Surefire EDC1 DFT Review
If ZT was lost in the wilderness, Surefire had been left for dead. With wave after wave of overseas made lights beating Surefire in terms of specs, price, and in some cases, build quality, Surefire fell off flashlight enthusiast’s radar. Sure hardcore tactical guys still loved them, but for those of us that don’t require Picatinny rail compatible lights, they weren’t really all that attractive—low output, huge size, low runtimes, bizarre output levels, no dual fuel, and outrageous pricing meant that Surefire was a no go if you were performance aficianado.
The problem, of course, is technology. Flashlights are more computer than tool and as computers got better lights got better too—both cheaper and better performing. Modes and outputs were easy to use and top end lumens counts were following Moore’s Law pretty consistently. Even cheap lights could throw a massive number of photons. But here is a secret—lumens don’t really matter all that much. Most flashoholics know that and that means that, in theory, Surefire could compete if they smartly designed and built a light. Even if they weren’t running the lumens race, they might fight a niche. If they were close on lumens and had some smart programming for output modes, they might have been able to get there. But alas, for almost a decade, it didn’t happen. The last interesting Surefire was the Titan Plus. I got mine delivered when my second son was born. He is 9.
For all their technical wizardry though flashlights still had one really important component that wasn’t just a race-to-the-bottom commodity. Reflectors really matter, but they are notoriously hard to design and make. This is why a lot of makers, big and small, have opted for triple or quad emitter arrays or TIR optics or both. Both are simpler and cheaper to implement. Since Surefire was already so heavily invested in reflectors AND their customer base was used to the high price tag, they could innovate in the reflector space and make a light that was different enough and compelling enough to stand out from the horde of overseas made tubes of metal.
That was the design gambit behind the EDC1 DFT. And I will tell you, this is a very compelling light, even for a tint snob, performance hound flashoholic. The combination of build quality, throw, and ease of use makes this a worthy addition to a stable of lights. It also makes a compelling case to be a One Ring light. Its quirky and a bit out of step with the market in a few ways, but none of them are fatal flaws. Simply put, this Surefire light isn’t dead on arrival, its just differently built. And that’s a good thing.
Here is the product page. Here is a purchase link. Here is a written review (the flashlight community still does written reviews; take note knife folks). Here is a video review. Here is my review sample, purchased with my own money:
Quick Review Summary: A great, quirky light with a staggering amount of useful throw.
Design: 2
Lumens get all the headlines, but lumens aren’t that useful a number when evaluating a flashlight. They don’t tell you how long the light will work. They don’t tell you how accurate the light is. And they don’t tell you how useful the beam is. I think of a light like the much-beloved (by others) OLight Baton. I remember carrying the first one around for a Halloween and being really disappointed at how little it helped. I couldn’t figure out why. The lumens count was pretty high (for the time) and yet it got beat out by my McGizmo Haiku, a light 1/6th as bright. So lumens aren’t just useless, they are actually misrepresentative (misfeasance v. malfeasance for all you lawyers out there). Other numbers, like calenda, are helpful in ways but also misleading. In the end, we either need a new number or realize that numbers and flashlights aren’t all that useful together.
The EDC1 is a perfect example of why. This light is “only” 650 lumens on high but it is a positively massive shower of photons. It illuminates everything—up close, far away, in the center, and on the periphery. With a true reflector and an top shelf one at that, the EDC1 is a very useful illumination tool. Even on low, which is 25 lumens, you are getting a hotspot that hit objects from an impressive distance. More on the beam later.
The gambit here of putting a different kind of reflector on an EDC light pays off in spades. This is a pretyt pocketable light that can hang with much bigger torches and lose very little. That coupled with its build quality make it an excellent choice for a One Ring light. This is concept in the EDC community about having one item to rule them all (hence the name). That is, having one flashlight or knife that can do well when pressed into most roles. The EDC1 does the bump in the night thing well, it can ride in a pocket okay, and it can provide broad, sweeping fields of illumination with ease. There is nothing it can’t do at least okay. And when paired with an equally flexible knife, like a PM2 (or in my case a PM2 Ultra), you have a kit that can handle pretty much any scenario.
