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A 12,000 Lumen Flashlight - Fenix LR40R

When I saw that Fenix had a new 12,000 lumen flashlight out, I couldn't resist. I had to purchase it, and boy am I glad that I did. Let me take you through my review of this light and for a full video review, check out my YouTube channel for that review video:

The box that the flashlight comes in is very sturdy and professional looking, and it would even make a good storage box for anyone looking to keep their flashlight protected in between uses. It comes with a very sturdy holster which can be attached to a belt, or clipped on to the plastic ring. There is a USB C cable, a wrist strap, and extra O ring, and the standard manuals and warranty cards.

I would consider the light to be a "large" light, since a four-cell battery and 19 LEDs can't be fit into a small package. However, when I show my 12,000 lumen flashlight to people, most people are very surprised at how small it is, considering its specs.

The flashlight has a power-bank feature allowing you to charge any standard USB devices off of it. If you were camping in the woods and needed a charge it might be a good backup, but I personally don't see myself actually using it as I would want to keep all of the battery life available for the flashlight itself. With one click of the buttons you can see the battery's charge level from the indicator lights, which are made up of four blue LEDs, one for each 25% of battery life.

To turn the light on you use one of the two, metal buttons on the light, with each button controlling either the ring LEDs or the spot LED. With a half-second press, you can turn the lights on, and a momentary press switches between the modes within the LEDs that the button controls. The spot LED is very tight, with a very long-reaching hotspot, and at 1,000 lumens the spot alone is brighter than most other people's flashlights. But the ring LEDs, which I will refer to as the flood LEDs, are really where the flashlight shines. The flood setting starts fairly low, although at close range it's still quite usable. As you step up through the brightness settings you keep thinking "There's no way it can get brighter than this" - but then it goes even brighter still. At peak brightness with the flood LEDs (11,000 lumens) the first 300 feet in front of you looks like day time, and the next 300 feet past that is still extremely bright.

The flashlight does a great job at dissipating heat, but with the amount of LEDs and light output, it does get hot very quickly. The turbo output will stay on for two minutes, and "high 2" will stay on for five minutes. My favorite setting is actually a combination of the high spot beam, and the low flood. It's a good mixture of long-reaching light, with directly in front of you still being illuminated well.

There aren't many cons to the LR40R, but I do wish that the buttons were not one-purpose buttons. It can be confusing in the moment trying to remember if you're turning the light on, or switching modes. I'm not sure if I could even say how to better implement the buttons without losing the independent controls, but the user interface leaves something to be desired. The light is built very circular, so it does roll very easily, but the base and head of the light are very wide, so standing them up is the quick solution to that. The difference between the lumen output of flood and the spot is very large, and it makes the spot seem dim in comparison. Maybe a higher-output LED in the middle, or possibly a few LEDs with spot reflectors would have made that difference a little closer.

There are a lot of great things about the flashlight. The sheer output of the light is just incredible. I compared my LR40R against a state trooper's SUV, and it was brighter than his headlights and his door-mounted LED spotlight combined. Another thing is the combination of flood and spot in one light is great to see, and I hope they keep building on this concept in future models of the LR series. The battery pack that comes with the flashlight was engineered very well so that you can pull it out and put standard 18650 cells in it instead, which really opens up your power options for long trips or extended usage. I'm very glad that Fenix went with a removable pack rather than a built in, proprietary pack like other models have.

Overall the LR40R is a great flashlight. Not only is it ridiculously bright, but it's also an intelligent implementation of that brightness. It's obviously not going to be a light you carry on your hip, but when you need to go searching in a field or the woods, this light is going to get the job done.

If you want to get a LR40R for yourself, see the product page listed at the link below:

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