Review: Wurkoos FC13

[NT2C]

This light came my way thanks to a sale on Amazon combined with a discount coupon that gave me a whopping 45% off, which is fair as the light is only about 55% as good as it could be.  To start with let's get the positives out of the way:

• It comes with a nice 3,000 mAh 18650 battery
• It has an excellent bi-directional spring clip
• It has a nice beam that isn't quite a full on thrower but still gives good distance
• It operates on the Anduril 2.0 OS
• It has a truly low moonlight mode
• The power switch can be illuminated in a host of colors and styles
• It can be used as a power bank

Unfortunately, as nice as those features are, there are a lot of negatives with this light:

• The deeply recessed USB C port won't work with many USB C cables.  In fact, the only one in my considerable collection that fit without modification was the one it came with.  Not even one from other Wurkoos lights that I own would fit.
• It gets hot.  In turbo mode, it actually got hot enough to cause a first-degree burn when my finger touched too far forward on the head.  Even just in high, not turbo, it gets hot enough to be uncomfortable.
• It runs on Anduril 2.0 OS Yes, I know I listed this as a positive but it's a double-edged sword. Light geeks love it, non-geeks are often confused and intimidated by it, and if you don't use the features regularly the button presses are easy to forget.
• The instructions are complete but poorly written and you'll need a magnifier just to figure out which portion is in a language you speak/read.
• The charger cord issue means that, even though this is capable of being a power bank, you'll never find a cord that lets you.  The supplied charger cord is a USB A on one end and USB C on the other.
   Unless what you want to charge uses USB A, good luck finding a cable that will fit.
• The machining of the threads leaves something to be desired.  My unit arrived with the flats on the body tube clocked a few degrees clockwise from the power button, and the tailcap was clocked quite a bit in the other direction.  The result is that it feels annoyingly "off" in the hand.
• The spring clip, while bidirectional, can only be attached in one groove near the tailcap, meaning the point of the clip is often going to be pressing uncomfortably into your fingers or palm.

Bottom line?  I like the beam on this, and the power settings, particularly that moonlight mode.  Charging it generally sucks (I've taken to removing the battery and charging it in a separate charger), the OS is a quagmire, the colors and advanced modes are geeky quirks that most people will play with but eventually tire of, and this can cause injury if you aren't careful.