Laulima Hoku Review
The Laulima Hoku has hung with me for almost a year now and I have delayed reviewing it because I wanted to be sure.
Now I am sure.
It is one of the very best lights on the market today. I would put it up against the BOSS 35 and Muyshondt Aeon Mk. III as one of my favorite lights ever made. And it is great because it makes absolutely no mistakes. The design is simple, breathtakingly beautiful, and striking. The implementation of that design is done to the highest standard.
The Hoku is something simple done exceedingly well, which, if you haven’t noticed in life, is the formula for great design. The Ferrari 1964 250 GTO isn’t a daunting spectacle of a car, festooned with slits and sharp angles. Instead it is a simple shape, elegantly and knowingly refined. The Shaker Ladderback chair is a spare design without a single superfluous element. Over and over great design draws us in because of its stillness, its clarity, and is unmistakeable purpose. The Hoku possesses this kind of design greatness.
I am going to tell you up front, this is a perfect light. It will get a perfect score. No need for suspense. Instead, think of this review as a rhapsody on superior flashlight design.
Here is the product page. They start at about $225 and go up from there. There are no written nor video reviews (which is odd given that the light is almost a year old). Here is my video overview (which apparently filmed after a lot of coffee). As a small batch light made by Mitch Lum there are an endless variety of Hokus. Hokus come in three sizes, with two different optics, and a variety of materials. You can get the short clipless body, the short clip body, and the long body. You can get the light as a mule (without a reflector for broad unfocused light) or with a reflector. Lights were made in copper and brass first with titanium to follow. Mine is a short clip body in titanium with a reflector. As configured it cost me $260. Here is a picture of the review sample, which was purchased with my own money and is a permanent part of the collection:
Twitter Review Summary: One of the greatest EDC flashlights ever made.
ORDERING NOTE: I ordered this light through the normal channels, but I have previously reviewed a light from Mitch Lum and Josh Dawson at their request, which you can find here. I find them to be excellent makers and all around smart guys. They has been machining high precision items for years, cutting their teeth on tops and moving into flashlights, which combines is two interests well—machining and electrical engineering. I would imagine they knew who I was when I ordered this light but I have no reason to believe I got special treatment. The light shipped with the clip on crooked. I contacted Mitch and he asked me to send it back. I told him I wanted to take the screws out first. Once I did, I was able to get the clip seated correctly and it was no longer crooked. It has not moved since. Lum was great in this interaction as well.
Design: 2
Body tubes are really important. Good ones, like those found on the HDS lights and the BOSS 35, make a light useful well after its emitter has lost its bleeding edge status. The formula for enduring success with a torch design, then, begins with the body tube. On this account the Hoku kills it. Not only does this tailstand amazingly the well, the flared out end makes the light easier to hold and it allows the Hoku to accept clips from 18350 lights (with some modification in some cases). This is a brilliant move by Laulima—better performance AND wider compatibility with aftermarket accessories. But the design brilliance doesn’t end there. The exposed copper heat sink, while not strictly new (see: Prometheus Delta), is a really striking visual centerpiece AND good for performance. Mitch and Josh made absolutely NO mistakes in putting this light together. Time and again he made good choices and they all work together to so well visually. I would not be surprised if this body tube became the standard for 1xAAA going forward much in the same way that the Arc4 body tube gave rise to dozens of similar designs (one of which still is being made today—the HDS body is a variant on the Arc4). Unfortunately this light cannot run on alkaline batteries and thus is not a dual fuel light.
Fit and Finish: 2
This is a resplendent bit of machining. Josh and Mitch just nailed it here, with good curves, excellent threads, and a level of polish and finish that is a large step above what you find on production torches. It is not as complex as, say, the Spy 007, but then again no light is. Instead, what we get is a relatively simple design very well executed. There is no slop in the threads at all and that makes for an excellent user experience. See below for more.
Grip: 2
Thanks to a curve and slim waist, this light just nestles into the fingers really well. The clip actually helps with grip and while it is not easy to change the light’s output with a single hand, at least it is possible, unlike other twisty lights. It seems strange to write this, but I actually like a bit of extra length in the body tube here. It gives you a more substantial grip than you would otherwise have on what is still a pretty tiny light.
Carry: 2
WIth a real, well designed pocket clip and a smallish form factor, the Hoku does quite well in the pocket. It is big enough to let you know it is still there, but not so big that it is difficult to carry. I like the fact that it still can ride in a coin pocket if the need arises.
Output: 2
With a single digit low, a decent medium, and a 500 or so lumen high, the Hoku isn’t a flame thrower (though it is one of the brighter 1xAAA format lights). But as I have written so often lumens are stupid. In using this on night hikes in pitch darkness for over two hours I can tell you I never felt like I need more light and so, given the form factor, I don’t think it is realistic to expect more given today’s batteries and emitters. 500 lumens out of this light is damn good.
