A Look at the Fenix E41

One light, four common batteries, 1000 lumens.

As I mentioned before, I like Fenix lights and lately I've been leaning towards their AA flashlights. AA batteries are widely available, affordable and such a common battery. At home, I have tons of them. Cameras, game controllers and various electronics are all powered by this cell so at any given time I have several rechargeable AAs powered up and ready to go. Faced with an emergency, big or small, I am pretty much guaranteed to have some on hand. It's a compromise, in a sense, but a light with working batteries is better than one without. Even in a worse case scenario I can round up 2-4 AA batteries simply by emptying a few remote control devices at home, guaranteed.

Naturally, the Fenix E41 has caught my eye. Simple design, single switch and a maximum output of 1000 lumens...a la 4 AA batteries. No clumsy plastic battery holder, either. The 4 cells drop right in. The flashlight features 4 modes:

Burst mode - 1000 lumens
High - 400 lumens
Mid - 140 lumens
Low - 20 lumens

Run times are quite efficient, but vary based on battery type: On high expect 2-5 hours, on low Fenix claims 80+ hours. How's that throw, you ask? 300 yards (or if you prefer 902 feet or even 275 meters, for the sake of clarity). CandlePowerForums has a nice comparison demo of the beam. Here's the Fenix compared to the NiteCore EA41 and EagleTac TX25C2:

The throw of all 3 lights is impressive, but the Fenix has a nice wide beam and a good tint. The NiteCore isn't bad either, but neither compare as far as spill. The EagleTac kind of has an odd tint to me, I definitely prefer the other two lights in that regard.

Here's another look with a different backdrop. While they all look good, the Fenix really excels in terms of flood. The EagleTac looks a bit better here, and has a nice even spread.

Overall, a good comparison of the beams of 3 great lights. It doesn't look like you can go wrong with any of them. However, my current preference right now is a bright, floody 4xAA light. In that respect, the E41 looks like a winner.

For now, it's definitely leading the way as far as my next light purchase.