Nitecore Tube Thoughts

The Nitecore Tube is one of the coolest lights I've tried in a while. I didn't think I'd be impressed with it, but it's awesome for the money. I highly recommend you pick one up.

The quality of this light is great. I've had issues with mine whatsoever.

The design of this light is very simple. It has a plastic body with a clicky button. I do wonder about the long term durability, considering it's made of plastic and has an exposed LED. I haven't had any issues, but it's something to consider. It's got a keychain attachment at the end. I think this light would be perfect for keychain carry, because it's so light and small. It's comparable in size to the Victorinox Classic. The clicky works flawlessly. It comes in tons of cool colors too. I like that it's a translucent plastic, so that you can see the insides. It's pretty cool to see all the parts. Nitecore also offers this light in a ton of different beam varieties, like UV, red, or green light for example.

This is a rechargeable light, which is really awesome. I believe this was my first rechargeable light, and since then, my goal is to turn my whole flashlight collection rechargeable in some form or another. It charges via a USB cable. That's pretty handy in this day and age where everyone has access to a USB port at most times. It charges pretty quickly and has an LED indicator on the bottom of the light that will turn off when the light is done charging. The charging process is very painless and works well. It's so nice to not have to ever buy batteries for this light.

The light itself has two modes, a high and low. The low mode puts out 1 lumen for 48 hours, while the high mode puts out 45 lumens for an hour. That's not the brightest output on the market, but it's perfectly fine for EDC tasks. The beam is a pretty nice tint. It kind of looks slightly purple to me, but that's not the end of the world. Compared to most keychain lights that don't use AAA batteries, that's a very bright output. Something like the Streamlight Nano or Speck Spotlight will only put out about 10 to 15 lumens. Anyways, the Tube can also do momentary on and is infinitely variable. Those are both features I absolutely love in a light. The momentary on works by holding down the button and then releasing when you're done with the light. To do infinitely variable, you press the button once and hold until it puts out your desired brightness. It will keep cycling through all the levels of brightness over and over until you release the button. I dig all the features this light has. None of the UI is complicated, which is something I like to see.

For about $10, this is a killer light. It has so many cool features, and it's even rechargeable. What more could you need in a light? Sure it's not the brightest thing in the world, but for a simple keychain light, it's great. I highly recommend it. If this isn't bright enough for you, Nitecore released a bigger and brighter version that's made of metal called the Tip. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on my list to get soon. I'm sure it's great going off of how awesome this light is. I can't say enough good things about this light. Go pick one up. Thanks for looking!