Fireman_DJ Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 Some time ago I was alerted on these forums of a product trail by Fenix. I was one of the lucky ones selected to test and review their torch the PD-32. Well, they contacted me again saying they have a new light that needs the same treatment. Introducing the HP-25 head lamp. The HP-25 has two Cree XP-E LED's putting out 180 Lumens each. One focused for spot and the other for flood. A run time of 4 hours per light or around 2 hours with them both on full power or using only the flood on low around 206 hours of light. I'm still on my first set of batteries, using a combination of low, medium and high power settings including using both lights on high, so I'd say the battery life is pretty on par with the specs and somewhat respectable. So, how to the different lights go and compliment each other? The flood is near perfect. A wide beam of evenly spread light across it's power range. At low power it was perfect to read by and was usable for "not tripping over" while walking. You could make out obstacles enough to avoid them, but a bit more light is needed to actually "see" the obstacles. This is where you hit the switch to Medium power. It's a big jump in power, but it's just right for walking about and seeing your surrounds. This is the setting I used mostly while walking and would use while navigating the bush at night. The next two levels of flood light do have their usefulness, but for navigating in the bush it's a waste of battery. The spot on the other hand is a little disappointing. The spot itself is narrow and defined like it should be and on full power it's competitive with the PD-32 hand held torch. But it has a lot of spill light. The spill light is almost the same width of the flood light and almost as bright. I can't help but think that if they spend some more time on the spot's reflector and lens, they could have reduced that spill and made a more powerful spot light. Given that the spot lights spill is almost as good as the flood light, does it mean the flood light will never get used? Hardly, the spot light is overpowering at close range and useless for reading, cooking etc. The flood light fulfils this role perfectly, so you do benefit greatly from having both lights. As you will see in the photo's using the two lights together does increase the overall amount of light, but to the human eye you won't perceive that big of a difference so my advice is to use one or the other and save battery. The HP-25 has a battery pack containing 4 AA sized batteries mounted at the back of a two strap harness. During use I found the distributed weight to be well balanced and the light was very secure through a range of tasks including mountain bike riding and running. On the light head, when fully retracted the buttons are hidden under a hard cover, preventing accidental activation. While this is a great feature, I'm not sure how necessary it is as the lights require you to hold the buttons to switch on, while a momentary push will adjust the brightness. This delayed switching on/off has taken some time to get used to as does remembering which switch to use. But the lights do remember their last power level used and return to that setting. Onto my gripes. And really my only gripe is of night vision and the lack of a red light or lens. With my original headlamp, I often slid the inbuilt red lens down and only used that. The benefit is an increase in light while protecting my night vision which meant I didn't need as much light. The HP-25 however has no red light or lens, and has no visible way of attaching one in the future. While for many people this won't matter, I do find it the biggest disappointment of the light and it will mean I keep using my old headlamp when I want to use minimal light and keep my night vision. If you've managed to read this far, then congratulations. If you've only scrolled down to see the photo's, you're likely not reading this sentence either. First some product photo's, please ignore the grumpy ugly model. It's the reason I hide BEHIND the camera most of the time... The last two animations are of all torches in min and then max power settings. Feel free to ask questions, or goto Fenix's website for more info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenring Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 It looks good mate. Thanks for the review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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