FourSevens Classic Preon P1 Thoughts

The Preon P1 may not have the brightest output for an AAA light, but its design is one of my favorites of all time. I've tried to find better EDC lights than the Preon, but I always come back to the Preon every single time. There's a huge obsession with getting the brightest light possible in the smallest size possible. You've got the realize that a light like that may not be the best suited for your needs. Sometimes you need to sacrifice brightness and runtimes for a killer design that you absolutely love. The Preon P1 is the light that is the closest the my perfect EDC light so far. It's a light that I highly recommend.

Quality wise, my Preon P1 is perfect. I have no issues with the build quality. The threads on mine are extremely smooth.

I love the design of the classic Preons. It's a shame FourSevens recently introduced new Preons with a slightly different design. The classic Preons are so sleek and classy looking. I didn't think I'd like that there was no machining on this light, but I actually love how smooth it is. It's such a simple design that just works. All the different color options are awesome. The blue really pops out. The AAA size is perfect for EDC.

Despite having no grip on this light, it's extremely easy to operate. It's a simple twisty light. Typically, I prefer clickys over twistys, but there's just something about this light that I love. It's easy to operate one or two-handed. There's no fancy features like mode memory or anything. It's not necessary to me, so I'm glad it doesn't have features that will just complicate such a simple UI.

I honestly don't know the specific outputs. You can look those up if you want. I believe the max output is around 80 to 90 lumens. It's definitely less than a 100 lumens. This is not the brightest AAA light on the market by any means, but I've found that it's a perfectly adequate amount of lights for all your basic tasks. You don't necessarily need a crazy bright light for your standard EDC tasks. It's got your basic low, medium and high modes, along with your special modes like strobe, beacons, and SOS. I've never felt limited when using this light. It's provided all the light I've ever needed. The beam is a nice tint too.

A lot of people hate the clip, but I haven't had any issues with mine. Granted I don't carry this in the pocket ever. It seems pretty sturdy. I've heard a lot of issues with people losing the lights since it's so slick or because the clip snapped off.

The only real negative I have about this light is that FourSevens pretty much discontinued them. You can still manage to get one by buying the parts from FourSevens website directly. You might not be able to get the exact color option you want, but it's better than nothing. I wanted a classic P2, which is the 2 AAA version, and buying the parts separately for that worked out very nicely. You'll probably pay around $30 to $35 by buying the parts individually. That's about what you'll pay for flashlights on the market anyways. I definitely think it's a good value, since this is such an awesome light. If you want one of these, you might wanna act fast, because there's no telling how long FourSevens will have the parts in stock.

All in all, this may be the closest I get to my perfect EDC light. The only knock I'd give it is that it's not the brightest light. Honestly though, I'll sacrifice the brightness for this design. I really like FourSevens as a brand, and I think they really knocked it out of the park with this light. I'm bummed they upgraded the Preons, but I guess they were due for an upgrade. If you can get your hands on one of these lights, I highly recommend it. It's one of my favorite flashlights I've ever tried. Thanks for looking!