Fun for Geeks!
FW4a Review When I first read about the FW series, I dismissed them pretty quickly because of their ridiculously complex UI. Candle mode?? Lightning mode?? Sounded silly. Recenlty I started reading a bit more about these lights and became curious to the point of reading dozens of pages of forum posts and video reviews and finding out the history of the light and Toykeeper's Anduril UI and the whole 'built from the shards of Narsil' Tolkien references. So for shits and giggles, I ordered one. I was a bit shocked when I opened the box as it was much smaller and more compact than I had envisaged. Quality seemed very nice and the switch was light but positive - just as well as there can be a fair bit of pressing if you want to do things like temperature configuration etc. The Anduril UI seems straight forward enough in it's basic form it is pretty much what you'd expect - hold from off for moonlight, double click for turbo, hold from on to ramp up etc etc. The two groups of blinkies/strobes is not too hard for my 57 yo brain to remember but I certainly need to look at the manual for configuration modes. There isn't much it can't do. Any level of brightness from moon to turbo is available and while turbo is only meant to be used for short bursts - it is very effective for lighting up everything in a 100m or so radius. This one has the Nichia led's which give a very pleasant neutral to slightly warmish light. A little rosier tint than my NW's which seem to have a slightly yellow tint by comparison. Perfect with the diffuser for lighting up a room/tent/van etc. I am finding I like this light a lot because of it's versatility and it's 'fun' factor. And the amount of light that this can output for such a compact size is a little mind boggling. While the cool white is around the 3600 lumens, I believe the Nichia version is more like 2000 ish. Downsides? Apart from having to remember stuff like click/click/hold gets you into the strobe settings then double click to advance through them etc etc, the only other negative I would say is because of the smooth design and size, it feels a little less than secure in my hand. The diffuser is a really welcome inclusion and works very well. It is an excellent close range light and the Nichia's provide a very nice tint - particularly inside. Happy camper.
