Imalent MR90 Flashlight Review
The Imalent MR90 flashlight boasts 50,000 lumens, has a built-in battery, and emitters for both flood and throw. Read on for testing!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Imalent MR90 flashlight product page.
Versions
As far as I can tell, there’s just one version of the Imalent MR90 flashlight. Imalent often does end up releasing a “W” (warm) version, but I don’t see that (yet?)
Price
The MSRP of the Imalent MR90 flashlight is $359.95.
Short Review
This is certainly an impressive light! I’ll add that it gets hot! You probably expect this, but you should be aware going in that it really gets quite hot. The output is impressive, and having built-in flood and throw options is fun, too!
Long Review
The Big Table
| Imalent MR90 Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Luminus SBT90.2 and Cree XHP70.2 (8) (Both) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $359.95 |
| Cell: | Internal |
| Turbo Runtime Graph | High Runtime Graph |
| LVP? | Shuts off at very low voltage (may be electronic shutoff, unsure) |
| Switch Type: | E-Switch |
| Quiescent Current (mA): | ? |
| On-Board Charging? | Yes |
| Charge Port Type: | Barrel Connector |
| Power off Charge Port | |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 50000 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 27410 (54.8% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 25.6 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 1391 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 5190lux @ 6.205m = 199826cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 894.0 (64.3% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | – |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 5600-6800 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Imalent |
| All my Imalent reviews! | |
| Imalent MR90 Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Cree XHP70.2 (8) (Flood) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $359.95 |
| Cell: | Internal |
| Turbo Runtime Graph | High Runtime Graph |
| LVP? | Shuts off at very low voltage (may be electronic shutoff, unsure) |
| Quiescent Current (mA): | ? |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 44500 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 24805 (55.7% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 2.5 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 692 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 2510lux @ 5.281m = 70001cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 529.2 (76.5% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | – |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 6000-6600 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Imalent |
| All my Imalent reviews! | |
| Imalent MR90 Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Luminus SBT90.2 (Throw) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $359.95 |
| Cell: | Internal |
| Turbo Runtime Graph | High Runtime Graph |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 4500 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 3384 (75.2% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 85.5 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 1586 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 6230lux @ 6.394m = 254703cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 1009.4 (63.6% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | – |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 5600-7200 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Imalent |
| All my Imalent reviews! | |
^ Measurement disclaimer: I am an amateur flashlight reviewer. I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment. I test output and such in PVC tubes!! Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).
What’s Included
- Imalent MR90 flashlight
- Charging wall wart
- Lanyard
- Nylon pouch
- Spare o-rings (2)
- Manual
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
Imalent is continuing what I’d call the “M” series design language. This light has built-in fans and not the kind that attach via a separate connector. These fans are permanently built into the head (or “neck”) area of the MR90. It’s very much like we saw on the MS12 Mini!
One thing I realized when testing this light is that all of the branding is on this little screw-in tailpiece. This piece covers the charging port, and in fact, must be removed when charging. These pieces are the same as other similar lights (like the MS12 Mini) and can be swapped between the at will. Not that you’d want to do that, but you might specifically want to not do that in case you forget which light is which name.
Size and Comps
MEASUREMENTS: 92mm (head diameter) *56mm (body diameter) *152mm (length)
WEIGHT: 898g(battery excluded)
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’s 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
Two ways are included for carry of the Imalent MR90 flashlight. First, we can talk about the lanyard. Maybe it’s more of a wrist strap. Either way, it can connect to the tailcap.
A nylon pouch is also included. This pouch allows only one-direction installation, and the tailcap hangs out the bottom.
Power and Runtime
The Imalent MR90 flashlight runs on a “4000mAh 21700 Li-ion battery pack” which ships covered with this little plastic shield.
Here are a few runtime tests. The light does shut off when voltage is low, and when the light shuts off so do the fans. You can see what happens when the fans go off, too – the temperature shoots up a bit. That’s expected and is also a testament to how much cooling they are providing.
