Zebralight H52 Thoughts

I've always absolutely loved the look of Zebralights. They don't look like your typical flashlight to me. I've been eyeing one for quite some time now, so I'm glad I've gotten the chance to check out the H52 on loan from someone who watches my videos. It's a neat light and makes me want to check out more of these right angle flashlights in the future. They're just so versatile. The Olight H1R Nova is one I'm hoping to check out soon too. I love having a headlamp in my EDC and have been wanting to add a second one to my collection. I'd much rather go this route, since these types of lights double as flashlights and headlamps with the included headstraps. The H52 looks great design wise, but I've been annoyed with a few aspects of it. I'm not sure I'd entirely recommend it. As an EDC light, I've had better options.

Like I mentioned earlier, I love the design of this light. The grooves look cool and help give you some extra grip. I like that it's more of a gray color instead of the boring black most flashlights come in. It uses a AA/14500 battery. I normally prefer AAA lights for EDC, though the H52 is still more than compact enough to carry. You can also tailstand this light if you need to. I've had no quality problems with it either. I've heard Zebralight makes some great lights, and this one is no exception. It's been perfect when it comes to design and quality.

Getting onto output, this light has all the typical low, medium, and high modes, along with various strobes. Zebralight does the configurations levels, like Foursevens does on their newer lights, though Zebralight uses sub-levels as their terminology. The three main levels are high, medium, and low. Then you have the choice of different sub-levels for each main level that adjusts some of the lumens. While this is an interesting concept, I never find them to be executed well. You have to repeatedly click about 6 times to start the configuration. Anyways that's besides the point for now. I'll touch more on the UI in a bit.

For the output off a AA battery, the high puts out 300 lumens for 0.9 hours, the medium is 54 lumens for 7.5 hours, and the low is 2.9 lumens for 4 days. Like I said earlier, these can be further adjusted if you need to. I wouldn't want to change these numbers at all though. You've got a nice range of output with each mode being what you'd typically expect. The one I've been using must be on the second sub-level, because the low is essentially a moonlight mode. It's super dim and half the time I don't even realize it's on. It's almost too dim to be usable which is weird to say coming from someone that loves to see moonlight modes on my lights. I do like that the medium mode is around 50 lumens and that the true low is less than 5 lumens. That's what I prefer in my EDC lights personally. The 300 lumens is more than bright enough for EDC tasks. Since this is meant as a headlamp, the beam is one of the wider ones I've ever seen. It has a ton of flood and gets you a good amount of light in your field of vision. I believe it's the cool white tint which looks natural. If you use a 14500 battery, the brightest the H52 will get is 535 lumens which will ramp back down to 300 lumens after a minute. I've had no problems with runtime. Besides the too dim low mode and the weird sub-levels, the output is what you'd expect in a AA light like this. I believe these are older (at least a couple years old), so you can probably find something a little brighter nowadays with the always improving flashlight technology.

The button itself is great. I like that is has a rubberized texture to it. It's a firmer clicky with no ability to do half presses or momentary on. That's a huge bummer for me, as those are two things I love to have on my lights personally. The button does work as it should so that's all you can really ask for.

Zebralight has a lot of info about the UI on their website. There seems to be a lot of random click combinations you can do to check the battery life, change the configurations, etc. I'm just going to focus on the main elements of the UI I've truly used. On a quick side note, I hate how complicated UIs have become. I dislike the trend of all the 3+ clicks that are required to access certain modes or to change the configuration. FourSevens is guilty of the weird access to the configuration levels as well. I've never found it to be necessary personally.

Anyways, so one click gets you high, two gets you medium, and three gets you strobe. I hate how it comes on in high first, because most of the time, I don't need that much light. Again, as a headlamp flashlight, coming on in high first makes sense. The strobe mode has been a major annoyance to me, because at times, I've meant to turn off the light but must have triple clicked and the strobe comes on. There's a slight delay before the strobe starts, so you think the light is off and then you see strobe start. I've never been a fan of strobe modes on my EDC lights. I understand they can be helpful for rescue; however, for day-to-day stuff, it's unnecessary for me.

From the above, you can see that you only have access to three of the modes through clicks. If you only need a little bit of light, you need to press and hold to get access to the low. I hate that. I want access to low from the get go. When you do the press and hold, you can access all the modes (low/medium/high) by holding until you get to your desired mode. This is meant as a headlamp flashlight, so I guess the way the UI is done makes sense for that purpose. There's no mode memory either which is a huge bummer for me. I hate having to do press and hold for the low mode that I'd use the most often. I've definitely had my annoyances with my UI. It's not been my favorite clicky to use because of it.

Thanks to its compact size, it has carried well. It normally does come with a clip. It still carries fine clipless and I probably prefer it that way. I can't clip any lights in my nonexistent pockets anyways. The headstrap that it comes with is very comfortable too. I stupidly forgot to take a picture of the light in the strap before I sent it back.

These are a bit on the pricier side in my opinion, normally around $64ish on Zebralight's site. Since it's not a perfect light, I wouldn't want to pay that much for one. It is on sale for $49 at the time I'm writing this post. That seems like a much better deal.

I really wanted to love this light but the UI has been irritating to use. I don't like all the double/triple clicks and the press and hold. I'm much rather have a light where I can individually click for each mode or at least do half presses to change modes quickly. Mode memory would have been great to see as well. Compared to other flashlights I've tried, I ultimately wouldn't want this specific one in my collection. I do love the concept and hope I can find one with a better UI. I don't personally recommend it, though there are many others in this community that love their Zebralights. It's a great quality light, but there's too many weird quirks for me that I don't want to get used to. Thanks for looking!