Fenix P2D

Fenix P2D

The Fenix P2D is the first single celled light powered by CR123A batteries that I have had the pleasure of using. Because of this light I have developed a real affinity for this compact style of powerhouse. One cell lights are no longer required to be viewed as simply pocketlights, useful only for merely locating a keyhole in the dark or reading a menu in a dimly lit restaurant. These lights show real capabilities in a variety of venues.

Meat and Potatoes
This light carries with it a very civilized demeanor. It has the feel of a very quality light. I was impressed from the get go on how compact this light was providing such impressive power from so small a package. The construction felt very sturdy and did not really leave anything to be desired. Even the black anodizing was completely uniform in color from stem to stern. I actually have handled much pricier models that did not have this level of uniformity in their anodizing.

For output, this light puts out a very nicely balanced beam with few flaws. The unit I have tried doesn't even have much by way of the characteristic Cree dark ring that is the bane of white wall hunters around the globe. There is just a nice transition between spot and spill. All this with a smooth reflector. A lightly textured reflector would go that much further in advancing this beam to the point of pure beauty. I would say that this sample nearly rivals the beam brightness of my Pila GL2 with Cree emitter and is more than adapt at lighting up whatever you may run into on a daily basis.

The extra bonus of having a good selection of other brightness levels is such a bonus that it almost isn't required to mention. This light is a good purchase already. The general use mode (accessed by loosening the head of the light slightly) consists of 3 lower levels of light to fill in for the times that full blast is actually going to be a little too much. Sometimes when you are working close up or just navigating on a dark night, you don't need to have the power of the sun in your hand. These extra modes also allow you to stretch your runtime out to some fairly long periods for those times that you don't have an extra battery waiting for you.

Lastly, this light offers a SOS and a "Tactical" strobe setting that are tucked away where you will not run across them the majority of the time. The instances where these will actually come in handy are likely to be few and far between, but it is kind of nice to know that they are there in that event.

Constructive Criticism
One area that I would focus on for possible improvements on this light is the anodizing. It claims to be a hardy Type III anodizing that should then resist scratching and wear fairly well over time. In reality however I see quite a few of these that begin to develop a patina of wear on all the corners of the light before too many months of use go by.

The switch is something that I would like to mention as well. This light changes "sub-modes" (for lack of a better term) by a half click of the button. Enough to turn it off and back on in under half a second or so. I would like to see this switch get just a touch less sensitive. I have found a number of times where it accidentally finds it's way into another level without my intention, just because my thumb happens to be resting on the switch.

This light has one very annoying quality that begs for a makeover. When first switching the light on in low mode, it breifly flashes a full power blast before reigning it in to usable levels. This is particularly noticable when you are in a dark environment which is the very place you would be using the low mode in the first place. I would definitley like to see this addressed in the future.

Finally, another thing I would like to see is a slightly lower low for this light. The runtime is already superb, however since there is such a thorough range of levels, it would be nice to have this be really low enough to just get by when you need next to no light. I know the subsequent models with higher bin codes have merely swapped out the emmitter with more efficient versions so every time the turbo mode gets brighter (a good thing) the low mode does as well (less good).

Conclusions
Conclusively speaking, this light, while not the be-all, end-all in performance, is definitely a very usable piece with many good qualities. I have recommended this light to quite a number of people and several have taken me up on it and thanked me for it.


update: I have, since formulating this review, found out that Fenix has taken an approach of continual improvement in this series of lights and has introduced reverse polarity protection (preventing your light from frying itself if you mistakenly put the battery in backwards) and also reducing or removing the annoying bright flash of light when used in low mode. Kudos to you Fenix for taking the initiative to strive for a better light without making the general public wait for specific better models.