Lumintop X0

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Lumintop X0 specifications

Brand/model	Lumintop X0
Flashlight category	long-range / searchlight
LEP	LEP (shine through)
Max. output	450 Lumens
Max. beam distance	1,550 meters
Max. beam intensity	600,000 cd
Battery config.	1*26650 (and smaller)
Onboard charging	N/A
Modes	3
Blinkies	Strobe, police strobe
Waterproof	IP68
Review date	September 2023

Why would you want to buy a titanium flashlight? Would it be because it looks good? Would it be because it’s lightweight?

The Lumintop X0 looks very unique and interesting, but it’s not lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a bulky 26650 flashlight with a unique beam focusing feature.

After reviewing all the Lumintop Thor LEP flashlights, it’s time to introduce you to a new lineup? The Lumintop X

Package quality.

In contrast to some other flashlight brands, Lumintop doesn’t pay too much attention to its packaging. And they probably prioritize the flashlight over its packaging, because hey.. who keeps those packages anyway? Well, I do… And given this price point, I would have expected a little better from you, Lumintop!

• Lumintop X0
• Lanyard
• 2 o-rings
• Warranty card/manual on a piece of paper

I’m sincerely surprised this is all you get from Lumintop. Even the manual is printed on a piece of normal copy paper, which is a very poor

There’s only 1 switch, located in the neck of the X, and its slightly protruding. It’s an electronic switch and it it’s backlit with a blue LED, which can be turned off by 7 clicks.

There is no need to use the flashlight in an overhand position, because it doesn’t have a rear switch, but you could easily do it, with the head in the palm of your hand, and your middle finger (or even your index finger) manipulating the switch.

It’s shipped without a pocket clip, nor is there a holster include in the package. And being a relatively large flashlight (and heavy), it is probably not a bad idea to carry it in a holster. (While this is not my preferred way of carrying any flashlight though).

The front end is equipped with a user-friendly rotating bezel. This allows you to transition from a very tight beam, with almost no spill, to a more floody beam. This is also the reason why the battery tube is stuck to the head, so you don’t accidentally unscrew it while focusing the beam.

At the moment there are only a handful of LEP flashlight that have a focusable beam, and this is one of them. This makes the LEP light more useful for close up tasks, instead of just having a tight beam, reaching a mile far.

I’m uncertain about how the long-term usage will unfold, but I noticed that mine requires both hands to control the zoom mechanism. It’s nearly impossible to operate it with 1 hand because of this. This is not directly a downside, because it keeps the light focused at your desired beam width. If it were easier to move around, you will likely change its width by accident, which is also not desired.

Because of the nature of this zoomy LEP, I could see it being used in multiple situations, ranging from hiking, camping, to taking it on a boat.

Lumintop seems to experiment with various flashlights, and when they find one that sells well, they fully capitalize on its success and build 99+ different versions of it.

In other words: throw it at the wall, and see what sticks..

The downside of this is all, is that their products don’t get much improvements overtime, before they move on to the next one. That’s a shame. After a few years it’s hard to find spare parts or even a second copy.

The Lumintop X0 feels like a new try, after the Thor lineup (LEP flashlights) has been pretty popular.

At the moment of writing, the Lumintop X0 is available in Aluminum, as well as Titanium, and the one I am reviewing is the latter. This means that it’s quite a bit heavier, and stronger than aluminum.

The downside of titanium is the reduced thermal conductivity, and therefore less ideal for high power flashlight. But for LEP flashlights, this shouldn’t be a problem, because they don’t produce that much heat, generally speaking.

I can’t confirm if they will offer a glossy titanium version any time soon, but mine comes in a brushed titanium finish. And one of the benefits is the improve grippiness of the flashlight.

All parts are smooth and the edges are chamfered. The battery tube is glued to the head, and that’s not because you shouldn’t have a look inside, but because of the zoom mechanism. If it wasn’t securely connected to the head, you could accidentally unscrew the head from the body.

The tailcap has lots of lubrication, and 1 black o-ring to keep water out. It’s rated at IP65, which I think is pretty fair. And everything runs pretty smoothly.

There is nothing to hold the flashlight from rolling off a table, so keep that in mind.

In terms of warranty, I would recommend getting in touch with Nealsgadgets first (if you use our link to buy it).

But this is what the manual states:

1. 30 days of purchase: Free repair or replacement with manufacturing defects.
2. 5 years of purchase: Lumintop will repair the products free of charge within 5 years of purchase (products with built-in battery 2 years, battery 1 year) if problems develop with normal use
3. Lifetime warranty: If repair is required after guaranty period, we’ll charge for parts accordingly
4. This warranty does not cover normal wear and tear, improper maintenance, abuse, force majeure damage, or defaults by human factors

Yup, this is an LEP flashlight with a very intense, narrow beam. It uses the shine-through type of modules, which are better for these types of lights. But the nicest feature of the X0 is definitely the focusable beam.

