[Customer Review ] i5R EOS Review From Matthew: Tough and Useful Light

Olight i5R EOS Review

I have three go to Olights at the moment the i3E EOS, the i3T 2 Plus and the best of them all, the i5R EOS 350 Lumen rechargeable pocket torch. When I say this one is the best, I have to qualify that. I love my other two torches as well, and my mini i3E EOS 90 lumen torch I carry with me everywhere I go. It sits in my pocket as my EDC, and I have used it to find my keys, find stuff in my garage at night, and for many other different purposes. It is a fantastic little torch, and considering it is only $12.95, can attach to your Keyring, and you can even get it for free if you sign up for the first time, it is remarkable. This little torch is something that you will find far more useful than you thought, and because you can attach it to your key ring you don’t have toworry about losing it. It works great with both standard AAA batteries and also NIMH rechargeable batteries as well. So once you have used the free battery that comes with the torch (which will take you well over a month of general use to use), then you can power it cheaply and easily with NIMH batteries which you can get from any supermarket.

But as good as this little i3E is sometimes you need a bit more power. Sometimes you need something that will light up an entire area because you are working in the dark, or are walking with the bush, or are looking for someone or something, and this is where the fantastic i5R EOS 350 Lumen pocket torch comes in handy.

In the past if you wanted to have a reasonably bright torch for general nightlight use in the bush you needed to buy something that was of reasonable size, that you would need to clip to your belt, or put in a pouch. But look at the size of this torch. It is still remarkably small. It will easily fit into your pocket, where you can clip in on with the study clip and not have to worry about it falling off.

Here is a photo of it in the bush and next to my glasses case and a AAA battery. It is small. But it doesn’t feel light and flimsy. When you pick it up it is solid, you can feel the quality that has gone into building it. I know it is very solid because I have dropped the torch twice on the concrete, both times by accident, and it has not broken. It has a couple of scratches on the side where I dropped it, but the torch works brilliantly still. Which shows how solid this thing is.

The waterproofing also has not been damaged by my clumsiness. Here is the torch in a glass of water and it is working fine.

I love how waterproof these things are. They are IPX8 rated, which is a very high and reliable level of waterproofing. This is necessary if you are camping, or hiking, or you have kids and they play with your torch on a camping trip. I used to use torches that were not waterproof and you needed to be really careful with them when you were exploring creeks and rocks around waterfalls. But with this torch, and many Olight products, you can drop it in the creek and know that it won’t break and won’t fill with water. Why would you use an older type torch when you can have this kind of security in the bush? The specs on the website say that it has a 1.5-meter drop rating, and I can testify to you that this is true. Even though I dropped it by accident, this had the result of confirming how accurately this torch is described on the website.

Remember also that this torch is rechargeable. It comes with a customized 2.4v 1420 mAh 14500 LI-ON battery that you can charge with any USB-C charger. And this battery lasts a long time, and they are not expensive to pick up extras on the site, being only $14.95. What is fantastic about this battery is that it is about the size of a normal AA but far more powerful. However, in a pinch, you can still use a normal AA battery in this torch as well if you need to. So, how can you complain about that? You get a high-quality LI-ON battery and a charging cable in the box, but you can use a normal AA battery if you need to as well. A great product.

And this is thing bright. Look at these photos:

This first photo is of the torch on its lowest setting. When you turn the torch on for the first time it will default to this lower setting. But this is still bright enough to find your keys, or something you lost in the car, but it won’t be jarring if you turn it on in this middle of the night in your tent, or your bedroom. This is a good feature.

But the look how bright the torch gets.

On full power this thing beats my old LED torch from another company. Which is about three times the size as well. I remember when you had to buy a large torch with those massive big square batteries to get this kind of light. But now you can get this kind of power out of a torch that will fit in your pocket. You can use this to make your way through the bush, or through your house in a blackout. You can even use this to play spotlight with your kids if you have a decent size backyard.

And of course, if you do the old shine-it-up-into-a-tree-trick to see how bright it is you can see everything in the tree. It is incredible. I love my i3 torches. But this is now my favourite. And another good thing about the torch is that because it is bright green, if you drop it you can find it easily. There is nothing wrong with a black torch, but sometimes it is hard to find them at night when you need them. But with this torch you don’t have to worry. I highly recommend this little torch. It is a great piece of kit at a very good price. I would recommend it over something like a Maglite or something like that, because it is cheaper for the lumen power, smaller, and I think more versatile. So check it out.