Because of this flexibility I think the EDC1 earns a place in just about every flashlight collection. Its really good and an excellent design choice by Surefire. When you add the flexibility of primaries or rechargeables to an already great package, I think the EDC1 is one of the better lights out there that isn’t a small batch production or custom light. It rivals the great HDS Rotary in terms of utility for me. The Rotary is a smidge smaller, with a better UI, but the EDC1 can pump out the photons. Not being absolutely destroyed by the Rotary is high praise in the flashlight world and the EDC1 earns it.
Fit and Finish: 2
Surefire’s schtick of being a “hard use” tool company means that their products are tough and beefy. It also means that that mass comes with precision and refinement. The threads are perfect, the parts mate together precisely, and everything has that Mercedes car door shutting feel. This is a well made tool.
Grip: 2
One of the benefits of being a larger than average light is that the light is easy to hold, carry, and manipulate. I prefer a reverse grip on lights (with the pinky closests to the front) and here the EDC1 works well. In a cigar grip its good too, though I think anymore and it would too heavy. The well-designed body tube also makes a difference. With a few “taper points” and good knurling, the EDC1 feels great in the hand no matter the grip.
Carry: 1
A head this big is going to be a bad thing to lug around all day and while this is an excellent throw light in terms of comparison to other similar lights, its still not great. In a pack its good, in jeans its meh, in shorts its awful. It can be EDC’d but really its a bit much. But you know that going in. This is a surprise flaw and it is part of the design tradeoff Surefire made here—great throw in a reasonably compact package. If you expect to carry this in your jeans coin pocket you will be disappointed. If you had realistic expectations, you’ll be fine. The two-way clip, standard on a few Surefires, is another nod to versatility. Its excellent, but not enough to save this light from being a bit bulky in the pocket.
Output: 2
Most flashlights with a “low” of 25 lumens are skip to me. Gone are the days when all discerning flashlight owners cared about was the high. Low is more often used and so a low that was 25 lumens bright defeated the purpose of most EDC lights used on low (all but guaranteeing that you lost your night vision). But the EDC1 is a distinctly different torch. Sure it is an EDC first design, but this is designed to be an EDC light that is used in large spaces or out of doors. In that role, with that design philosophy, the EDC1 crushes it. The 25 lumen low is just bright enough to be useful and thanks to the wonderful reflector even it can punch up a street sign hundreds of feet away.
Then there is the high. 650 lumens is a lot, but nothing compared to some of the overseas lights of the same size, which boost 3,000 or 4,000 OFT lumens. But what they don’t tell you and what the ANSI standard conceals, is that they are effectively 300 lumen lights with a pop of brightness at the start. This is 650 REAL lumens for quite a while. Not only does that mean that in real world terms this light is brighter than those, it also means that it doesn’t have the battery draining burst mode at the start of the runtime curve. Its also a smart choice by Surefire.
When you defy expecation in your design, different features are not just okay, they are welcome and here the outpout suits the light quite well.
Runtime: 2
Setting aside the fact that this is not intended as an EDC light with an ultra low for use as a candle, the runtimes here are decent. 12 hours of 25 lumen 95,000 candela light is pretty darn good. Enough to find that deer rut or the stray garbage can. 45 minutes of real 650 lumens (with a little bit of degradation) is also pretty darn compelling. Both are good, in the context of this specific light with its specific design.
Beam Type: 2
Throw, throw, and more throw. This is about as good a throw beam as you will find. It can hit stuff across your neighborhood with ease, but still has enough spill to be generally useful. As you can see above, there is a thick stripe of light in the middle, but the outer cone still has some useful photons. This is not a beam type we see often. Most throwers are so narrow that they are almost useless. Comparing this light, for example, to the Mini Cosmos LEP, and you will find you can easily get by with the EDC1 for all tasks whereas the Mini Cosmos just throws.
Beam Quality: 2
Prepare for gushing.
This is one of the very best beams I have ever seen on a light custom or production. Is it better than the Haiku? Probably not. Am I really sure about that assessment? No, no I am not. Of course there are no flaws, no holes or weird shapes, no floaties or unevenness. But what is more impressive is just how good this light is at throwing while at the same time doing the bullseye beam that Surefires are known and loved for. There just isn’t anything else I have seen that does this as well with as few flaws and eccentricities. The tint is a bit cool, but still quite accurate (enough, for example, to distingish between medium rare and rare steak). Surefires have always leaned towards bright hotspots, but here that brightness is not just for fun, but really does transform what you can do with a light this size. I don’t think I have encountered a more broadly capable 1xCR123a flashlight and it is exclusively because of how great the beam is.
UI: 2
Clickies are so nice. Simple clickies are my second favorite UI (after the HDS Rotary’s clicky plus selector ring UI). This is brain dead simple and even the biggest flashlight Muggle could pick up the EDC1 and get the most out of it in a few minutes. I still don’t understand why we need more than this.
Hands Free: 1
Surefire’s steadfast commitment to tactical users over EVERYONE else has been one of the reasons the market has passed them by. Part of that commiment is their lights generally cannot tailstand. But releasing a compatiable tailcap that allows for tailstanding would be great. Or, how about offering an accessory, like Jason does with the Quark series of lights that converts them from non-tailstanding to tailstanding. Or how about designing a tactical switch that ALSO allows for tailstanding, like say, the clicky on the BOSS35. There are a lot of options here for incorporating one of the more useful features a light can have, but service to a small market means Surefire just doesn’t do this. And it is a shame. There are at least three easy solutions, two of which could generate money, and alas none of them are available. I also don’t think this light is great in the mouth, but it will never roll away.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Very Low
If you like smooth Mil Spec HA III then I guess this is fidget friendly, but for the rest of us, this is just a torch.
Fett Effect: Very Low
If you like tough Mil Spec HA III then you know this light won’t show where even if it was sent through a chipper shredder.
Value: Moderate
If you like high value Mil Spec…just kidding. This ain’t cheap, but when something has a unique function, it is hard to say it isn’t a good value.
Overall Score: 18 out of 20
Surefire’s moribund status among enthusiasts was hard earned over a decade of baffling torches. A $300 1xAAA weaponlight, completely missing the EDC trend but for one light, and failing to keep up with performance found on overseas stuff made me write off Surefire. But the EDC1-DFT proves that they weren’t dead, just sleeping. This is an outstanding torch. It is a bit idiosyncratic—the lack of tailstanding, for example—but even with those Surefire design tropes what you get here is one of the best lights on the market. It can do so much so well that you overlook its size and its stupid tailcap. The dual fuel flexibility makes all of this performance available even in a power outage. And the beam, my God, the beam…its supernal. By focusing so intensely on a part of flashlight design that can’t be overcome with sheer horsepower (or, in this case, computing power), Surefire has delivered a light with refinement that cheaper brands can’t match. Lots of lights are brighter, some throw farther, and many are smaller, but you won’t find something this small with a beam this good anywhere else. If you need something more than a tiny EDC torch, this really should be your first choice. And who says old dogs can’t learn new tricks?
Competition
There are dozens and dozens of lights that have throw heads. There are dozens and dozens of lights that run on 1xCR123a batteries. There are a smaller group that have resplendent beam patterns, but nothing combines these three quite like the EDC1. For example, the Maratac Mini Cosmos is smaller and has more throw (its a LEP, it will out throw pretty much any conventional light, but for something ridiculous). But its ultra-tight beam is pretty useless. And this is representative of the problem. Until the EDC1 it was throw, size, and beam quality, pick two. Now you get all three. Other than the Maratac, which gets you closest, there aren’t a lot of lights that are this good. If there is still a competitive edge in US manufacturing of flashlights its in the reflector. And here you have one of the best I have seen ever.
