Nitecore MT2A Pro

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Nitecore MT2A Pro specifications

Brand/model	Nitecore MT2A Pro
Flashlight category	EDC / general use / penlight
LED	UHi 20 LED
Max. output	Lithium: 1,000 lm / 2AA: 500 lm
Max. beam distance	Lithium: 255m / 2AA: 188m
Max. beam intensity	Lithium: 16,500 cd / 2AA: 9,000 cd
Battery config.	1*NL1416R / 2AA
Onboard charging	N/A battery has USB-C
Modes	Lithium: 3 / 2AA: 2
Blinkies	Strobe, SOS
Waterproof	IP68
Review date	November 2023

Nitecore makes many interesting flashlights, headlamps, and other lighting products. They have an extensive range, from small keychain lights like the Tini 2, to hybrid LEP flashlights like the P35i.

This time, the review focuses on the MT2A PRO, a 2AA-type penlight flashlight with 500 lumens when used with 2AA batteries and 1000 lumens when used with the provided NL1416R lithium battery.

I like 2AA flashlights because they remind me of the good old days when I bought my first Klarus P2A 2AA flashlight.

So, let’s dive into the review

Package quality.

Nitecore’s packaging is fairly simple and straightforward, with the usual yellow and black outer packaging and the following things inside:

• Nitecore MT2A Pro
• NL1416R lithium battery (14100 type) with USB-C port
• Pocket clip (attached)
• Spare O-ring
• Lanyard
• Manual

Make sure you remove the battery insulator before your first use.

If you are used to 2AA flashlights, you know they tend to look all very similar. And the MT2A Pro does as well. It’s a relatively nice looking 2AA flashlight with some unique knurling on the body tube.

The tailcap has 2 little ‘walls’ to connect your lanyard to and also to protect from any accidental activation of the rear switch.

If you don’t like using the provided lanyard, you can also use the removable pocket clip. I always find the pocket clip on a 2AA flashlight a bit weird. They usually don’t fit this type of flashlight, and I will never really use it for the intended use because of that. But I do normally keep it attached as it will increase my grip, and it also helps as an anti-roll feature.

There is only 1 switch, and it’s located in the rear. It’s a mechanical reverse-clicky switch, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally draining your batteries through a parasitic drain.

A reverse clicky switch will only activate the light after the switch is fully clicked. And you can change modes by half-pressing when the flashlight is turned on.

Use cases? I think it can be used in many scenarios, ranging from around the house to camping to EDC (if you like longer lights) and many other kinds of activities.

Remember that the beam is ‘throwy’, so it’s good for up to 100-200 yards.

Because of the mechanical switch in the rear, it’s good to use it in the overhand position.

Warranty:

We provide warranty for all our products. Any DOA / defective product can be exchanged for a replacement through a local distributor/dealer within the 15 days of purchase. Within the period covered under warranty, we will repair any Nitecore product that has ceased to function properly. Please refer to table below for warranty periods for different products: Lighting products (without built-in battery): 60 months

Nitecore seems to indicate that the LED used in the MT2A Pro is exclusively built for them. But I have seen this particular LED in other flashlights as well. It’s possible that they have a specific ‘edition’ of these LEDs, but they aren’t unique.

Nitecore labels it as the NiteLab UHI20, with a light emitting surface (LES) of only 2.26mm² according to them.

I usually don’t care too much what manufacturers have to say because I prefer to measure the LEDs myself using a luxmeter and spectrometer.

In my case, I use the Sekonic C800 at 5 meters for the spectral measurements, and all my other measurements are in the performance section.

Spectral measurements:  

Mode:	CCT:	CRI Ra:	duv
Low	5725 K	64.0	0.0150
High	6288 K	63.8	0.0064

The beam itself is throwy with a decent hotspot. There is a pretty quick transition from hotspot to spill, like with all thrower flashlights.

Dimensions: 

Nitecore MT2A Pro	Millimeters	Inches
Length	142mm	5.6 in
Head+tail diameter	20 mm	1.6 in

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

Weight: 

Nitecore MT2A Pro	Weight in grams	Weight in oz.
Without battery:	46 g	1.6 oz
With battery	95 g	3.3 oz

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

Nitecore MT2A Pro Flashlight comparison

Size compared to other penlight flashlights

Group 1, from left to right: Acebeam Pokelit 2AA, Olight I5T Plus, Nitecore MT2A Pro, Wuben E19 (2AAA), Olight i3T Plus (2AAA), Speras M10 (2AAA), Nitecore MT06MD (2AAA), Lumintop IY365P (2AAA)

It’s interesting to see that Nitecore added 2 mode groups, depending on the batteries used. If you use the provided lithium battery, you get 3 modes, and only 2 if you use AA batteries.

The available main modes:

• Low, Medium, High (with the lithium battery
• Low, High (with 2AA batteries)

The available special modes (blinkies):

• N/A

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

• Half-press: nothing
• Single-click: to last used mode, mode memory

How the UI works when the flashlight is turned ON:

• Half-press: Cycle through the menu from Low to High
• Single-click: turns off

Shortcuts within the UI:

• N/A

Mode memory:

• Yes

Blinky modes:

• None

Low battery warning:

• No

Lock-out mode:

• No, since it has a mechanical switch.

