The biggest difference in design with the new Preon is the grooves on the body. I thought they ruined the sleek look of the classic, but they have grown on me quite a bit. They are surprisingly not that noticeable to the touch. They help provide some extra grip and look cool too. I like the simpleness of the Preons most of all. There's nothing fancy to them. They just work. The inclusion of the tailcap is awesome! I much prefer a clicky light over a twisty any day. The clip is also redesigned, but I'll get to that a little later. I've carried mine daily over the past few months, and I've had no issues. FourSevens made a great, high-quality product. It's a one AAA light, which is the best battery type for EDC in my opinion. You're getting a slim light that is lightweight and has good performance for basic EDC stuff. Oh and the blue is awesome! I'm happy that FourSevens decided to offer it in the blue in addition to the boring black.
Now onto what really matters, output. The max output on this thing is 100 lumens, while the low is 5 lumens. The medium mode is 20 lumens. Those are solid numbers for a AAA light. It would have been nicer to have a little more lumens on the high end, but honestly, 100 lumens is more than bright enough for me. I typically use the low and medium modes for everything. The beam is a nice tint and is more of a hotspot than flood. I don't have any complaints when it comes to the beam. Also, real quick on runtime, max runtime is an hour, while the minimum runtime is 20 hours. The medium mode can go for 3 hours. Runtime numbers don't mean much to me since I only use my lights for a few seconds at a time. That makes it seem like the battery lasts forever. I will say, I run an Eneloop rechargeable battery in mine, and I don't believe I've had to charge it once since I've been carrying it these past few months. The runtime has been great for my EDC usage.
The UI is simple to use once you get the different configuration levels setup. If you haven't tried any FourSevens' lights recently, they've started doing a variety of configuration levels. This helps cut down on modes you don't need. There's five different configurations you can choose from. To change them, you have to repeatedly turn on and off the light (8 times I believe within a few seconds) until you see it flash a certain number of times. The number of flashes corresponds to what configuration you're on. The default configuration is High/Low. I like to have a Low/Medium/High, so I had to change it to that configuration which also has the strobe. These are all the various configuration levels: #1 High, #2 High/Low (default configuration), #3 High/Strobe, #4 Low/Medium/High/Strobe (this is the one I use), and #5 Low/Medium/High/Strobe/Beacon high/Beacon low. I do like that it can minimize the number of modes you have to cycle through. I find all the strobes/beacons worthless, so it's nice you have the option to mostly get rid of them. It's not that hard to change the configuration with the clicky, but with a twisty it's a nightmare. That's one of the reasons I hated the Mini Mark II. Luckily, you only have to deal with switching the configuration once if you aren't happy with the default. You can accidentally trigger the configuration changes if you're cycling through all the modes quickly and don't realize you got to those flashes. I've accidentally changed the configuration that way, so I've had to be more careful with being slower. Once you do get the UI all situated, it's great. I do like that you have to individually click to go through each mode. You can also momentarily press down the tailcap if you only need the light on for a second. There's mode memory too, which works exactly as it should. You can only use the tailcap to turn the light on and off. I know some lights with a tailcap and twisty allow you to turn it on both ways, but this one does not. The tailcap does take a decent bit of pressure to fully press. I don't believe I've had any issues with it accidentally turning on like with the older Preons. If you bump it with your hand, it might momentarily turn on, but I feel like it'd take more force to turn it fully on. It's always possible with clickys though, so you just have to careful. I carry mine in my little EDC pouch, so it's not something I've had to worry about.
The clip is greatly improved over the classic Preon's clip. It's a little bigger in profile and looks way nicer. It's easy to carry and stays in the pocket well. I know lots of people had problems with the classic Preon sliding out of their pockets due the sleekness of the body and a crappier clip. The grooves on the body also help to prevent it from sliding out of the pocket, so I guess they do have more than a cosmetic purpose.
I think I can finally say this is my favorite EDC flashlight. The design is awesome, the price was phenomenal, it has a clicky, it's high quality, and it has a great output. It does everything I need it to do without any problems. You can't really find them readily available anymore, which is such a shame. I don't think I would have paid the $40 price tag originally, considering there are brighter lights out there at that price. Heck the Thrunite T01 is brighter (125 lumens) and is only $10. I think any where less than $25ish is more of a fair price to me. I do highly recommend them if you can get your hands on one. Like I said, it's a perfect light for me. It has been serving me quite well in my EDC. I always had such a hard time finding my perfect EDC light, so I'm glad I found these Preons. Thanks for looking!
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