Review - Nextorch TL1 weapons light.

(This product provided by the manufacturer for review.)


Nextorch came out with their first weapons light a little while back and were kind enough to let me review one.
Nextorch as a company has been around for a few years and have produced some pretty sophisticated flashlights, with USB interfaces and almost complete programmability.
With their first weapons light, the TL1, Nextorch erred on the side of caution and stuck with a dead-simple interface. I personally consider this to be a pretty good move, as dead-simple when it comes to weapons handling is almost always a good thing.

This review is going to be mostly video-based, but we'll start with the specs from Nextorch.

• Bulb: LED
• Output: 200 lumens
• Runtime: 80 mins
• Battery: 1 x CR123A
• Distance: 100m
• Material: Aerospace grade aluminum 6061-T6
• Finish: Type III Hard-anodized
• Dimensions: 0.85"/21.5mm
• Weight: 2.65oz/75g

Pretty straight forward. One level of output, no strobe, no SOS, nothing extraneous. Momentary and constant on. That alone would make a lot of users quite happy. The weight is also exceedingly nice, at not even 3 oz. That's the beauty of a single-cell light. Note that most other single-cell pistol lights on the market aren't even close to putting out 200 lumens. And as for the output, it's largely flawless. Nicely defined hotspot with a wide spillbeam. You really light up a room with this. 

Let's move on to the video portion. 

The latter of the two videos is a short demonstration of the TL1 being used at night. It does an admirable job and I had no issues with functionality at all. It is also light enough that it doesn't significantly alter the feel of the weapon. 

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the video portion, all is not roses. The TL1 does have some flaws, and they are not insignificant. 

Primarily, the battery issue needs to be addressed. That's just a non-starter. 

The switch could use a little bit of attention as well. I'd like to see a more positive return to the starting position and having the switch be sealed against environmental factors would be desirable. It should also, preferably, be user-serviceable. 

The mount works very well and should adapt to even out-of-spec rail systems, but the adjustment screw sticks out rather far and I'll probably end up filing that down some. It seems very prone to snagging. 

 Now, that all being said, the functionality is good and so is the performance. Fix the above mentioned issues and Nextorch will have a VERY capable performer on their hands. Especially at the price point. Which brings me to a minor correction. In the video I mentioned a price of around a 100 dollars. I've seen these several places online for about 70 dollars, which is a very good price. However, as long as the battery issue persists, I really can't recommend this light.