PWM:

• Not visible by eye.

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

• The UI is simple and straightforward.

Nitecore included the NL1416R battery, which is a 2*14500, connected in parallel. However, you’d think they were connected in series since they are stacked! This means you will only read 4.2V, instead of 8.4V when connected in series. You’d be okay calling this a 14100 battery type, even though it’s actually 2 batteries connected).

The flashlight itself does not have onboard charging, only the NL1416R battery. It has a USB-C port, and Nitecore includes a USB charging cable. It’s also interesting to note that my battery arrived at 4.12V, which is a bit high for a ‘storage and shipping voltage’.

Charging happens at about 0.4A, and I’ve tested charging time 3 times. They were: 3h 48min, 3h 56min, and 3h 58min, and finished around 4.18V. The charge time depended on the test I ran before the charge, but you can expect to wait almost 4 hours to charge the battery fully. During the charge, you’ll see a red light near the battery’s positive terminal.

Fortunately, you can also use normal AA batteries to power the MT2A PRO, but instead of 3 modes, you will only get 2.. Which is fine by me.

Also, it’s interesting to note that the Nitecore NL1416R battery is basically the same as the Acebeam ARC14100P-160A battery used in the Acebeam Pokelit 2AA. So, if you already have the Pokelit 2AA, you can use that battery inside the MT2A PRO!

Charge type	Fits	No fit	Avg. Charge time
NL1416R battery with onboard charging	All AA batteries + 14100 type battery	2*14500	3h 55min

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 before each set of lumen measurements.
One of the lux meters uses an ND camera filter for high-output lights to prevent the lux meter from maxing out. This is either the Kenko PRO1D ND16 up to about 80,000 lumens or Gobe ND32 for anything above.

All of my measurements were from a fully-charged Nitecore NL1416R battery and 2 Eneloop AA batteries.

The measurements were taken manually at turn on and 30 seconds. The Ambient temperature was 19.1 degrees Celsius. The 10-minute numbers are taken from the runtime graph. The first table is the output measured with the Nitecore NL1416R battery:

Mode	Specified	At turn on	At 30 sec	At 10 min
Low	50 lm	59 lm	59 lm	58 lm
Med	300 lm	325 lm	325 lm	315 lm
High	1000 lm	923 lm	892 lm	507 lm

And here are the measurements with 2AA Eneloop 2,000mAh batteries. These are the latest, 5th generation Eneloop batteries.

Mode	Specified	At turn on	At 30 sec	At 10 min
Low	60 lm	75 lm	75 lm	74 lm
High	500 lm	546 lm	538 lm	490 lm

Nitecore MT2A Pro 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 homemade integrating sphere, paired with the Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

Here are my measurements:

Mode	Specified runtime	Measured runtime (ANSI FL1)	Time till shut off
Lithium Low	20h	15h 40min	15h 40min
Lithium Med	2h 45min	1h 42min	1h 42min
Lithium High	1h 30min	1h 23min	1h 23min
2AA Low	11h	9h 15min	9h 15min
2AA High**	2h	1h 48min	1h 48min

It’s not very nice to see that my tests were quite a bit off.. Medium mode ran 1 hour shorter than advertised, while Low ran 4 hours shorter than specified.

**Also, I called 2AA Low and High, while the manual refers to Low and Medium.. But I think you can only have a medium mode if you also have a high mode.. If you only have 2 modes, that is basically just low and high.

You’ll notice the quick increase in output with medium mode; that’s because I had to move from low to medium mode when turning it on. But the output stays stable if you turn it on in Medium mode.

Nitecore MT2A Pro 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 indoors at 5 meters with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. The measurements were taken 30 seconds after turn on.

Mode	Specified	I measured	in meters	in yards
Lithium Low	846 cd	1,100 cd	66 m	73 yd
Lithium Med	5500 cd	5,850 cd	153 m	167 yd
Lithium High	16500 cd	16,025 cd	253 m	277 yd
2AA Low	1170 cd	1,375 cd	74 m	81 yd
2AA High	8890 cd	9,725 cd	197 m	216 yd

For the following beamshots, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 with a 50mm lens. Manual settings: ISO1600, 1/4sec, F4, 5000K

The shed is about 65 meters / 71 yards away, and the reflective fence about 200 meters.

Explore and compare the beamshots from the following flashlights:

• Nitecore MT2A PRO
• Wuben X2
• Olight Arkfeld Ti
• Olight Warrior Mini 3
• Vosteed Rook

Please note that beamshots are mainly intended to showcase the beam pattern and beam quality, rather than overall performance. These images are typically taken directly after activation, and do not fully represent its overall performance. For accurate performance metrics, such as output, beam distance, and runtimes, you need to look at the performance section of this review.

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to us for review at no cost by Nitecore. We have not been paid to review, nor have we been holding back on problems or defects.