If you’re holding the flashlight in front of you, turning the bezel counterclockwise will make it floody, rotating it clockwise, makes it tight.

However, the tightest is not at the far end of the mechanism. You have to slightly rotate it back, by a few millimeters, to get it at its tightest spot. This makes it also hard to do measurements.

The internals do make sound when you shake the light.

There isn’t really a bezel. The head and bezel are 1 piece, but the lens (and retaining ring) don’t turn when focusing the head! It’s just the head and the internals that rotate.

Lumintop added a glow in the dark ring, just below the retaining ring, as well as inside the flashlight. So after the flashlight is used, it will glow for a few seconds. And to make it even more appealing, they added 5 very large glow tubes around the head, where the heatfins are located. There are 2 blue, 2 green, and 1 red.

And these are ‘charged’ by direct light, but also from the inside. When the light is turned on, you can see the tubes glowing. This is pretty useful, as the bezel is flat, and you can’t see whether the light is turned on or not. And with this feature, it’s easily seen.

The beam itself is very cold white. And I measured it once, at about 5 meters, in High mode, and got the following readings:

• CCT: 8265K
• CRI Ra: 63.8
• duv: 0.0026

The beam is very white, without any blue or green hues. Of course the intensity of the beam decreases significantly when you use it in flood mode.

Dimensions: 

Lumintop X0	Millimeters	Inches
Length	148 mm	5.8 in
Head diameter	40mm	1.6 in
Tailcap diameter	33mm	1.3 in
Visible lens diameter	27mm	1.1 in

Dimensions are rounded to the nearest millimeter, and to the nearest tenth of an Inch.

Weight: tested with a 5200mAh Keeppower 26650 battery

Lumintop X0	Weight in grams	Weight in oz.
Without battery:	292 g	10.3 oz
With 26650 battery	387 g	13.7 oz

Weight is rounded to the nearest gram, and to the nearest tenth of an Oz.

Lumintop X0 Flashlight comparison

Size compared to other LEP flashlights

From left to right: Astrolux WP3 (26650), Nobranded LEP (26650), Lumintop X0 (26650), Maratac LEP DX Reach (21700), Lumintop Thor 2 v1 (18650)

Lumintop’s weak point has always been the UI. They tend to grab some opensource UI and stick it in their lights.. I beg them to spend some time, money and effort to make their own UIs, fitting the lights they sell.

The available main modes:

• Low, High, Turbo
• But since it has a focusing beam mechanism, you can make the beam as tight or wide as possible

The available special modes (blinkies):

• Strobe
• Police flash

How the UI works when the flashlight is still turned OFF:

• Single-click: to last used mode, mode memory
• Double click: Strobe
• Triple-click: battery check
• 4 clicks: lockout mode
• 7 clicks: turn on/off the backlit switch

How the UI works when the flashlight is turned ON:

• Single-click: go from low to high, low, high, low, high
• Double click: Turbo
• 3+ clicks: nothing
• Press and hold: turns off

Battery check:

• 3 Clicks from off will show the battery status. The first number of blinks are the Voltage, and the second number of blinks the 10th of a Voltage. So if it blinks 3 times, and then 8 times, it’s 3.8Volts.

Shortcuts within the UI:

• To Turbo: none
• To Moon: none
• To Strobe: double click

Mode memory:

• Yes, it has for High and Low, not Turbo or strobe or anything else

Blinky modes:

• Strobe mode: can be turned on with 2 fast clicks from Off
• Police strobe: can be turned on by 6 clicks from Off

Low battery warning:

• Not really

Lock-out mode:

• 4 clicks from off. It will then work as a momentary mode!

PWM:

• Not visible by eye

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

• LEP flashlights have such an intense beam, that the difference between low and high beam are not as large as you would expect.

The X0 does not have any onboard charging, so besides a 26650 battery, you need to buy a charger that accepts 26650. Check out our list with 18650 chargers or 21700 chargers and make sure a 26650 will fit.

And I already pointed it out, the X0 is using 26650 batteries instead of the more popular 21700. This increase the diameter of the battery tube, and some people may like that. I don’t mind it either and makes it handle and feel pretty nice.

However, you should keep in mind that it only accepts non-protected 26650 batteries. No protected, or even worse, 26650 with USB ports, are going to fit. So better make sure you have some around, or order the battery together with the flashlight.

This is the gear I use for testing:

Gear	Purpose	Link to buy
Hagner E4-X	Measuring beam intensity (throw)	Inquire at Hagner.se
2* Extech SDL400	Lumens and logging runtimes	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Leica Disto D2	Distance for throw measurements	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Sekonic C-800	Spectrometer for LED measurements	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
Uni-T UTi260B	Thermal Image camera	Amazon.com,

Lumen measurements:

How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards: The ANSI FL1 standards specify that output in lumens should be measured 30 seconds after turning on, as this is the standardized time for measuring brightness according to the industry standard. This is why we focus on this part in our measurements. The ANSI FL1 standards require an ambient temperature of 22 ± 3°C. We record the ambient the ambient temperature to identify potential reasons for any observed discrepancies.

