- Pricing & Availability
- What comes in the box?
- Design & Construction
- Size & Measurements
- User Interface
- Emitter & Beam
- Mode Chart
- Runtime
- Driver & Regulation
- Batteries & Charging
- Switch
- Carry & Ergonomics
- Competition
- Conclusion
Pricing & Availability
FlashlightGo.com sent me this light in exchange for an honest review. Here is the product page on their site where you can see current pricing. At the time of writing it’s $100 USD. FlashlightGo.com told me they use DDP shipping to the US, so buyers shouldn’t have to pay any import fees, but they can’t guarantee that. They also asked me to include this US Amazon link for fast shipping within the US. It’s sold out in both places at the moment, but will be back in stock soon and with more color options!
What comes in the box?
The box just says “Vastlite” and is made of white cardstock with a soft foam insert. Inside is:
- The light itself
- Battery (inside the light)
- User manual
- Pocket Clip
- Spare O-rings
Design & Construction
The small tube-light design is what drew me to this model. Most other LEPs on the market tend to have a flared head, sometimes a flared tail, lots of knurling, and are pretty large. This one is compact and clean.
Build quality is fine. The machining and finish are satisfactory. The factory glue job on the tail glow ring is pretty sloppy though.
Size & Measurements
Olight i3E | Vastlite Minima Bow | Skilhunt M200 V4 | Mini Maglite
| Measurement | Measured (mm) |
|---|---|
| Bezel Diameter | 20.0 |
| Maximum Head Diameter | 20.0 |
| Length | 71-72 |
| Body Tube & Tailcap Diameter | 20.0 |
| Pocket Clip Slot Width | 5.0 |
| Pocket Clip Slot Diameter | 18.6 |
| Included Battery Length | 36.1 |
| Weight with included battery but no clip (g) | 54 |
User Interface
This UI is simple and all you need in an LEP. Normally I don’t care for mode memory with a mechanical switch, but I think it’s smart to have in a twisty light.
How it works:
- On/off: Twist tighter to turn on, loosen to turn off.
- Modes: Has two main modes (high and low). Turn off and back on to cycle between them. It has mode memory and will come back on in the last mode you used if it’s off for more than a few seconds.
- Strobe: Quickly turn it on, off, and back on again to access Strobe.
Emitter & Beam
This is an LEP flashlight rather than an LED flashlight. LEPs shine a blue laser at a yellow phosphor layer to produce an extremely intense bright spot, then project that bright spot through the aspheric lens at the front. That produces a pencil-thin and extremely intense beam with no spill.
The beam is pencil thin and intense, as you’d expect from an LEP. There’s no spill nor any artifacts to speak of. The hotspot is soft around the edge (more of a round blob than a crisp circle) but there’s not a lot of that yellow shift at the edge that you sometimes see from aspheric lenses like this.
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. My Lumen Tube doesn’t measure super-intense lights like this accurately, so I’m just quoting the official maximum lumen spec below. 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.
The official specs are above, followed by my own measurements below.
| Level | Lumens | Candela | Throw (Meters) |
| High | 280 | 190000 | 870 |
| Low | 44 | 30000 | 350 |
The reason my candela measurement is significantly higher than advertised may be timing. I measure right after turn-on and don’t wait 30 seconds like the ANSI FL1 standard calls for. Vastlite’s official candela measurement may be at 30 seconds, after the light has already started stepping down.
Runtime
Performance (specifically brightness over time performance) isn’t great. High mode starts to step down after ~15 seconds and drops all the way down to Low mode by 1 minute. Low mode is not thermally sustainable and it slowly drops to a meager ~20lm after half an hour.
Thermal regulation: My Turbo Cooled test shows a significant increase in sustained brightness, meaning this light has active thermal regulation that will adjust brightness to give you maximum performance without overheating.
LVP (Low Voltage Protection) is present and works well. It doesn’t rely on the battery having a protection circuit. The light will shut off when the battery is practically empty, but it can be temporarily re-activated in an emergency.
Driver & Regulation
I don’t have any information about the driver. Thermal performance isn’t great (as shown in the runtime graph) but regulation performance is good.
Regulation performance is good. It maintains most of the Turbo brightness down to ~25% charge, and all the other modes are flat down to 25% charge or less. That’s exactly what I want because it shows the components are high quality and they’re being pushed hard for great performance.
PWM: I tested with my Opple Light Master. There’s no PWM in the constant-on modes.
Parasitic Drain: There is no parasitic drain because this light uses a mechanical (twisty) switch.
Batteries & Charging
The battery included is an 850mAh, USB-C rechargeable, protected, button-top, 16340 cell that does the job just fine. The spring in the tail is quite long so unprotected flat top cells should work just fine. I briefly tried a CR123A also and that it worked, though CR123A compatibility isn’t officially mentioned anywhere and LVP may shut the light off before a CR123A is empty. There is no battery indicator on the light.
Charging is facilitated by a USB-C port on the side of the battery, so you have to remove it for charging. There’s a small light on it that glows red when charging and green when it’s full. Charging takes just under 3 hours.
Switch
It’s a twisty! It’s the only twisty LEP I’m aware of, in fact. That’s partially why it’s so small, because there’s no switch to take up space. The twist mechanism is pretty stiff so it won’t turn on in your pocket, but it’s difficult to twist with one hand. If you want, you can treat it like a momentary tail switch and hold it in a cigar grip, as shown below.
Carry & Ergonomics
Ergonomics are ok. It’s a pretty small light but it’s comfortable enough to hold and point in a pencil or reverse grip. I can twist it with one hand in a forward grip, but it’s slow and clunky. In a cigar grip, with it just loose enough to be off, I can press on the tail to make it turn on and treat it like a momentary switch.
Clip score: 7/8
- Attachment doesn’t pop off or rotate accidentally✅
- User serviceable✅
- Mounts near the tailcap✅
- Deep carry for EDC, shallow-carry for duty/tactical✅
- Landing location is smooth, not on the charging port, and away from the bezel✅
- Mouth/ramp and loop(s) are wide enough for pants material❌
- The mouth is barely wide enough for mine and may be too small for some pockets. The loop toward the tailcap is way too narrow. It’s barely wide enough for a few sheets of paper.
- No bidirectional clips if the light is too big or heavy to clip to a hat✅
- Finish is durable✅
One thing to note about this clip is it lands on the head, so twisting the light on/off causes some rubbing and may wear the anodizing on the head over time (a long time).
The tailcap is not magnetic.
Competition
Here are some lights in the same class and how they compare.
- roughly similar price
- less brightness and throw
- less-sleek design
- 14500 battery instead of 16340
- tailswitch instead of twisty
- similar thickess, noticeably longer
- might be discontinued, I can’t find it for sale anywhere
- similar price
- available in the US on Amazon
- slightly larger 18350 battery with similar USB-C charging port
- similar claimed brightness and throw
- similar glow-in-the-dark feature
- a bit larger
- electronic side switch instead of twisty
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
This is a neat little light. No other LEP is quite this sleek, compact, and simple. The twisty “switch” is its most unique feature and the optional glow tubes are fun. If you like a pencil-thin LEP beam in a small package, this could be the right light for you. Just know it performs best in bursts, not continuous use.
Thanks to FlashlightGo for sending me this light for review!
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