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Fenix E05 R2 Flashlight
© 2012 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved.

 

Fenix E05 R2

Fenix E05 R2 (1 AAA cell, 27 lumens, 2.8 hours battery life). bigger. This free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially this link directly to it at Amazon or at eBay when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thank you! Ken.

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October 2012   More Fenix Reviews   Lupine Piko TL Mini Review    All Reviews

BETTER: The Lumintop Tool AAA is much better, for the same price.

 

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I got this tiny little Fenix E05 R2 flashlight in the fall of 2012, and it was nice for a year or two until it stopped working. I replaced it with the Lumintop Tool AAA in 2016, which is much, much better.

Consider the reast of this review as historiucal.

The E05 is brighter than my much bigger flashlights, and it's always with me on my keyring!

This little light is brighter than anything I used to carry separately in my bag, has a much better, smoother beam, and I don't have to carry it — it's always with me, taking up the same space a crappy little squeeze key chain light used to take.

It's the world's best flashlight for photographers because it fits on our key rings (it's the same size and about a third longer than an AA cell), it's much brighter than the 2-AA cell Mini Maglites I used to carry in my bags, it throws a smooth, even beam, it's reasonably white, not bluish, it's waterproof, and it runs forever on a single AAA cell.

It's always bright; it digitally regulates its own power supply so it's always 100% bright, even as the AAA cell wears down.

It sucks every last drop of power from its AAA cell so nothing is wasted. My Fenix E05 R2 flashlight just ran for 6 straight weeks of heavy use on one off-brand AAA alkaline, and when it stopped working, the cell voltage was only 0.66V! This cell was so dead that my ZTS MBT-1 battery tester wouldn't even wake up, but the light was still 100% bright until the end. I even tried a crappy dead carbon-zinc AAA cell I replaced from one of my kid's toys, and it also lit the Fenix E05 R2 at 100%! (Fenix rates it as 2.8 hours battery life.)

This little flashlight has only one control: the ON - OFF switch, which is by turning the front, which I do with one hand. (Push buttons turn themselves on in my pocket.)

The beam is a smooth, even wash of light, not an uneven beam loaded with bright and dark spots like my made-in-USA Maglites. Unlike regular flashlights, I don't have to keep waving the E05 R2 back-and-forth to light my way. No matter how I try to focus my Maglite, there's usually a dark spot right in the middle of a wider beam, or one bright dot that I have to wave back and forth. The smooth, fixed beam of the Fenix E05 R2 is perfect for everything a photographer needs. It's entire beam is bright enough to light up houses 100 feet (30 meters) away in the dark, and it's wide enough to read a whole page or see your entire camera without having to wiggle it around.

Most LED lights are too darn blue. The Fenix E05 R2 is as neutral as an LED gets.

It's bright, brighter than any of my regular two- or three- D cell Maglites. It's actually about as bright as my big 2-D cell LED Maglite! If anything, the Fenix E05 R2 is almost too bright; I often hold my finger partially over the front when using it in dim public places. It lights up plenty of the outdoors at night. (Fenix rates it as 30 lumens, which is twice as bright as most conventional 2-cell Maglites.)

Sure, there are bigger lights that are brighter (but you won't have them on your keyring for long, and they have so many features you can't get the light to light or find lithium batteries for them), and there are great little keychain lights powered by equally difficult to find lithium coin cells, but there is no light that just does everything right and is always with me on my keychain. Having kids, I'm always looking for things under beds, under tables, under my car's hood and behind furniture.

 

Specifications

1 AAA cell.

27 lumens.

2.8 hours battery life.

24 meters throw.

64.5mm x

Waterproof: IPX-8, 2 meters for 30 minutes.

 

Compared         top

This tiny thing is as bright as big LED Maglites, abnd brighter than regular D-cell flashlights.

Lumens define how much light leaves a flashlight. How far it shines also depends on how tightly this light is formed into a beam, measured instead in candelas. Tighter beams shine farther, while broader beams make it easier to see what's around you. Lumens are the best measurement of total light output; while candlepower (not shown here) will vary as you focus a beam.

Here are lumen ratings of some other popular flashlights:

Lupine Piko TL Mini: 550 lumens.

Fenix LD41: 520 lumens.

Maglite 3-D LED: 131 lumens.

Fenix E11: 115 lumens.

Maglite XL50 3-AAA LED: 104 lumens.

Fenix E05: 29 lumens.

Maglite classic 2-D flashlight: 19 lumens.

All-time Classic 2-AA "Super-Bright Xenon" Mini-Maglite: 14 lumens. (3.870 oz./109.8g w/2-AA alkaline.)

Classic 1-AAA Maglite Solitaire: 2 lumens.

 

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Thanks for reading!

 

 

Mr. & Mrs. Ken Rockwell, Ryan and Katie.

 

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