I also performed a flood test without cooling where I saw sustained 80°C temperatures. That’s significant heat. So much so in fact, that it can be somewhat of a decision on how you’ll access the switch to turn the light off… Maybe good planning is required for that. I will say that the lumens held very steady this way, though. It was impressive! Unfortunately, I mis-hit the record button and only captured the temperature…
Charging
The Imalent MR90 flashlight has built-in charging. There’s a charge port in the tail end, covered by the metal disk we talked about above.
A wall wart is included. This is in fact the same as the charger used with the MS12 Mini.
This wall wart outputs 19V up to 2A.
I am not able to log charge cycles for this type of connector, but a couple of tests indicate it charges fully in around 2 hours to 2h 15m. Quick!
When charging, a LED beside the charge port is red. When charging is complete this LED turns green.
Modes and Currents
The manual is a bit weird in listing the modes for this light. It seems that the output claims are made mainly for when BOTH emitters are on. That’s fine, but probably mischaracterizes how most users will use the light. I won’t make claims that Imalent doesn’t, but just know that each output option (flood vs throw) can be used throughout the range of outputs. For example, each of 3 options has 6 modes each. You’ll see that more clearly below, I think.
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens | Tailcap Amps @16.8V |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turbo | 50,000 + 10,000 | 50s +45m | Initial: 30s: |
>18 |
| High | 30,000 + 10,000 | 3m + 45m | Initial: 30s: |
17.3 |
| Middle II | 18,000 + 10,000 | 20m + 25m | Initial: 30s: |
9.00 |
| Middle I | 10,000 | 52m | Initial: 30s: |
4.72 |
| Middle Low | 6,500 | 1h30m | Initial: 30s: |
2.92 |
| Low | 2,500 | 4h | Initial: 30s: |
1.25 |
| Spot | 4,500 | 2h30m | Initial: 30s: |
6.32 |
| Flood | 44,500 | 1h | Initial: 30s: |
>18 |
Pulse Width Modulation
All the modes are the same (thus it doesn’t really matter what the order is from top to bottom). Left to right is lowest to highest. What you see isn’t really PWM, it’s a not-to-baseline sawtooth that you’ll never notice during use.
For reference, here’s a baseline shot, with all the room lights off and almost nothing hitting the sensor. Also, here’s the light with the worst PWM I could find. I’m adding multiple timescales, so it’ll be easier to compare to the test light. Unfortunately, the PWM on this light is so bad that it doesn’t even work with my normal scale, with is 50 microseconds (50us). 10ms. 5ms. 2ms. 1ms. 0.5ms. 0.2ms. In a display faster than 0.2ms or so, the on/off cycle is more than one screen, so it’d just (very incorrectly) look like a flat line. I wrote more about this Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight and explained a little about PWM too.
User Interface and Operation
There’s one switch on the Imalent MR90 flashlight. It’s an e-switch and is very much like many other similar Imalent flashlights. It’s an e-switch on the head. The switch is “textured” and has a nice positive clicky action.
Here’s a UI table!
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | On (Mode Memory (excluding Turbo/Strobe) |
| On | Click | Off |
| On | Hold | Mode cycle (low to high order) |
| Any | Double Click | Turbo |
| Turbo | Double Click | Strobe |
| Off | Hold 3s | Manually turn on (or off) the cooling fans |
| Off | Click 4x | Iterate Lock (indicated by switch indicator light blinking a few times) |
| On | Triple Click | Output selection advance: Both > Spot > Flood |
Unfortunately, we lose the “Triple click to Low from Off” option on the Imalent MR90 flashlight. That’s disappointing – it’s all Mode Memory now.
LED and Beam
There are two output options on the Imalent MR90 flashlight. There’s a single throw emitter – a Luminus SBT90.2. And the flood option is eight (8) Cree XHP70.2 emitters.
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
The CCT is just sort of “cool” and only gets “very cool” on the highest outputs of the throw emitter. CRI is low to lowish, too.
Beamshots
These beamshots are always with the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.
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
- Massive output
- Very good throw
- Wide range of throw and flood options
- Mostly good user interface
- Very quick charging
What I don’t like
- Can’t start in Low directly
- Light gets so hot that it’s probably a danger to users who are not careful
- Charging is via barrel plug and not USB-C (would really like to see a move to USB-C!)
Notes
- This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!
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thanx for detailed review
btw, your pics are way better then some time ago. well done.