Olight Arkflex Adjustable Flashlight Review
Olight just released the Arkfled, an adjustable right-angle flashlight in the vein of Arkfeld, but with white emitters and built-in charging. Mine is orange!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a referral link to the Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight product page.
Versions
Right now, it looks like there are just two versions. One is this orange, and the other is standard black. They look to have the same emitters.
Price
As usual, Olight is offering the Arkfeld at an introductory price of $55.99. For a dollar more, you can add the little Olight i3E – for a dollar that’s an obvious bonus.
Short Review
The Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight is an interesting entry into the “Ark-x” series of lights by Olight. I for one appreciate that it doesn’t have UV, though I was generally indifferent about the laser offered on the various Arkfelds (meaning it’s great but I never need that.) The right-angle bonus here is neat, works well, and seems robust but again, I’m not sure when I’ll need that. If you use the light mounted on some surface often, though, this will be a functional upgrade. Modes and output and all that are fine – it’ll be very familiar if you’ve used other lights like the Batons.
Long Review
The Big Table
| Olight Arkflex Adjustable Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | “High Performance LED” (Cool white) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $56.99 |
| Cell: | Internal |
| Runtime Graphs | |
| LVP? | Yes |
| Switch Type: | E-Switch |
| Quiescent Current (mA): | ? |
| On-Board Charging? | Yes |
| Charge Port Type: | Proprietary magnetic |
| Charge Graph | |
| Power off Charge Port | Yes, all modes |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 1000 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 886 (88.6% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 2.1 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 85 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 106lux @ 4.803m = 2445cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 98.9 (116.4% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | 6500 |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 6300-6700 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 Arkflex adjustable flashlight
- Charging base
- Manual etc
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
Build quality of the Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight is quite good, as expected.
The body is quite interesting and also well-planned – access (or I should say “installation,” since the light is not really user-serviceable) to the LiPO is normally covered by the hinged head. So when the head is “closed” (or as seen above), there are minimal seams on the body. (Though to be clear, there’s an identical seam on the bottom.)
The head tilts down what seems to be a full 90 degrees.
Size and Comps
Weight 3.56 oz (101 g) (Including Battery)
Length 4.25 in (108 mm)
Width 1.18 in (30 mm)
If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo). If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll also show that (usually in the fourth photo).
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!
Also above is the light beside a TorchLAB BOSS 35, an 18350 light. I reviewed the aluminum version of that light in both 35 and 70 formats. I also reviewed that specific edition, the “Oveready BOSS FT Collector Vintage Brass” 35. I love it!
Below is the Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight beside one of the original Arkfelds (not Pro!). The size is very similar.
Retention and Carry
The Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight has the updated pocket clip of the Arkfeld pro, which is so much better than the first edition Arkfeld clip. This clip allows great deep carry, as well as having a two-way option. I don’t care at all about the two-way, but I love the deeper carry.
Not only that, but this clip also offers a hole suitable for a lanyard! Two advancements in one clip!
The only other way to retain the Arkflex is with the magnetic base. While mostly for charging, the magnet is strong enough to hold the light in place, too.
Power and Runtime
Olight states that the LiPO inside the Arkflex is a 1050mAh capacity. It’s not user-serviceable. Below are a few runtime tests on the Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight.
Low voltage protection seems to be observed, though I have no real way to check the ending voltage. The light does shut off.
Charging
Of course, since the Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight has a built-in battery, there’s built-in charging by way of a magnetic charge base and a magnetic charge connector in the tail (both parts are magnetic!). The charging base is the common Olight MCC.
Charging looks pretty good. The max rate is around 0.9A. I would guess the LiPO could handle way more, so I’d love to see this utilize the full capability of a MCC charger.
Notably, this Pro version does not have the “intermittent” or drop-out charging that some of the previous versions had. It also charges more quickly and has a “firmer” cutoff point, too. All of those are very good improvements.
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turbo | 1000-400 | 4m-90m | 886 |
| High | 400-60 | 90m+10m | 370 |
| Med | 100 | 6h50m | 99 |
| Low | 15 | 38h | 15 |
| Moon | 1.5 | 10d | 1.9 |
Pulse Width Modulation
Nothing really to mention here. None of the modes seem to be using PWM.
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 Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight has just one switch. It’s on the side of the body and on the head end. The switch has four nubs but is still remarkably sleek against the body (meaning it’s not always so easy to find without looking.)
The action is very low.
I’ll add that the switch cover is hard plastic and aside from being sort of hard to find without looking, is very nice.
Here’s a user interface table! You’ll know this user interface for years. The S1R Baton II (and other Batons, obviously) use the nearly same UI. Essentially I think just the timers are gone. Otherwise, it’s the same (?).
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | On (mode memory)^ |
| On | Hold (release at desired mode) | Mode cycle (Moon, L, M, H) (no Turbo) |
| Off | Hold | Moonlight |
| Any | Double click | Turbo |
| Any | Triple click | Strobe |
| Strobe | Click | Off |
| Strobe | Hold | Previous Mode or Mode memory if the light was off initially |
| Off | Long hold (past Moonlight) | Lockout |
| Lockout | Hold | Unlock to Moonlight |
^ Moon, Low, Medium, and High are memorized. Turbo is memorized as High.
LED and Beam
Olight doesn’t state what emitter is used in the Arkflex adjustable flashlight. It’s cool white (they do say that) and there are two of them (we can observe that.) Also, each has a little cup optic.
The duplex of emitters blends such that you don’t end up with any weird beam shapes or artifacts.
Below you can see the battery indicator. That can be green or red and indicates just like you’d think it would.
4 green: >75% battery
3 green: 50-75% battery
2 green: 25-50% battery
1 green: 10-25% battery
1 red: <10% battery
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
The Olight Arkflex adjustable flashlight is cool to very cool with middle-low CRI. Duv is fairly acceptable though, starting negative and drifting positive throughout the output range. That’s not a terrible feature. What this means is that while the light is cool white (as claimed) it’s not green (which is a win.)
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
- Great build quality
- Orange body
- Familiar user interface
- Very good pocket clip
- Fairly low cost
- No UV
- No Laser?
What I don’t like
- Minor point but I don’t love the rounded sides – I like the more rectangular of the Arkfeld (again, super minor point).
- Battery is not user-serviceable, and possibly not even replaceable.
- Switch isn’t proud enough for me
- Surprisingly I wish the timer output was still included (despite not having ever used that once outside of testing.)
- No Laser? (As seamlessly as they incorporated it into the Arkfeld Pro, It would be good in this light too?)
Notes
- This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!
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