Nitecore EDC09 Swivel Head Flashlight Review

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight features Nitecore’s MCT (Multiple Color Temperatures) emitter and USB-C charging. Read on for testing!

Official Specs and Features

Here’s a referral link to the Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight product page.

Versions

There is only one version of the Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight.

Price

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight retails for $69.95 and is available now at NitecoreStore.com!

What’s Included

Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight
Charging cable
Lanyard
Lantern top
Manual, etc.

Package and Manual

A yellow box for the Nitecore EDC09 flashlight is shown on a wooden surface. The box highlights features such as 102° rotating head, 1600 lumens, 153 meters range, and three color temperatures.

Back of a yellow Nitecore EDC09 flashlight box showing product features, labeled diagram of the flashlight, QR codes, barcodes, and company information, placed on a wooden surface.

Build Quality and Disassembly

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight is a sealed unit, of sorts. There are screws (TORX) that you could possibly disassemble the light. But it’s not convenient, and you certainly would not do this in the field.

But the build quality is great, as is usually the case with Nitecore.

A black Nitecore device with a rectangular shape stands upright on a wooden surface. The front features a battery indicator and textured grip patterns. The background is softly blurred.

A black rectangular flashlight labeled EDC09 VHE LE Pro stands upright on a wooden surface, with a metal pocket clip and several screws visible on the body.

A black, rectangular flashlight with a metal clip is standing upright on a wooden surface. The flashlight has a button, a textured slider, and a visible charging port cover. A ZeroAir watermark is in the lower left corner.

Of special note is the swivel head! There aren’t many lights like this around, and it’s neat. It’s neat in particular because when not swiveled, the “regular flashlight” aspect doesn’t suffer.

The head pushes down just past 90°.

The hinge seems very robust.

Size and Comps

Dimensions L-4.25″ x W-1.34″ x H-0.94″
Weight 4.02 oz

Here’s the light in hand:

Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+. The version below is a custom laser-engraved Convoy S2+ host by GadgetConnections.com. I did a full post on an engraved orange host right here! Or go straight to GadgetConnections.com to buy your Convoy S2+ now!

Three flashlights are standing upright on a wooden surface. The left flashlight has a bronze honeycomb design, the middle one is black and rectangular labeled NITECORE, and the right one is black with white branding and a clip.

Three flashlights are placed upright on a wooden surface, showing their LED arrays. The flashlight in the center has rectangular dual LEDs, while the ones on the left and right have circular LED configurations.

Also in the photo above, my Standard Reference Material (SRM) flashlight is the Hanko Machine Works Trident, an 18350 light. While I have not reviewed or tested the Gunner Grip version seen here, I have tested a Hanko Machine Works Trident Total Tesseract in brass. I love the Trident, and it’s a striking contrast to the inexpensive Convoy S2+, another great SRM.

Retention and Carry

A pocket clip is included and attached from the factory. It’s a two-way clip and very beefy. It can only attach in exactly the place shown below.

A lanyard is included, too. It attaches through the pocket clip. There are two places you could attach it, but in the shoulder (seen below) is the best option.

The manual dedicates a ridiculous amount of real estate to demonstrating how to attach the lanyard through this hole in the pocket clip.

Power and Runtime

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight features a built-in 1100mAh LiPO battery. The battery is not field-swappable, but the light has multiple TORX screws, so you could potentially change it at the end of this battery’s life, if you’re able to solder (or more ideally, it’s connected via JST).

Below are runtime tests on various modes – all the highest levels, and a couple of lower levels.

The light does eventually shut off, but I was unable to check the voltage level. There’s a battery warning on the front of the light, too. It displays four green indicators when the battery is full, and decreases from there. When the light had shut off in the tests above, it was either one green blinking LED or no indicators at all.

The temperature lines in these charts are included as general context, not precise measurements. The values represent the range (min to max) during testing, but should not be taken as exact readings. A temperature sensor is not always attached to the bezel (or even the hottest spot, assuming that could be defined). Even with ideal placement, too many variables affect temperature to definitively state a specific max value.

Charging

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight features USB-C charging. There’s a charge port on the side of the tail end of the light. I really like this placement! The cover is also great, too. It’s not that mushy silicone, and has a bit of firmness. This also makes it easier to get out of the spot, too.

Nitecore includes a USB to USB-C charging cable.

Charging via USB or USB-C both work great and are extraordinarily consistent.

Modes and Currents

Mode	Mode Claimed Output (lm)	Claimed Runtime	Measured Lumens
High – Cool white	1600	2h15m	1488 (0s) 1072 (30s)
Medium – Cool white	200	2h45m	190 (0s) 189 (30s)
Low – Cool white	50	13h	48
Ultralow – Cool white	1	250h	084
High – Neutral white	1450	2h15m	1387 (0s) 951 (30s)
Medium – Neutral white	180	2h45m	161
Low – Neutral white	40	13h	39
Ultralow – Neutral white	1	250h	0.68
High – Warm white	1050	2h15m	1013 (0s) 728 (30s)
Medium – Warm white	150	2h45m	125 (0s) 124 (30s)
Low – Warm white	32	13h	31
Ultralow – Warm white	1	250h	0.55

Pulse Width Modulation

None of the modes exhibits PWM. I did miss Ultralow in all 3 of these tests; I’ll try to go back and add that (since it is the most likely mode to use PWM!)

