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ANY chance of the option of choosing stock M-L-H as an option? Anyone with a sample tail wanna trade for a production tail when this comes out! :P
In situations where I just need a very little amount of light (searching something in the tent at night, looking after the kids when they are in bed etc.), I don't need/want more light output than L. But when I need a brighter light, it costs me a fraction of a second.
M-L-H may kill your night vision (more easily than L-M-H), I hate that. Apropos night vision: An additional red-light-mode would be great...
I "get" that it saves your night vision and saves battery, and that self-identified "flashlight enthusiasts" seem to want to chase lower and higher extremes. But that doesn't excite me. There's enough light bleed from neighbors' porch lights bleeding in through my bedroom window that, combined with memory, I can stand up and walk to the bathroom without feeling around. I'd be halfway to the door by the time I fumbled on the nightstand for my flashlight and mustered the dopamine-reduced dexterity to twist a flash head or push a tiny tailcap button. No, where I need a flashlight is when I drop a MicroSD in a bus; I needed to overpower the twilight-level (probably 3 lumens) running light in the bus so that I had enough contrast to see the nail-sized chip wasn't on the floor, and move around everything in my backpack till I found the MicroSD card at the bottom of the pack under all the wires, plastic boxes, and underwear I had in there. Night vision moments are not the situation I need a flashlight at all, with the exception of working as an astronomer (I'm not) or if I'm reading a paper map or book as a car passenger (both of which I do on my phone these days anyway).
So, where I agree with Richfile, is it's annoying to have my least-used setting show up in the way before I can get to a practical amount of light. It's not that it takes too much time to switch modes, the annoyance is your first interaction is almost never what you want or need. And for me, I need somewhere between 15 and 20 lumens every day. I've gotta look at things like charger and headphone ports, I want directed light inside of packs, to see behind bookcases, entertainment centers, and computers, and maybe I'll wonder "what is that?" on the road or path. High mode lets me see further up the path, and illuminate a broader area at once.
Now, maybe the 5 lumen low of the Cree bulb in this drop is a bright enough low to do those close range things and have excellent battery runtime, in which case Low might actually be useful to me. But if it's perceptively as low as the low mode on my Olight i3s (my currently most used flashlight, despite having a beautiful Olight Baton Mini in brass), then it'll be my least used brightness and almost useless.
For a light that (as far as I am aware) does not appear to have a half click, any mode but the non extreme mode as startup makes little sense to me. Props to Evshrug for saying it WAY better than I can right now.
Wishlist time! •Click once to get 15 lumen floody beam •Click and hold to get max lumen, around 100-120 lumen for brief longer distance illumination. •Click-click-click for a nightlight, maybe 1-3 lumens. •Excellent regulation and runtime on the modest 15 lumen mode. •Reversable clip for pocket and hat brim •Not a keychain, but still would like a chain attachment point to connect a small knife (like a Spyderco Ladybug or SAK Manager) or other tools (Paperclip? Lol, but seriously those things are handy) •Brass body, because smooth screw threads/heat dissipation/anti-microbial properties, but also because it's cool looking and fondle worthy. •Glow in the dark green or blue ring around the lens... I guess while we're wishing, wouldn't it be awesome if it was a Tritium filled ring, like Timex watches? •AAA is fine, bountiful, and easy to buy or charge. My Olight doesn't interfere at all when clipped to the edge of my pocket, much more accessible and less cumbersome there than on my chunky car keys. •Rain and Snow-proof, shoulder-to-floor drop-proof.
Did I leave anything out? Pair that with a Swiss Army Knife Manager except put a Spyderco hole on the knife blade (and maybe VG-10, but keep the slip-joint and thin profile), and right there would be my total ideal urban EDC.