Infinity X1 5000 lumen flashlight (the one you’re looking at Costco)
I suspect you’re standing at Costco wondering if the Infinity X1 5000 lumen flashlight is worth it and there’s one answer for that and that’s “it depends.”
Starting with the Infinity X1 5000 Lumen negatives
I’m going to start with the one negatively reviewed feature of this I’ve seen and can confirm, and that’s that the beam is either wide, or wider. You can’t narrow it down for a decent long distance spotlight / setting a piece of paper on fire at 200 paces. With how absurdly bright this is it would be nice to get a real tight narrow beam out of it to spotlight beyond the back yard.
You also can’t see the charge level of the rechargeable core. It’s either charged or evidently it dies at some point after expending the 5000mAh beast. I am on my second X1 (I had a prototype that was discontinued before launch evidently, and then the release version) and have yet to drain either of them. I will note I have not been on any late night search parties so the total use time has been a couple of hours at intense on the rechargeable core and that is listed as something it can handle.
Front of the unit gets quite warm.
Using the 9xAA battery core results in a much weaker beam than the lithium ion battery.
On to the mostly positives
It’s absurdly bright over a fairly wide area. Great for lighting everything for about 100 feet (what I tested, they claim 180m but I’ve been stuck in my neighborhood during testing and spotlighting the neighbor’s house will bring lead down on me,) brightened up to a level you can tell what you’re looking at in the dead of night. Having two cores means you can operate on the rechargeable core and if you drain it switch to the batteries. Downside is dragging two cores around (depends on how much space you have in the vehicle.)
The rechargeable unit is a 5000mAh and that lasts … here’s the direct quote from the mfg on their Amazon page: Infinity X1’s 5000 Lumen Rechargeable Dual Power Flashlight is powered by either the included rechargeable battery pack or dry cell batteries. This powerful flashlight packs up to 6.5 hours of uninterrupted light with each charge. The rechargeable battery pack lets you charge your other devices right from its USB port.
That 6.5 hour claim is on the medium brightness on the 9xAA…
Going off of a photo of the packaging it appears that when you use standard batteries the brightness is significantly dimmed. You will note that the runtimes listed on the back of the package go up to 14 hour for rechargeable. The instruction manual included also states it’s IPX4 but they claim water proof on Amazon. You can get this wet and it’s fine but I would not confuse it with something you can submerge.
One of the neat things added since the prototype version I got is the heat safety lock (patent # 10,616,976) which basically shuts the light off if you place it face down or put your hand over the beam area for a second. A warning in the manual mentions do not do this. I did not catch the warning to not do this and have been doing it as a part of testing the entire time. I do not notice anything particularly different between the prototype and this in terms of brightness.
The light is solid, and probably would make a good substitute baseball bat or defensive weapon.
You can also charge your phone from the 5000mAh battery, or charge the battery while it’s in the light housing (or out) via USB-C. I am assuming this is operating on standard PD but I don’t see anything listed in the manual.
Wrap up
I am left wishing you could focus this in a little narrower and that the alkaline battery performance was better because it is dim in comparison to the rechargeable battery. You are going to use this and be impressed with the rechargeable battery and you are probably not going to be with the 9 AA core. It’s a big difference with the 9xAA core topping out at 1200 lumens vs 5000.
Great rechargeable flashlight, average to mid battery unit.
You can grab ’em at Costco for under $40 (or go into a warehouse they’re $29.99 here,) or on Amazon (for a little over $40).
