I’m a prepper wannabe, but I’m not in the prepper or survival industry, not even close. I’m neither an outdoorsman nor a bushcrafter nor a hunter. I don’t even carry a manbag, let alone a bug-out bag, except when taking my stuff from my car in the garage to my office one floor up on an elevator ride.
But I’m pretty psyched to be the proud owner of the S10R Baton III, the third generation of the extremely popular flagship S10R rechargeable EDC flashlight series from Olight. I’m mighty proud that, if I were on my way to becoming a legitimate survivor in a world that’s fast becoming fraught with more and more danger, the first item in my survival kit is a flashlight of this kind, the first ever to feature the highly energy-efficient Luminus SST-40 LED that delivers a maximum output of 600 lumens.
To put it in context, anything with more than 100 lumens is sufficient enough for practically all the typical conditions you need a flashlight for, but if you were caught in a struggle and you had no weapon other than this light to defend you, imagine what 600 lumens could do if you were to flash it right into your opponent’s eyes! That should give you enough time to beat it, if fighting on would put you at a great risk, or to poke the entire flashlight, its heat-hardened aluminum body, its stainless steel pocket clip, even its magnetic tail cap, right through the eye of the enemy and hurt him just enough to immobilize him.
I’m being overdramatic, but the light is the point here. Lumen, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a measure of luminous flux,” which indicates how much light is perceived by the human eye. A maximum of 600 lumens is no biggie, if we were talking about a bigger flashlight, but in such a very, very small package, measuring only 2.7 inches and weighing only 2.05 ounces, battery included, 600 lumens is magic, well, almost. To me, at least, that’s like sunshine in my pocket to see me even through the darkest of nights.
I have to warn you that the 600 lumen turbo mode only stays on for 1.5 minutes before the Baton’s thermal management program cuts it down to 50 percent of the initial brightness, or else you would burn your hand and the flashlight would overheat. You don’t need that much light anyway under most circumstances, but the gadget needs no more than a minute to cool down before you can click it back on turbo mode again.
Moving from one mode to another is just a matter of clicks on the low profile tactile black silicone gel side switch. One click to turn it on and you are on the last used mode, unless last used was turbo mode, and you have kept the gadget off for 10 minutes, in which case it goes to high mode or 120 lumens. To go straight to 600 lumens from off mode, such as when in the middle of the self defense scenario I cited earlier, just click twice. Click three times to go to strobe. When the light is on and you wish to go from low to high, no need to click, just hold the mode button. There’s also moonlight mode or .05 lumen, at which you can keep the flashlight on for 15 days —15 days! —without having to recharge the battery.
The battery life is at the very least reliable, if not incredible. On high, the light lasts 160 minutes. On medium, at 12 lumens, it should last 33 hours. On moonlight, at 0.5 lumen, like I said, you have light for 15 days. For your enlightenment, .05 lumen is enough light to read in, if you bring the light close to the page. To dark-adapted eyes, it is even enough light to walk around in. Which is to say, if the world succumbed to eternal darkness right now, and all power is gone by which to recharge my battery, I have 15 dark days with my S10R Baton III, provided it is fully charged at the time of disaster, to gather as many lighters and matches as I can to make sure I have a way to burn things to light my way.
Just as it is slim and small, the S10R Baton III, thanks to its very pronounced knurling, feels right in my grip, even if I were to use only two or three fingers to keep it handy and secure. Plus, of course it has a stainless steel pocket clip and a magnetic tail cap for easy handling, the latter sticks at practically any angle to any steel surface, as long as the surface is reasonably flat, so I can light up the dark and look, ma, no hands!
You can say my new every day carry gadget does light up my life, and it came with a charging dock, the battery, a micro USB cable, and everything I need to learn how to keep this third generation baby from Olight as useful to me as the sun or the moon or the faint glow of a star in an otherwise very, very dark sky.
Olight S10R Baton III is available for P3,100 at Forged at MotoMarket Libis and SM Mall of Asia,
MotoMarket, and select Motoworld stores. 02 437 3429