The output measurements in this review are based on my homemade integrating spheres, each equipped with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter. For consistency and accuracy, a calibration light (Convoy S2+ with 249lm and a Convoy S2+ with 261lm) is measured prior to each set of lumen measurements.
For high-output lights, one of the lux meters uses an ND camera filter to prevent the lux meter to max out. This is either the Kenko PRO1D ND16 up till about 80,000 lumens or Gobe ND32 for anything above.

All of my readings were taken from a fully-charged Keeppower 5200mAh battery. I also bought a Nitecore NI26650A, but the numbers were pretty close, so not worth to really mention.

The measurements were taken manually at turn on and 30 seconds. The 10 minute numbers are taken from the runtime graph. Performance wise it shouldn’t matter for the runtimes.

Mode	Specified	Measured at turn on	30 sec.	10min.
Low (zoomed out-wide)	100 lm	105 lm	103 lm	–
High (zoomed out-wide)	230 lm	230 lm	222 lm	–
Turbo (zoomed out-wide)	300 lm	276 lm	303 lm	–
Low (zoomed in)	130 lm	167 lm	163 lm	149 lm
High (zoomed in)	300 lm	368 lm	351 lm	224 lm
Turbo (zoomed in)	450 lm	438 lm	486 lm	217 lm

The X0 behaves a bit awkward in Turbo mode, where it starts out lower, than increases its brightness, before dropping again. I guess, that’s one way to reach better numbers for the ANSI FL1 standards.

You also notice that the output is quite a bit lower when the light is zoomed out.

Parasitic drain:

• 73 µA with the backlight turned on. So it will take many many months before it can discharge a battery in standby mode.

Lumintop X0 Battery life and runtime

How Runtimes are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About ANSI FL1 runtime standards: The runtime is measured until the light drops to 10% of its initial output (30 seconds after turning on). This does not mean that the flashlight is not usable anymore. The last column shows how long the light actually works till it shuts off. If there is a + symbol, it means that the test was stopped at that particular point, but the light was actually still running. This happens on certain occasions, with certain drivers, firmware, or batteries.

Runtime tests were conducted in my 50cm home made integrating sphere, paired with the Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

Battery used: Keeppower 5200mAh unprotected, flat top.

Mode	Specified runtime	Measured runtime (ANSI FL1)	Time till shut off
Low	4h	3h 35min	3h 35min
High	10min+2h30min	2h 20min	2h 20min
Turbo*	4min+2h30min	2h 16min	2h 16min

These numbers were a bit lower, but the manual doesn’t mention the battery capacity this was tested for. I now there are 6000mAh batteries out there as well.

Lumintop X0 Peak beam intensity and beam distance measurements

About Peak beam intensity: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About peak beam intensity The calculated value of distance in meters at which the flashlight produces a light intensity of 0.25 lux. (0.25 lux is about the brightness of a full moon shining on an object). This means that the intensity has decreased so much, it becomes difficult to see darker objects, or objects that don’t reflect light. The columns ‘Meters’ and ‘Yards’ use rounded numbers.

Measurements were taken outdoors and indoors with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. They were recorded 30 seconds after turn on. And because this flashlight has a zoom mechanism, it’s difficult to find the tightest beam possible. I tried my best though. It’s definitely not on the end of the zoom mechanism.

I then double checked indoors at 5 meters whether the measurement was trustworthy. High, Medium and Low where then tested indoors.

Mode	Specified	Measured:	meters	yards
Low	–	217,500 cd	933 m	1020 yd
High	–	447,500 cd	1338 m	1463 yd
Turbo	–	592,500 cd	1539 m	1684 yd
Turbo (20m)	600,000 cd	592,000 cd	1539 m	1683 yd

You see that the 20m measurement and 5 meters measurement were extremely close. And it’s also pretty close to the claimed 600,000 cd. It’s just a pity that it just drops so soon after the 30 seconds.

For the following beamshots, I used a Canon EOS 5D mk2 with a 100mm lens. Manual settings: ISO1600, 0.5sec, F4, 5000K

The tower is about 450 meters / 492 yards away.

The following flashlights are compared:

• Lumintop X0 (zoomed out (wide) and zoomed in (narrow)
• Maratac DX Reach rev2.
• Lumintop Petal
• Fenix HT30R
• Loop SK01S
• Natfire SF2
• Lumintop Thor 4
• Mateminco FW3

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to me for review at no cost by Nealsgadgets. I have not been paid to review, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects.