BULLET POINTS
Words by Ren Alcantara
L
ike many of you, I am constantly on the lookout for my perfect light. It’s not easy—there are so many variables that come into play, and many of them are conflicting. Size, brightness, burn time, UI—the “perfect” light needs to have a balance among all of these. It might be a fool’s errand, but occasionally, the search is rewarded with little gems. While far from perfect, I have to admit that the Imalent LD70 is one of those gems.
Let’s get one thing out of the way first though. I’ve seen this marketed as a keychain light, and while you could use this as such, it’s like saying any pizza is a solo pizza if you have the willpower. At about an inch around and just over three inches long, it’s a reasonably small light, though not small enough for me to consider it for keychain use. The light is powered by an internal, non-removable 18350 cell which pushes a Cree XHP70 LED. That’s a firecracker of an LED, and can really pump out a lot of light. There are smaller 18350 lights particularly if you start frankensteining components together, but it’s not large, and in my collection, is only defeated in size by the CR123-powered lights. The design of the LD70 strays far from the flashlight designs we’re used to seeing and handling. It’s slightly squared off, and has a more or less even diameter throughout the length of the tube. There’s a single electronic clicky switch at the very end of the tube, and a handy little OLED information display that delivers information on output, voltage, and lock status. Our unit, done in a fetching shade
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DECEMBER 2020
of blue, has cutouts in the outer shell so the black plastic underneath can contrast through. Overall, it’s a particularly high-tech-looking light that’s bound to start a few conversations. This brings us to the first of the imperfections about the light. It has neither a pocket clip, nor provision for one. I know some of us prefer keeping it on a lanyard, and fortunately one is provided, but if you want a clip, you’re going to have to find something in the bin (we all have that bin) that fits, and make that work somehow. I really much prefer a clip than leaving it bouncing around at the bottom of my pocket, particularly since it’s a reasonably small light. There’s also the matter of output. The lowest level, 20 lm, is still a little bright, and there’s no way to get any lower output modes. In close to absolute darkness, 20 lm is a lot more light than I would like, but better too much than not enough, I guess. Turbo mode pushes out an astonishing 4000 lumens (claimed) of light for about a minute, ,before dropping down to a reasonable 900 lumens. It’s crazy how much light (and heat) it puts out, so do be careful. It went
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