Olight Warrior X Pro Desert Sunset

1lumen selects and reviews products personally. We may earn affiliate commissions through our links, which help support our testing.

Olight Warrior X Pro specifications

Brand/model	Olight Warrior X Pro Desert Sunset
LED	Uncertain
Lumens	2100 lm
Beam intensity	62,500 cd
Battery config.	1*21700
Material	Aluminum
Modes	2
Blinkies	N/A
Reflector	Smooth
Waterproof	IPX8
Review date	April 2021

We’ve reviewed the original Olight Warrior X PRO last year, and now we have the Olight Warrior X PRO Desert Sunset for review. You would probably have guessed this is just a different color flashlight, but in reality, it is a little different.

The Desert Sunset looks a lot like the original X PRO, but the LED is not. Besides that, there are a few very minor details in design, but they are negligible.

Package quality.

The packaging looks fantastic, like all Olight flashlights. You can directly see they didn’t produce it on a whim. They designed the box and the inside into the smallest details. Oh, did I tell you that it has a vibrating low-battery indicator?

• Olight Warrior X PRO flashlight
• Lanyard
• Holster
• TGR ring (Tactical Grip Ring)
• Magnetic USB charge cable
• User manual

The Warrior X PRO ltd edition has 1 switch, located at the tailcap, for power and mode changing. This means that you have to change the position of your hand (if you carry it underhand) every time you want to change modes. Fortunately, it only has 2 modes.

The switch feels a little strange compared to regular flashlights. A half-press will put the light into Low mode (which is actually more of a medium) and a full press (click) will turn the light on High.

By default, a tactical ring and pocket clip are attached. You can’t use the pocket clip without the tactical ring, but you can do the opposite.  Olight includes a second ring, named ‘Tactical Grip Ring’. This ring is made of rubber that increases your grip. This ring, however, doesn’t work with the pocket clip. It’s either the default ring with its pocket clip or no pocket clip at all.

A few things that drew my attention about the holster.

1. It doesn’t use velcro tape but a magnet to close the flap.
2. It has an opening on the bottom. This is probably a safety feature? So you can see that the light is on, and you won’t burn a hole in it.
3. It’s made of very thick material, almost plastic-like. Unlike other holsters, this one can’t be folded up because it’s too stiff.

Like all Olight flashlights we reviewed, there is nothing to complain about its build quality. Even the packaging looks extremely detailed and specially designed. The same goes for all accessories and the charging system. Nothing shows this could be a cheap flashlight.

It doesn’t have the typical knurling on any part of the flashlight. The tailcap and head design look pretty impressive. All edges are rounded and therefore not sharp. The bezel is not removable, unfortunately.

Anodization looks really good across the light. I usually don’t like very shiny anodization on flashlights, but on the Warrior X PRO Deser Sunset it adds a bit of a premium feel to it. The brown color looks very similar to the Warrior Mini, as you can see in the comparison shots.

The tailcap is the only part you can unscrew.  That’s why there is only 1 set of threading I can talk about. The threads came lubed like crazy, and because of that, the tailcap screws smoothly. There is a pretty strong magnet in the tailcap used for charging, but it is also used to attach the light to anything metal. It won’t stay horizontal on something vertical, but you can hang it onto something flat.

Olight doesn’t specify what kind and what type of LED it uses. On the website of Olightworld they answered a question about the original Warrior X PRO, and said they used a Cree XHP35. But the Desert Sunset uses a different LED, that I haven’t seen yet. The beam is different from the original X PRO. See the beamshots below.

You can’t unscrew the bezel, unfortunately, but there is a GITD (glow in the dark) o-ring that glows after you turn off the light. Olight adds glue on all their lights (Loctite), so you can’t take it apart without force or heat. This can be a pro and a con at the same time. This is a con for people who want to replace the LED and a pro for the company because they can be sure nobody opens it up.

The reflector is smooth and is supposed to push the maximum beam intensity up to 62,500 cd (instead of 90,000 for the original X PRO). You can see the comparison between the original X PRO LED and this limited edition LED below.

• Length:  149mm (  5.8″)
• Head diameter:   39mm (  1.54″)
• Body diameter:  23.8 mm ( 0.94″)

Weight: 

• With battery:  237.9 g (  8.39oz)

Tactical Flashlight comparison

Size compared to other Olight Warrior flashlights

Image 1, from left to right: Olight Warrior X Turbo, Olight Warrior X Pro Desert Sunset, Olight Warrior M2R PRO, Olight Warrior Mini.

Size compared to other well known Tactical lights

From left to right: Nitecore MH12S, Fenix TK22 v2, Olight Warrior X PRO Desert Sunset, Thrunite TN12 v4, Fenix PD36R and Fenix TK11 TAC.

