s maddening if you’re used to most E-switch lights (including all other Olight e-switch models) because you’ll get Strobe every time you try to use Turbo. Fortunately, you can change it. Enter lockout, click the switch 10+ times and hold the last click, and it will flip Turbo and Strobe to be on the correct shortcuts. This was a bug with the Arkfeld Pro and I’m surprised they haven’t fixed it with this version. 2C Strobe and 3C Turbo shouldn’t even be an option, much less the default!

The actions are # of presses followed by a hold (H) or a release (C). So, “1C” is one click and release. “2H” is two clicks but you hold down the last one.

State	Action	Result
Off	1C	On (mode memory)
Off	1H (short)	Moonlight (memorized)
Off	1H (long)	Lockout
Lockout	1C	Battery indicator glows red
Lockout	1H (long)	Unlock (to Moonlight)
Lockout	10H	Switch Turbo and Strobe shortcuts
Any	3C	Strobe
Any	2C	Turbo (memorized as High)
Turbo	2C	Return to previous mode (mostly*)
On	1H	Cycle mode (low-med-high)
On	2H	Enable timer (and cycle between 3/9 minutes)

State	Action	Result
Off	1C	On
On	1C	Off
On (Laser only)	2C	Laser + White High
On (Laser+White)	2C	Laser only

What they got right:

• Channel selection is a dedicated switch. The more multi-channel lights I review, the more I dislike the clutter of having everything on a single switch. Olight’s rotary toggle is by far the best solution I’ve used.
• Clicking turns the light on/off and holding the button changes modes. That’s the way almost all e-switch flashlights should work. It’s intuitive and quick.
• The common shortcuts work. Moonlight, Turbo, and Strobe all have shortcuts that work the same way as most other lights. They work very well and there’s no learning curve when switching lights.
• There are 5 brightness levels, which is just the right amount. Enough to have options but not so many that it’s cumbersome to use.
• The strobe is hidden behind a triple click outside the main rotation. You won’t activate it by accident (unless you forget to switch the shortcuts around).
• You can activate the laser and white light simultaneously via 2C while the laser is on. That’s handy for when you need to illuminate something and point at a specific spot.

What they got wrong (minor nitpicks):

• Turbo & Moonlight are memorized. They shouldn’t be memorized because they each have their own dedicated shortcut for quick access. Since they’re memorized, accessing them will override your memorized mode. Even worse, Turbo is memorized as High! So not only does accessing turbo overwrite your memorized mode, it doesn’t even memorize properly. This has been a gripe of mine on Olight models for awhile and I hope they will reconsider this particular UI design decision.
• Lockout/unlock is 1H from off. That’s too easy to accidentally deactivate and there’s no mechanical lockout on this light. Many other makers are moving to 4C to lock/unlock and I prefer that.
• There’s no momentary for the laser or UV. 1H has no function on those channels and it would be nice if 1H were momentary on.

Emitter & Beam

Olight doesn’t disclose what LED they’re using here, and I can’t tell. It’s domed, cool white, standard CRI, and a bit green-tinted. I wish they had used something neutral white, neutral tinted, and throwier.

The beam is very floody, too floody for me. It works great for general EDC tasks but I find the throw lacking, especially compared to the Jetbeam E26 I just reviewed. I’d be interested in a new Arkfeld model with just two SFT25R 4000K LEDs and some deep reflectors/optics. Maybe even with the Warrior series tailswitch… Arkwarrior?

In the beamshots below, camera settings are fixed and the wall is 2.8M away.

In the beamshots below, camera settings are fixed, the basketball goal to the right of the hotspot is 39M away, and the power pole in the center is 185M away.

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 were 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. 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 these measurements with a grain of salt.

Level	Lumens	Candela	Throw (Meters)	CRI (Ra)	Color Temp. (K)	DUV (Tint)
Turbo	1300	3100	110	68	5910	0.0072
High	360	860	59	67	5790	0.0083
Medium	91	220	30	66	5720	0.0096
Low	12	29	11	66	5680	0.0100
Moonlight	0.7	N/A	N/A	66	5640	0.0098

Runtime

Performance: Turbo time is only 1.5 minutes (half of Arkfeld Pro’s Turbo time), and that’s odd. After that, the performance is virtually identical to Arkfeld Pro. Stable output is about 400 lumens for about 2 hours. That’s a bit conservative but still plenty bright. UV output steps down a bit in the first few minutes but then it’s perfectly flat for the rest of the test.

Thermal regulation is timed step-downs only, with no active thermal regulation. It will perform consistently but may also overheat in hot weather or leave some performance on the table in cold weather. The sustained brightness is fairly conservative so it never gets too hot to hold.

LVP (Low Voltage Protection): The battery isn’t accessible so I can’t measure it, but it appears that the light shuts off when the battery is effectively empty. It can be temporarily re-activated in an emergency.

