Recently Klarus has really been stepping up their game, with all of these amazing tactical flashlights that have been coming out. I’m really excited today to review the flashlight that Klarus is calling, “The king of tactical flashlights for 2017.” That is the XT2CR. Now, you might have heard me before, I often talk about my own Klarus XT2C Flashlight that I use very frequently. I’m super pumped to talk about the upgraded version of that flashlight. First, I’ll talk about some of the features and the pros and cons of the flashlight and leave my final thoughts.
To start out with, the Klarus XT2CR delivers 1,600 lumens, which is 500 more lumens than the current XT2C. For such a compact flashlight, this is incredible to see. It’s equipped with a CREE XHP35 HD E4 LED. This HD LED is I believe newer and slightly more powerful than the HI LED. That we’ve been seeing in so many tactical flashlights recently. I was really excited to see this new LED. One upgrade that I think many tactical users will appreciate is that stainless steel strike bezel. The original XT2C didn’t come with that bezel. And while some users prefer not to have a bezel, we do have a lot of tactical flashlight users that really do like that bezel. I think that was a great addition for this flashlight.
Just like its predecessor it is operated using that dual tactical tail switch. These tail switches are completely awesome. You have the main switch, which allows for momentary on and you have that secondary switch or the mode switch, which allows you to cycle through the different brightness levels or access instant low or instant strobe depending on which program you have it set to and we’ll talk about that in a second. These two switches are incredibly intuitive, which is exactly what you want in a tactical flashlight.
The Klarus XT2CR also features six total outputs. You’ve got four brightness levels and then you have a strobe mode and an SOS mode in case of emergency. You have the turbo mode, that’s the 1,600 lumens. You have the high mode, which is 400 lumens. The medium mode, which is 100 lumens and the low mode, which is 10 lumens. With this range of modes, it really gives you a lot of options and makes this flashlight very versatile. You can use it in a variety of situations. You won’t need to be using the turbo mode or even the high mode too frequently.
The medium mode at 100 lumens or even the low mode at 10 lumens, will often do the job. Of course, that being said, I am super psyched about turbo being 1,600 lumens. That is just incredibly impressive. Alright, so let’s talk about those two programmable settings. We’ve been seeing a lot of Klarus flashlights lately come with these programmable settings and I think that they’re really excellent. I’ve heard of people using the flashlight in all the modes and thoroughly enjoying getting a lot of good use out of these modes. The first mode, which is the tactical mode and this gives you access to the one touch turbo and one touch strobe. The main switch will turn on and off the flashlight in the turbo mode, while the secondary switch when pressed will give you access to that immediate strobe mode, and when the flashlight is on and you click that secondary switch, it’ll allow you to cycle through the brightness levels.
It’s pretty straightforward. Now with the outdoor mode, you have one touch turbo and one touch low. The main difference is going to be that when you press the secondary switch, you will activate the low mode as opposed to the strobe mode. If you find yourself using the low mode very frequently, or you’d like to use this flashlight for more outdoors uses, this is a great mode to have it in. Switching between the modes is also pretty simple too. Simply hold down that secondary switch for about 10 seconds, the indicator light will flash and then while continuing to hold down the secondary switch, press the main switch and you should switch modes like that.
A very cool feature is you just need to lift your finger off that secondary switch and it’ll immediately stop that process and keep you in the mode that you are already in. The flashlight does come in the tactical mode already. You can test out either mode, both modes see how you feel, see which one you like better. Which one you’d get more use out of, you can pick that one. Or you can switch between the modes depending on whatever situation you need them for. Another upgrade to the Klarus XT2CR is that it is USB rechargeable. With this kind of flashlight, I am very excited to see this feature in it. This flashlight comes with the Klarus 18 GT 36 18650 battery. That has a 3,600 milliamp capacity. It’s a high quality, high milliamp battery that’s quite expensive. It’s great that you can just charge the battery directly in the flashlight, rather than having to pull the battery out and charge it into a separate charger or possibly losing it. I’m not certain if you’ll get the 1,600 lumens with a lower mAh battery. That’s something to keep in mind.
Now the flashlight itself has an intelligent charging system, that charges your battery quickly, monitors the charging status, and prevents overcharging. Now for those that may not know, there are several things you can do to prolong the life of your battery. And preventing them from overcharging is an incredibly important aspect. If you accidentally overcharge a battery, it may lose a little bit of it’s life every single time. It’s really great that this flashlight will prevent any overcharging and prolong the life of your battery itself. So, you do not have to be continually checking it to make sure that your battery’s completely charged. That being said, it also has a battery capacity indicator and a charging indicator.
The charging indicator will glow red whenever it’s charging and will go green when it’s finished charging. And will glow yellow or orange whenever it requires some sort of inspection, something might be wrong. And when you’re not charging, the indicator will glow green to indicate the battery is at over 70% charged. Glow orange when it’s between 30 and 70% charged. Glow red when it is about 10-30% charged and will flash red when it’s under 10% charged. Letting you know that it’s about time you charged this battery. Or at the very least change it out.
Now because this is a Klarus flashlight, we can expect all the quality in the build and the design and safety of this flashlight. It does have front and rear internally mounted springs. It is impact resistant. It has reverse polarity protection and it’s waterproof up to IPX8 standards. This flashlight can stand up to whatever mother nature has to throw at it.
Okay, so let’s talk about some of the pros of this light. Well there are a ton of them. I really like the two programmable settings. Specifically the outdoor mode, probably one of my favorites. I really like that it’s USB rechargeable and that it prevents overcharging of your batteries. I think that’s a really important feature to have and I’d like more flashlights to have that. Specifically if they’re rechargeable flashlights. I also really like that while you’re charging the flashlight, the indicator will glow yellow if there is something wrong with the charging process. I’ve had flashlights that I’ve let charge and the indicator glows red, so I think it’s charging. When it turns out that there’s something going on, the charging’s not working, there’s a bit of grim in my micro USB port or what have you and I’ll not know. So, it’s great that it has that indicator.
Okay, so one of the cons I have to say switching between the modes. If you’re in the tactical mode, and you’re holding down that secondary switch. You are strobing for 10 seconds before you’re able to switch to the other mode and I’m not really big on just sitting there strobing for 10 seconds. And because of this I could easily see myself sticking with one mode and not really wanting to switch to the other mode.
Final thoughts, this really is an incredible tactical flashlight and I can see why Klarus has given it such an important title as to calling it the 2017 king of tactical flashlights. Rating wise, I would give it a 10 out of 10. I am super excited about this flashlight and if you’re looking for a new tactical flashlight, I highly recommend you look at the Klarus XT2CR.