Runtime: 2
Ah runtimes, the scandal riddled dirty secret of the flashlight world. Not since the garbage of “peak horsepower” for power tools has an industry trade group better hoodwinked consumers. There is no runtime chart for the Hoku that I could find, but the Night Hike test tends to be revelatory. Again, after tromping through the woods in pitch darkness for roughly an hour and a half to two hours, the light made it the entire way through (actually, it died in my parent’s yard). There is, of course, a step down after 90 seconds, but it was not significant. On medium and low, I would imagine it would last significantly longer.
Beam Type: 2
This is not a thrower by any stretch of the imagination, but the reflector does a good job of committing to the up close beam with a real hotspot. This means that you get a nice field of illumination with a clear center and a modicum of ability to light stuff up far away. That’s very helpful in an EDC torch and absolutely the right choice. In many ways this is a Surefire beam pattern with a nicer emitter.
Beam Quality: 2
Are you a B or a C kind of person? Frankly, while I like 219B emitters, the C emitter, which is used here does an excellent job of providing absolutely brilliant color rendering. Could I tell the difference in a double blind test? I don’t think so. Of course, at this level of quality there are no artifacts, holes, or egg shaped beams. Perfectly artifact-free and perfectly round.
UI: 2
Three modes with a twist-twist again (as opposed to a staged twisty, which is twist more for mode changes) interface. It is straightforward, impossible to hot pocket, and never skips a mode or goes back to the previous one. If you want dead simple, this is it. I would prefer a staged twisty, but it is no longer a strong preference, especially when the light in question has only three modes. One key to point out is the smooth threads. Sticky or thin threads make a twisty UI an especially unpleasant experience. Here with beautiful, clean threads it is hard to find fault with the twisty interface.
Hands Free: 2
With a great form factor and good clip, you can use this light in a myriad of ways. The thick base makes this one of the best lights you will find anywhere, an odd achievement for a light in the 1xAAA format.
Other Consideration
Fidget Factor: High
Thanks to the aforementioned smooth threads and curvy body tube, this is a great light in hand.
Fett Effect: Very High
The copper heat sink will accumulate a ton of patina and look great for years.
Value: Very High
When your closest competition is twice the price and not clearly superior, you have outstanding value. You are getting small batch quality for just a bit more than enthusiast grade production stuff. While a $250 flashlight can’t be the best value on the planet, comparing this light to its peers shows you that it is an exceptionally good value, especially considering you can score one with less expensive materials for close to $200.
Overall Score: 20 out of 20; PERFECT
I absolutely love everything about this light—the output, the beam quality, the runtime, the body tube, the looks, the fit and finish, and the materials. It is a tour de force of flashlight design and machining ability. It is EASILY worth the asking price and one of four lights I own that I can see being useful twenty years from now, even when pulse laser gigalumen “lantern ring” style thought-activated lights dominate the market as they obviously will. It is hard to imagine a more elegant to carry and use light. Over and over again in thinking about the Hoku I come back to a single word—pleasing. It is a pleasing light to use and own. If you like nice gear, this is a piece of kit you should track down. It is worth the hassle and proves that there are people out there not named Jason Hui that make great lights.
Competition
If you want the best in the EDC market, the Hoku is an easy choice as a compromise between the BOSS 35 and the Aeon Mk. III. Its smaller than the BOSS 35 but brighter than the Aeon. In other words it is a great intermediate step between the two best EDC lights on the planet. If you want long runtimes, the Aeon is still the king, but the Hoku is a high ranking Duke in the Runtime Kingdom, too. If you want REAL scorching highs, the BOSS 35 is better, but at around 500-600 lumens, the Hoku is no slouch. The fact that the Hoku is significantly cheaper than either the BOSS 35 or the Aeon, tells you just how good this light is. This is a hard light to find an equivalent for as the looks and body tube are really unique.
A cheaper light that serves a similar purpose is just not obvious to me. I think the Reylight Mini Pineapple is pretty close. I also think that the 47 Mini Mk. III has a similar size and functionality but with a different battery format. Another cheaper light that is similar is the great and relatively uncommon Peak LED Solutions Eiger. The Eiger, when spec’d similarly is actually not that much cheaper than the Hoku. The Prometheus Beta and the 47 Preon Mk. III are similarly classy but are about 1/6 as bright.
One competitor that I would really like to try out is the clicky-based CWF Micro Acadian. It too is a small batch flashlight in the 1xAAA format. I have never had a CWF light so l feel like I should try it if for no other reason than completeness’s sake. The Acadian is more than double the price of the Hoku, so I am not in a particularly big rush. TNC also makes some good small batch AAA lights, but after Zero Air’s review of a TNC light, I am bit trigger shy. The flaws he found just shouldn’t exist on a light this pricey.
Amazon Affiliate Links
Buying items through links below helps keep the blog 100% independent:
