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The Olight Warrior X 4 is marketed as a tactical torch, but it has far wider appeal. Its powerful 2600 lumen beam is nothing special, but its impressive range of 630 metres, with just the right amount of spill – the slightly dimmer light around the central hotspot, is what sets it apart. And finally Olight are offering dual charging – with a USB-C port on the torch itself whilst still retaining their proprietary but convenient magnetic charging via the magnetic tail cap. It’s not all perfect though, read on for all the details.
Overview
I have the matte black finish, but it also comes in camouflage. Inside the box you get a hard plastic holster, a USB-A to USB-C charging cable and the instruction manual. The torch is also available in a kit which includes a rifle mount and remote tail switch.
The torch is made almost entirely of an aluminium alloy and the finish is excellent. I particularly like the matte black finish, both the look and feel. It has an IPX8 waterproof rating – so no dust proofing certification and it’s rated as drop proof to 2m.
There’s no pocket clip but the torch snaps positively into the hard plastic holster with a sturdy belt clip. You need to make sure the charging port cover is rotated shut and it does require some force to yank it out, but I do prefer this type of holster – access to the torch is much quicker. I still rarely use it though – the torch is just about small enough to fit in a jacket pocket. It weighs exactly 250g (8.82oz) with the battery. The holster weighs 40.8g (1.44oz). It’s 149mm (5.87in) long and I measured 39.5mm (1.56in) at its head.
There’s a removable ring just above the tail cap for a cigar grip. This slides off if you remove the tailcap, but it leaves a couple of O-rings exposed so I’ve left it on and have grown to like it. It’s pretty useful for single handed use.
Make sure you put it back on the right way around – with the curved edge facing the tail cap. Otherwise the torch won’t turn in! Without any pocket clip or flats, this torch will easily roll off a table so be aware of that.
The torch takes a proprietary 21700 5000mAh battery which can only really be recharged in the torch itself because of its recessed positive terminal. But it’s a popular battery in Olight’s range of torches, so you may well end up with spares.
Rotate the ring below the head to reveal the USB-C charging port. It’s a little stiff and really needs two hands and mine was very slightly gritty, but it clicks into its closed position quite reassuringly.
The battery charges from empty in around 3.5 hours using the supplied charging cable, and importantly it will also charge off a USB-C to USB-C cable. The charging LED changes from red to green when it’s fully charged. Unfortunately it’s not a two-way USB-C charging port – you can’t use it to charge your other gadgets. The USB-C port is still meant to be waterproof without the ring closed, but it does leave it open to dust and debris. There’s a combined charging and battery level indicator LED, but unfortunately you can’t see this light with the port covered which seems like a strange oversight. So you need to slide open the ring, just to check the battery status. It’s a primitive battery level indicator as well with just a tri-colour LED, compared to most of Olight’s recent premium torches. It’s green for greater than 60% charge remaining, orange for between 10-60%, red for 5-10% and flashing red for less than 5%.
If you have an Olight magnetic charging cable that comes with most of Olight’s torches, that’ll also charge the torch, but a little slower in around 5 hours. The torch’s charging LED doesn’t light up, but the magnetic charging cable’s LED indicates the charging status.
Even though the tail cap is magnetic, it’s not strong enough to hold the torch’s own weight so you can’t use it as a worklight. The torch can operate whilst it’s been charged with a USB cable or a magnetic charging cable.
It’s not a compact 21700 torch, unlike Olight’s Baton 3 Pro Max I reviewed recently. It has a huge reflector to achieve its long throw, and large heat dissipating fins around its head to try and keep the head cool. Its tail cap switch means it’s also longer than some other 21700 torches. The tail switch is the only way to operate this torch too – there’s no additional side switch like on the Warrior 3S.
This makes the user interface very basic which a lot of people may prefer. A short half press and release will turn the torch on in the 8 hour 300 lumen low mode. A short full press and release activates the 2600 lumen high mode which lasts 3 minutes before dropping to around 1000 lumens for 140 minutes – I’ll test this shortly.
If you hold the button with a half or full press the torch will stay on in low or high mode respectively, only while you hold the button down. This interface can take some getting used to. You need a very quick half or full click to leave the torch turned on. I’ve used this sort of switch before but it still took me a few attempts initially to keep the torch turned on.
This is the default mode or operation, but you can also activate tactical mode. With the torch on in either mode, unscrew the tail cap until it turns off and then tighten it back up. Now a half press activates the 150 minute 1000 lumens medium mode, and a full press the 2600 lumens 13Hz strobe. I like having the 1000 lumen medium mode but have no need for the strobe mode so tend to leave it in the default mode.
The lack of a side switch keeps things simple, but means brightness levels are limited. Personally I’d like at least a high, medium and low mode without messing around with the tail cap. And there’s no moonlight mode – the 300 lumen low mode is still very bright – especially with the focussed beam.
Performance
There’s a single LED behind the deep 30mm (1.18in) smooth reflector. As usual Olight don’t specify the exact LED used but this torch is only available in cool white with a colour temperature ranging from 5700 to 6700K.
In its highest mode I measured a colour temperature of 6550K with my spectrometer, with a colour accuracy or CRI of 67 and an almost perfectly neutral tint of -0.0002 Duv. The CRI is slightly disappointing, but Olight only specify a rather underwhelming CRI of 70 for almost all their torches including this one. Fortunately CRI isn’t hugely important for a torch like this.
I tested the runtime in its highest 2600 lumen mode with a fully charged battery in my calibrated DIY lumen chamber. I got an impressive 3041 lumens at turn on which only dropped to 2926 lumens at the ANSI FL1 standard 30 second mark and didn’t drop below Olight’s spec’d 2600 lumens for almost 2 minutes. At around 4 minutes it’d dropped to its 1000 lumen medium mode which it held for a further 16 minutes before dropping to around 800 lumens which it held for almost an hour. It exceeded Olight’s claims with regard to its output, at least in my measurements, but runtimes were considerably shorter.
I did measure the temperature of the torch with my thermal imaging camera. After just over a minute it reached around 52°C at the base of the head – which feels pretty warm to the torch. The temperature then started coming down, so it appears the torch is being thermally regulated, dropping its output based on its temperature. Outside in real use, typically with a cooling breeze, runtimes will be better.
One of my favourite features of this torch is its beam. It has an impressive 630m (99,310cd) range, which even in real use provides 100-150m of usable range. But it also has a generous spill around this central hotspot that makes this a genuinely useful torch for general use.
You can see how it compares to the Olight Marauder Mini in spot mode, the Olight Warrior 3S and the Olight Seeker 4 Pro. The Marauder Mini’s spot mode is close in range – around 600m but there’s almost no spill. The Seeker 4 Pro has a massive 4600 lumens so it floods the scene, but its throw is less than half that of the Warrior X 4.
Conclusions
I wasn’t expecting to like the Warrior X 4 as much as I did. It will come down to personal preference, but to me it has a close to perfect combination of throw and flood. It’s not a particularly compact torch, but it easily fits in a jacket pocket, which makes it a great general purpose torch, perfect for dog walking or hiking.
It’s great to see Olight finally embrace USB-C charging, and I’m particularly pleased to see they’ve still kept the convenient, albeit proprietary, magnetic charging.
Runtimes in high mode were a little disappointing and the limited brightness levels won’t be for everyone. I’m hopeful the X 5 will have an additional side switch and an improved always visible battery level indicator, but even as it stands this is a torch I’ll likely pick up for my morning walk more often than not.
If you need more help trying to find the perfect torch, take a look at my roundup of pocket, keyring, and head torches.
Buy direct from Olight – it helps support this site and my YouTube channel and if you use the discount code TTM10 you’ll get 10% off non-sale items!
Spring sale up to 40% off! Use my code MAR6 to get an additional £5 off everything (except Oclip) – on top of sale prices!
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