Review: Sofirn SR12

[NT2C]

(Disclosure: This light was provided to me for free by the manufacturer in exchange for my review.)



So, I've been carrying this light for a little over a week now and the first thing I want to say about it is that I want another.  Maybe three.  Or a dozen.

Yeah, it's that good.

I carried it in my sweats around the house, where I found the moonlight mode to be perfect for walking around the house at night and avoiding cats on the floor without turning on room lights and disturbing my wife.  When I went out I transferred it to the leg pocket on my pants and found it was perfect for things like underhood lighting while jump-starting a dead battery, spotting rabbits in my yard, and working on holiday lighting strings.  In all that use I only found two problems with the light. 

The first was that I didn't have two of them, because it always seemed to be in the wrong pants and then I'd have to go check my sweats or regular pants to find it and transfer it over.  I never could seem to remember to do this when changing pants, so the obvious solution is that I need at least one more.  And a few to gift to friends. 

The second issue I ran into was a tad more serious, it cut me!  It was not a deep cut, though it was annoying and a little bloody, but it speaks to the importance of proper finishing with flashlights. In the past, when reviewing other Sofirn lights, such as the SC31 Pro, I've found very sharp edges on the cooling fins that had the potential to cause nasty cuts.  Sofirn has listened to reviewers like me, and this light has wonderfully beveled and finished fins that offer no chance of inflicting cuts:



Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the edges on the tailcap lanyard lug, which left a bleeding gouge in the center of my thumb when I tried to unscrew the battery cap and take out the shipping insulator.  I don't dare put a lanyard on it.  The edge would cut through in seconds.  I'll have to take a file to it later but I hate ruining the anodizing like that.



BEAMSHOTS


(believe it or not, that's "moonlight mode")


(low)


(high)


(turbo)



Hard to believe that's only 1,450lm, it seems like much more!  Note the beam pattern with the two distinct light cones.  (shed is about 190' away)

PROS and CONS

Pros:

Nice, tight beam with very good spill to illuminate around the sharp center spot

Perfect body knurling that ensures a good grip on the light without hurting your hands, even when dirty or muddy.

Excellent moonlight mode.  I can't say that too strongly.  For me, this light has the most perfect moonlight beam of any flashlight I've used or owned.  I'm elderly and disabled, and I have cats.  At one point we had five but we're now down to just two very well-pampered feline masters. So well pampered that they have zero fear of being stepped on or disturbed when they're underfoot, even in the dark.  This is not a good combination with my disabilities so I carry not one but two pocket flashlights in my sweats.  One is a thrower (for taking out the trash, etc.) and the other is a flood with an adequate (but very annoying key sequence to activate) moonlight mode.  This Sofirn combines both functions into a single light, and the moonlight level of brightness is perfect for my needs.

Beveled heat dissipation fins! The fins on this were milled with a different cutter than some of their other lights and I applaud Sofirn for taking that small step in their tooling.

Cons:

Sharp edge on lanyard attachment lug.  This can injure the user and also sever the lanyard.  It at least needs a little smoothing before anodizing.

Ramps up too quickly from moonlight mode.  This is a bit of an annoyance for me.  As perfect as the moonlight mode is, sometimes you need just a touch more light, maybe to check that you're dressing with matching socks or looking for something the cat took, but you don't want to wake someone asleep just a few feet away. You press the switch to just slightly ramp it up a little and BAM, you've set off a nuke in the room and your partner grumbles at you and flings a pillow in your direction.  It's just too quick.  It's a bell curve when it needs to be linear.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is a good light and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about purchasing one. I did have one more sort of both a pro and a con at the same time that I want to mention and that's the spring clip.  It's a decent clip, well up to the task of clipping the light to a pocket or a hat, but I wish they had provided a second area on the body barrel towards the switch that it could be clipped into, thus allowing for lens down or lens up pocket carry, low in the pocket.  The way it is now you're limited to lens down carry, and if you forget to lock out the light before putting it in a pocket your only reminder might be a rapidly warming spot on your leg.  With lens up carry you will see right away if the light comes on.  Also with the spring clip, I find that the tip of the spoon sticks up too far and can damage furniture.  I have several deep scratches in my inside car door where the clip has rubbed, and it's constantly catching on the armrest of my office chair.  I'd like to see it redesigned to fix these issues but I can't come up with a way that it should be done.  I'll leave that up to the very capable and talented designers and engineers at Sofirn to solve.