Olight Australia have sent us some torches to play with and I’ve been having a great time with them. (Apologies to my entire suburb for illuminating you over the last few weeks).

As a kid my parents always had a massive bright yellow dolphin torch on top of the fridge. Sitting there for emergencies, blackouts and leading the way to the bins down the spider infested path beside the house. Dolphin torches were in houses all over the country.

In fact you can still pick them up at Bunnings.

But in 2020 there is no need for a torch the size of Trevor Long’s head.

LED and battery technology moves fast and this means companies like Olight can produce amazingly small units with massive output.

When I’m not being a mumbling idiot on social media I work in events and live production and I always have a torch on my belt. It needs to be rugged, compact and bright. Most people lean towards LedLenser or even MagLite as the brand of choice but Olight is rapidly becoming the go to choice for production, security, law enforcement and hunters.

I’ve been using their S2R Baton II torch for around 12 months now and It’s been almost faultless.

It weighs less than 100g and pumps out up to 1,150 lumens. Which, to put into perspective, the current version of the dolphin torch is 200 lumens and a single car headlight on low beam is generally around 700 lumens.

I’ve dropped this torch numerous times, stepped on it and got it soaking wet. It doesn’t care, it just keeps shining bright.

It comes with a 3200mAh 3.6v rechargeable battery which can last for up to 100hours of use between charges but that’s if you’re on the lowest output setting.

It has 4 main output settings and ‘Moonlight’ mode.

Moonlight pushes out a teeny tiny 0.5 lumens and will run continually for 60 days, I’m not sure what use this has apart from being able to say the torch can run for 60 days.

The 4 modes are:

  • LOW – 15 Lumens for 100 hours
  • MEDIUM – 120 Lumens for 14 hours
  • HIGH – 400 Lumens for 4 hours
  • TURBO – 1,120 Lumens for 2 minutes

The 2 minute run time for Turbo may seem low but it’s bloody bright and gets quite warm quite quick. The torch automatically drops down to 400lumens after the 2 minutes.

I mostly use it on Medium which is sufficient for almost everything I use it for.

There is also a strobe function if COVID19 is making you miss nightclubs.

The unit comes with a little soft bag, USB charging cable (that clips on to the back of the torch with a magnet) 2 belt clips and a small lanyard.

The magnet in the back of the torch is great, perfect for hands free use when you’re checking your engine oil on a roadside, poking about in the back of a server rack, or in my case loading trucks in the middle of the night.

The light output itself is crisp and clear with an even spread of light thanks to it’s fancy lens. There is no dark spot in the middle of the beam like on Maglite torches.

This is a perfect torch for keeping in your backpack handbag, glovebox, shed whatever. It fits all my criteria of being rugged, compact and bright.

The only downsides I’ve experienced is that the belt clip is not adequate if you use the torch all the time in a work situation, it bends and easily pops off the torch. But for $7 bucks you can pick up a belt holster, which I have done.

The S2R Baton II will set you back $94.95 which is very competitive pricing when comparing to other brands. Olight have regular sales on their website.

Stay tuned for our next review of one of their more powerful torches that claims to throw its beam 1km!!

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