Zanflare F10 Tactical Pen Flashlight Review
The Zanflare F10 Tactical pen flashlight is an AAA flashlight built like a pen, with features like a glass breaker and whistle. Read on!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Zanflare F10 Tactical Pen product page.
Versions
Just one version!
Price
The going price for this looks to be $12.33, but it’s showing out of stock at GearBest right now. Since Zanflare is a GearBest house brand, it’s unlikely to be in stock, or cheaper elsewhere.
Short Review
If you’re in need of a tactical pen, this is a good starter version. Better yet, if you’re unsure if a tactical flashlight pen is something you’d need, this $13 version is a good choice.
Long Review
What’s Included
- Zanflare F10 Tactical Flashlight Pen
- Manual
Package and Manual
All credit to Zanflare; their packaging is nice. The pen ships in a nicely printed slip-fit box, which opens easily.
The manual covers the use of the light. It’s one (pamphlet-sized) piece of paper, printed on both sides.
Build Quality and Disassembly
The flashlight pen has fine build quality, but it’s an unusual (cumbersome?) build. There’s a lot going on in this device!
I’ll consider this primarily as a flashlight since flashlight is in the name. Pen is too, and it’s not a pen in any capacity, though.
As a flashlight, it is a little weird in hand. It works, and it could be considered a “right angle” light, but it’s unwieldy.
The center portion has what I’d normally consider cooling fins, but these aren’t in a place needing cooling fins. So they amount to grip, which is ok. The light itself doesn’t have any cooling fins.
The body has some interesting rifling, on what amounts to a marlinspike tip.
The tip isn’t strictly sharp, but it’s useful for its purpose.
As pennish as the top end of this pen looks, that’s actually a glass breaker.
Disassembly-wise, the light comes apart a few ways. The flashlight body unscrews from the spike. I didn’t get the head of the light, so I can’t speak to the possibility of an emitter swap.
The marlinspike also unscrews to reveal the whistle.
Size
This tool is 16cm long, and around a cm in diameter at max.
Sometimes the wind has other intentions for photos….
Retention
There’s a pocket clip, which comes installed. It’s a friction clip and works quite well. Good tension, nice retention.
That’s it for carry possibility!
Power
The F10 accepts a single AAA cell. I tested with a LADDA 900mAh AAA. I measure the output at around 120 lumens (rated at 150). The output is unregulated and just tracks the cell voltage all the way down. There is no low voltage protection, but at the point, the light has such low output you’ll know it’s low.
User Interface and Operation
The interface is a simple twisty. Twist for low, twist further for high. The “low” point is very small and to be honest, practically impossible to get the light to stay in low.
Another issue is that the head must actually be twisted. The head is around 1cm long, and has no gripping points at all, which makes it a bit hard to twist.
Modes
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens | Tailcap Amps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | 150 | 0.7h | 103 | 1.75 |
| Low | 5 | 26h | – | 0.75 |
LED and Beam
The emitter is a Cree XP-G3, behind a very shallow reflector.
The beam is spot with gradual fade to spill. The rings in the beam are artifacts of compression, and in real life that’s not really noticeable.
Beamshots
These beamshots always have the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure. These photos are taken at floor level, and the beam hits the ceiling around 9 feet away.
Tint vs BLF-348 (KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b version) (affiliate link)
I keep the test flashlight on the left and the BLF-348 reference flashlight on the right.
Beamshots, Runtime, and Lux Measurements
| Zanflare F10 | |
|---|---|
| Emitter | Cree XP-G3 |
| Emitter Notes | |
| Cell | AAA |
| Runtime | Chargetime N/A |
| LVP? | No |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 150 |
| Lux (Measured) | 87 lux @ 2.348 m |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd | 479.6 |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 43.8 |
| Throw (Claimed) (m) | 52 |
Conclusion
What I like
- The build is solid
What I don’t like
- Overall unwieldy build
- Low is too hard to hit
- No grip on the head for twisting the modes
Notes
- This light was provided by GearBest for review. I was not paid to write this review.
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