Compared to original Olight Warrior X PRO.

The Olight Warrior X PRO Desert Sunset uses a simple but rather unique driver/switch. There are 2 modes, Turbo and Low. Low is actually not really low, but 300 lumens. Great for a tactical flashlight, because you don’t want to accidentally turn on moon mode in a dangerous place or situation.

Modes:

• Low, Turbo

From OFF:

• Half-press: Low
• Full-press, single-click:  Turbo
• Half-press and hold: Low (temporarily.. release switch to turn off)
• Full-press and hold: Turbo (temporarily, release switch to switch off)

From ON:

• Half-press: Off
• Single-click:  Off

Blinky modes menu:

• None

Low battery warning:

• Built-in vibration system.
• Battery <30% = vibrate every 5 minutes
• Battery <10% = vibrate every minute
• Battery <5% = vibrate every 10 seconds

Lock-out mode:

• No

PWM:

• Not visible by eye, so that is what counts.

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

• Not sure if I like this UI. I prefer something more distinct. Currently, when you press the switch too long, and you release it, the light turns off. I rather have a full and distinct click and not this kind of Long-press =  temporary mode.

Olight always uses a dedicated battery and charge system. That means you can’t replace the Olight 21700 battery with a regular 21700 battery, because it won’t work.

The 21700 battery included is an Olight ORB-217C50, Lithium-Ion battery with 5000mAh. Which is a lot more juice than a regular 18650 battery but only slightly larger. 21700 batteries were introduced around 2018 or so. This means they are still relatively new. The maximum mAh for a 18650 cell is currently around 3600mAh. So the 21700’s 5000mAh is a significant increase in capacity.

Olight includes the MCC3 (magnetic charging cable), and the X PRO doesn’t accept any older MCC’s. I personally don’t like to rely on one charging cable (although I have about 5 now). What happens if I lost it, and only had 1 cable? I’d have to have a normal lithium charger to charge the battery, and only a few chargers accept this length. I can understand Olight that they want to decrease the likelihood of damaging their lights by using bad batteries or a bad charger. This also means that you can’t use an adapter to use a 18650 battery.

The charge speed is pretty good, even on my 2A wall charger. It draws roughly 1.75A on that charger, but it should be able to charge at a maximum power of 2A. While charging, a little red LED lights up, and it turns green when it finishes charging.

Lumen measurements:

All output numbers are relative for my home-made Integrating Sphere. It is set up with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter for measurements including a Kenko PRO1D ND-16 filter. The base measurement is done with a Convoy S2+ that has been tested at 255 lumens.

All of my readings were taken from a fully-charged Olight battery .

Mode	Specified	@ 10 min	@ 30 sec	@ start
Low	300 lm	302 lm	307 lm	304 lm
High	2100 lm	1039 lm	2246 lm	2333 lm

It can easily achieve its advertised output. All the Olight flashlights I reviewed were advertised on the conservative side. And although the old X PRO was advertised at 2250 lumens, the output is actually almost identical.

Low increases its brightness by 3 lumens within 30 seconds.

Runtime:

The runtime test was done with the 50cm integrating sphere, including the Kenko Pro1D ND-16 filter and Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

The light starts dropping in output almost immediately, and drops to 1046 lumens within 2.5 minutes. Around 18 minutes it starts dropping again slowly, and reaches 820 lumens at 21 minutes. It stays pretty stable for another hour or so, when it starts dropping at 1 hour and 39 minutes down to about 580 lumens. It then drops again another time to about 300+ lumens. It continues for another 30 minutes or so, when it finally turns off at 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Low mode is very stable at 300+ lumens for 7 hours and 50 minutes when it turns off directly. Fortunately, the vibration warning lets you know that the battery is running low.

I then compared the original Warrior X PRO to the limited edition, and you can see they are pretty close in terms of output, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but the limited edition does run a bit longer.

Throw Measurement

Measurements were taken indoors at 5 meters with a professional Hagner E4-X Lux Meter.

Mode	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Low	8925 cd	189 meters	206.63 yards
High	67,000 cd	518 meters	566 yards

Specs show a throw of up to 62,500 cd, and mine hit 67,000 at 5 meters, and probably a bit less at 10 meters and beyond.

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

The shed is about 65 meters / 71 yards away. 

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

Explanation on star ratings:

1. – Avoid: my phone flashlight would be a better choice
2. – Poor: significant defect or issues, much better options available at the same price
3. – Average: some defects or issues
4. – Good: recommended (minor issues)
5. – Great: highly recommended