Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo Flashlight Review
Olight has released the Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight! The finish is antiqued, textured, and looks like bamboo! How great! Read on!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight product page.
Versions
There are three bodies of the i3T Plus. Two are aluminum: black and blue. And there’s this solid copper “Ancient Bamboo” finish. I believe they all have the same emitter and are otherwise the same, too.
Price
Right now (“right now” being while this anniversary sale is happening), the Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight sells for $39.96. You can even check out some combination deals, which will make the i3T Plus cost even less! Go check out the Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight at Olight.com/store!
Short Review
I’m not normally just the biggest fan of this format of light – two AAA in series. However, the finish and styling on this Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight really sells it for me. Add to that the fact that it’s not even very expensive, and certainly not expensive for a solid copper light. The user interface is fine and the output is fine. All in all I’d call it quite a deal for solid copper! Plus the finish is panda-approved!
Long Review
The Big Table
| Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | “High-Performance White LED” |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $39.96 at Olight.com/store |
| Cell: | 2xAAA |
| High Runtime Graph | Low Runtime Graph |
| LVP? | ? |
| Switch Type: | Mechanical |
| On-Board Charging? | No |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 250 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 249 (99.6% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 6.1 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 70 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 58lux @ 4.976m = 1436cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 75.8 (108.3% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | – |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 5700 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Olight |
| All my Olight reviews! | |
^ Measurement disclaimer: Testing flashlights is my hobby. I use hobbyist-level equipment for testing, including some I made myself. Try not to get buried in the details of manufacturer specifications versus measurements recorded here; A certain amount of difference (say, 10 or 15%) is perfectly reasonable.
What’s Included
- Olight i3T Plus Ancient Bamboo flashlight
- AAA cells (2) (Primary alkaline)
- Manual
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
Well, check out that finish! Let’s forget everything else about this light and just talk about that finish. The design is called “Ancient Bamboo” and you’re going to love it! Or hate it, in which case there’s pretty much no reason to continue reading here. The flashlight as a flashlight, flashlights just fine! But the finish, well now that’s something interesting!
The light looks like bamboo! Being long and slender, it even especially looks like bamboo. Maybe being so narrow, the nodes are too close together, but your panda will. not. care.
Despite the very textured finish, Olight still sticks its branding on the end.
On the inside is all shiny and clean copper, though. These threads are very smooth, and all in all the light is very weighty because of all that copper.
Down into that barrel is just a contact point – no spring. But the tailcap has a nice beefy spring.
Size and Comps
Weight (g / oz) 95.9g / 3.38oz (Including Batteries)
Length (mm / in) 133mm / 5.24in
Body Diameter (mm / in) 15mm / 0.59in
If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo). If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll show that here, too (usually the fourth photo).
Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+. Mine is a custom “baked” edition Nichia 219b triple. A very nice 18650 light!
And here’s the light beside my custom-engraved TorchLAB BOSS 35, an 18350 light. I reviewed the aluminum version of that light in both 35 and 70 formats.
Retention and Carry
The pocket clip, which arrives installed, is a two-way clip. There’s a lanyard hole in the shoulder, too. At one point, I didn’t like these clips, and while I still prefer the more traditional type, these have grown on me a little. Whatever you think about the clip part, it is held snugly on the body.
The clip hug, seen below.
No lanyard is included, though the pocket clip does have a hole that would allow easy connection of a lanyard.
Speaking of the clip fitting snugly… I’d probably say just don’t take it off at all. Under the clip the body still has texture, and it’s sort of a minor nightmare to reinstall the clip over this texture.
Power and Runtime
Power is provided by two AAA cells. Olight does include two primary cells, but all my testing was done with Eneloop AAA NiMH or Amazon Basics AAA.
As with most flashlights, the positive end of the cell goes toward the emitter.
Here are runtimes for both modes. Nothing really surprising here. The emitter does blink at the end to notify the user that the battery voltage is low. This seems to start when the cells are individually around 0.9V.
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | 250/100 | 1/480m | 249 |
| Low | 15 | 28h | 11 |
Pulse Width Modulation
Not really any PWM to be seen here, which is good.
Here you can see a “baseline” – a chart with almost no light hitting the sensor.
Then there’s the Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight, which has some of the worst PWM I’ve seen. It’s so bad that I used a post about it to explain PWM! Here are multiple timescales (10ms, 5ms, 2ms, 1ms, 0.5ms, 0.2ms) to make comparing this “worst” PWM light to the test light easier. That post also explains why I didn’t test the WF-602C at the usual 50us scale.
User Interface and Operation
The switch is a mechanical forward clicky. It’s very clicky and clicks on the downstroke and upstroke. The click is quite loud and extremely “positive.”
There’s a good bit of travel, too.
Here’s a user interface table!
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | Low |
| Low | Click | High |
| Off | Half-press | Momentary (Low first, another half-press for high) |
The light will revert to low as the next mode once off for 2 seconds.
LED and Beam
The emitter used in this AAA light is the Philips LUXEON TX – or at least that’s what the original was. I don’t think this part has been updated, so that’s what I’m going with here, too. The emitter utilizes a TIR reflector for a nice, even beam.
I’m basing that on the emitter appearing exactly like the emitter in my Olight i3T Titanium.
The head does not have any relief, so no light escapes while headstanding.
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
This is a cool white emitter, but not that cool white. As I’ve said a lot lately, Olight catches hate for “cool white” and many recent lights just don’t display that. 5600K is fairly reasonable! The CRI is low, at around 71, and the dUV is positive, so the emitter can be seen as having some green tint.
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.
I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!
Conclusion
What I like
- Uh, Ancient Bamboo, yes, please! It’s very neat.
- Solid copper body makes this light a great beefy weight
- Simple UI
- AAAx2 format (with alkaline/NiMH support)
- TIR optic beam profile
- No strobe!
- Square-cut, high-quality threads
What I don’t like
- No Nichia option
- Low CRI
- High doesn’t hold out long enough
Notes
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