Driver & Regulation

Driver: I’m not certain what kind of driver Olight Arkfeld Ultra is using. I believe the white channel is buck driven. It’s got reasonably flat output and it seems fairly efficient. I’m confident the UV channel is boost driven because it’s fairly well regulated with flat output for most of the runtime test. That’s virtually impossible to do with a UV LED, a single lithium battery, and any driver type other than boost.

Regulation performance is disappointing. I like when lights can reach full Turbo brightness down to ~25% charge but this one can only do it when the battery is more than half full. Below that, Turbo doesn’t just get dimmer like on most lights, you lose Turbo completely. Not good.

PWM: No PWM is visible to my eyes or camera, nor audible to my ears.

Parasitic Drain: I couldn’t measure parasitic drain because the battery is inaccessible.

Switch

The center E-switch is metal with a reasonably tactile and clicky action. The rotary switch surrounding it is excellent. This is my favorite form of channel selection on multi channel lights. It’s dramatically more intuitive than a bunch of clicks and holds. This one is easy to actuate with one hand, has great detents, and is fun to fidget with.

Carry & Ergonomics

Ergonomics are excellent. It’s super comfortable to hold and use in a forward grip.

Clip score 5.5/7 – Pass

• Clip attaches securely, doesn’t rotate, and is user-serviceable – Fail
• Mounting location is near the tailcap – Pass
• Deep carry for EDC, shallow-carry for duty/tactical – Pass
• Landing location is smooth, not the charging port, and away from the bezel – Pass
• Mouth/ramp and loop(s) are wide enough for pants material – Pass
• No bidirectional clips if the light is too big or heavy to clip to a hat – Debatable (half score)
• Finish is durable – Pass

The clip is good overall, earning it a passing score. The two (related) issues are that it’s bidirectional and you can’t take the clip off. Arkfeld Ultra may be too heavy to reasonably clip to a hat, so it doesn’t really need a bidirectional clip. That clip is a snag hazard. If it gets bent out of shape, you can’t remove it easily to bend it back because Olight has put permanent threadlocker on the screws. I tried unscrewing one screw and it wouldn’t budge. Theoretically you can use a soldering iron to melt the threadlocker and then use a high-end bit to remove the screw without damaging it, but that shouldn’t be necessary.

A magnet is built into the tailcap to stick the light to things and facilitate charging. It’s plenty strong to hold the light up on a vertical surface. It may get gunked up if you work around metal shavings though.

Batteries & Charging

The battery included is a built-in 1500mAh LiPo pouch cell. It’s not user-serviceable, so when the battery eventually wears out, you can’t replace it. That sucks, and it comes with the territory. All of these flat-style EDC lights have built-in batteries.

Charging is facilitated by Olight’s magnetic charging system. There’s a cable included with USB-A on one end and a magnetic puck on the other. That magnetic puck and tailcap have mating charging contacts and snap together magnetically. It’s very convenient if you always charge in the same spot, but it’s a special cable you have to bring when you travel. The charging only works with Olight’s proprietary batteries. Charging takes about an hour and 10 minutes. It’s fully functional while charging.

Battery Indicator: Ostensibly, this is the same excellent four-LED battery indicator system from Arkfeld Pro. Unfortunately, Olight used their “micro perforation technology” to make these indicators, so they’re dim and hard to see. They’re intuitive to read, but not glanceable like Arkfeld Pro. The comparison pics above are courtesy of my buddy Cheule’s Flashlight Reviews on YouTube.

Competition

Here are some lights in the same class and how they compare.

Olight Arkfeld Pro: basically the same thing

• Less expensive
• Virtually identical performance
• Brighter indicator LEDs
• Made of anodized 6061 instead of OAL
• Different aesthetics
• Convenient but proprietary magnetic charging

Wurkkos HD01: budget alternative

• about half the price
• No UV, but it has a side RGBW LED strip
• magnetic tailcap
• great dual-switch UI, but no rotary toggle

Jetbeam E26: “tactical” alternative with more throw

• 25% less expensive
• brighter and throwier
• worse battery indicator
• better lockout (built into rotary switch)
• worse side switch UI (no shortcuts)
• dedicated Turbo/Strobe tailswitch
• SFT40 5000K white LED plus laser and UV
• UV has more visible light than Arkfeld Ultra

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

The OAL and increased brightness are neat, but virtually no one will notice any difference in durability or brightness. I love the shape, build quality, user interface, magnetic tailcap, and battery indicators (except their dimness). The beam, clip, and charging are fine. I wish there were a ZWB2 filter over the UV and that the indicators were brighter. I strongly dislike how Turbo is inaccessible below 3 bars of battery.

This is a weird release. The light is good, and calling it “Ultra” makes it sound markedly better than Arkfeld Pro, but it’s not. This is another color option for Arkfeld Pro with a $20 price bump. I wonder how much of that cost went into the goofy coin. If price isn’t a concern and you like the updated aesthetic, go for it. If you like Arkfeld Pro’s color options and price better, you won’t miss out on anything if you choose the Pro version.

Thanks to Olight for sending me this light for review!