Click here to 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

There are two ways to interact with the Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight. First is the slider switch, which has three positions. This isn’t a new type of switch from Nitecore, as their EDC17 has it, too.

The position seen above is “off”. Below, the position is “High.” The little “M” button above the slider does a few things.

Below, among other things like the e-switch profile) you can see the four green battery indicators (full battery, in this case.)

Here’s a user interface table!

State	Action	Result
Off	Press e-switch	Battery indicator
Off	Hold the e-switch, slide the slider forward	Ultralow of memorized CCT
Off	Slide the slider forward	Low of memorized CCT
Low	Slide the slider forward	Medium of memorized CCT
Medium	Slide the slider forward	High of memorized CCT
High	Slide the slider backward	Medium of memorized CCT
Medium	Slide the slider backward	Low of memorized CCT
Low	Slide the slider backward	Off
On	Click e-switch	CCT advance (Cool > Neutral > Warm)
On	Hold e-switch	Warning flash mode (steady) of current CCT
Warning flash mode	Click e-switch	Exit warning flash mode to selected mode

LED and Beam

The Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight uses two of Nitecore’s own quad-core MCT UHE LEDs. There’s a TIR for each emitter, and they can not be operated independently.

Nitecore includes this soft little lantern cover as well.

LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)

Below you can see CCT and CRI reports for three modes of each CCT (excluding Ultralow, sorry). Cool and Neutral don’t really hold any surprises, but the warm white is pleasantly warm (around the claimed 3000K), and it is extremely high CRI, with a very high r9!! Nitecore does cover this in the product page, but it still seems to me to be an overlooked aspect. This light should be promoted for having such a remarkably high CRI!! Check out the bottom row below, and note how closely the red circle (the test LED) matches the black circle (“perfect”). It’s so good!!

Color rendition report for a quad-core LED light showing color plots, spectral power distribution graph, bar graphs, circular color shift diagram, and measured values with specifications including CCT 5817K and TM-30-18 scores.

A detailed IES TM-30-18 color rendition report shows spectral data, color vector graphs, bar charts, and measurement results for a Nitecore EDC05 LED light source, with a CCT of 5886K and color rendering indices.

IES TM-30-18 Color Rendition Report for Nitecore EDC05, showing spectral power distribution, color vector graphic, color rendition bar chart, hue-angle bin graph, and data tables with numerical values and measurements.

Color rendition report showing a spectral power distribution graph, chromaticity diagram, color vector graphic, local color fidelity bars, color fidelity indices, and technical details for Nitecore EDC05 LED light at 4333 K CCT.

Color rendition report showing spectral power distribution, color vector graphic, color fidelity index (Rf) of 83, color gamut index (Rg) of 100, correlated color temperature of 4365K, and various color sample bar graphs.

Color rendition report for Nitecore EC60S quad-core MCT UHE LEDs, showing spectral power distribution, color vector graphic, color distortion/shift, local color fidelity, and color fidelity index values.

Color rendition report for a Nitecore EDC05 quad-core MCT UHE LED, displaying spectral power distribution, fidelity and gamut indices, chromaticity diagram, TM-30 color vector graphic, color samples, and technical data.

Color rendition report showing spectral power distribution, a color vector graphic, bar chart of color values, circled CCT value of 3173 K, and various color and numerical data for a Nitecore EDC05 LED light.

CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) refers to the measurement of the color appearance of light, expressed in Kelvins (K), which indicates whether the light is warm (yellowish) or cool (bluish). A lower CCT (below 3000K) is considered warm light, while a higher CCT (above 5000K) gives cooler, bluish light.

CRI (Color Rendering Index) is a measure of how accurately a light source renders colors in comparison to natural sunlight. Scored on a scale from 0 to 100, higher CRI values indicate that colors appear more true to life and vibrant, similar to how they would look under the sun.

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. Again, I left off Ultralow, but it wouldn’t show up in these photos anyway.

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. These photos are taken around 18 inches from the door.

I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Summary and Conclusion

I want to say it up front: the 3000K output is very high CRI and within the claimed CCT range. That is very good. Great job, Nitecore! I like the slider switch, but I could stand having another mode (5 instead of 4). To keep up with this whole class of flat lights, I’d love to see a laser in this light, as well. But at $67, and with all these CCT choices built in, it’s a very solid offering!

The Big Table

Nitecore EDC09 swivel head flashlight
Emitter:	Nitelab MCT UHE LEDs (2)
Price in USD at publication time:	$69.95
Cell:	Internal
Runtime Graphs
LVP?	Probably
Switch Type:	E-switch
Quiescent Current (mA):	?
On-Board Charging?	Yes
Charge Port Type:	USB-C
Charge Graph
Power off Charge Port
Claimed Lumens (lm)	1600
Measured Lumens (at 30s)	1072 (67% of claim)^
Candela per Lumen	4.9
Claimed Throw (m)	153
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s)	214lux @ 4.751m = 4830cd
Throw (Calculated) (m)	139.0 (90.8% of claim)^
Claimed CCT	3000-6500
Measured CCT Range (K)	3000-5800 Kelvin
Item provided for review by:	Nitecore
All my Nitecore 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 I like

3000K is very high CRI!
3000K is even an option, such a nice option!
Great build quality
Reasonable cost
Swivel head is useful and does not seem to come at a cost (of the rest of the light being garbage)

What I don’t like

Battery can’t be replaced
Just 4 modes (and some gymnastics to get from ultralow back to the main group)

Notes

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