Today I have in for review the second of two Coast lights. This is the Coast HP7R, a custom lithium ion or 4xAAA battery light. It’s a zoomie, and most importantly, has a very fetching orange color body. Read on for some testing and thoughts!

Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the official product page.

Versions

There’s only one version, but the body is available in orange (seen here), red, blue, black, and green.

Price

MSPR on this light looks to be $129, with a street price of $99. Possibly less, depending on which color you pick.

Short Review

I was unimpressed with the other Coast light I reviewed recently, and while this one is better overall, it’s still not one I can recommend. It’s too big, the UI is not feature rich enough, it’s overly complicated internally, … it’s a zoomie… and on top of all of that (which I could overlook except for this): It’s massively expensive.

Long Review

The Big Table

* Measurement disclaimer: I am an amateur flashlight reviewer. I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment. I test output and such in PVC tubes!! Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).

What’s Included

Coast HP7R Zoomie flashlight

AAAx4 battery caddy (including batteries)

Custom Liion battery (2)

Nylon pouch

Wall mount bracket

Belt mount bracket

Lanyard

Cigarette adapter for USB charging

Charging cable (USB to micro-USB)

Wall adapter for USB charging

Manual

Package and Manual

The box is very nicely printed. It’s a big box.

The manual is a bit short really, for all the accessories/features the light has. Also it doesn’t include any specs, which all seem to be on the box or other places in the package.

Build Quality and Disassembly

This is a big light. It’s not as big as the bigger brother Polysteel 600R, and is much more manageable for carrying, though. The size is understandable because of the 4xAAA support. Those cells organized that way take up a lot of space.

The body color is quite nice, but unfortunately (as is evident above) not all the parts match in color exactly.

The body of the light ships with various stickers here and there. One in particular perplexed me til just sitting here and writing. The sticker indicates the tailcap may be locked in some way. Well, what way? Turns out that when locked, the tailcap can be pulled away from the cell tube, revealing the charge port without having to remove the tailcap completely. This is a nice feature. There’s an o-ring in there to help with waterproofness when the tailcap is down (as seen below).

One thing I do like about the setup as far as zoomies go, is that this isn’t a twist zoomie. The head may be pulled directly out or pushed directly in with no twisting required, to zoom in or out. Below can be seen the extent of travel.

The tailcap is absolutely required to run this light. You’ll see the batteries later, but the batteries will not output energy without signals from these three fingers seen below. That’s a good safety feature for the batteries (but really thwarts testing of current, etc).

There are no springs on the head or tail. Both styles of battery pack to have springy terminals, though.

The body has anodized threads, too.

Size and Comps

The light is 15.6 cm long and weighs 204g (officially).

It’s not a small light, but that’s not necessarily a problem. It’s a good flashlight shape.

Retention and Carry

There are a number of carry options for the HP7R. First is the pouch, which is a typical pouch.

There is no pocket clip. The tailcap has a nice loop for the included lanyard.

There are two other mounts, too. Both friction mounts. One is a belt clip, and the other is wall mount.

Power and Runtime

The HP7R package includes all the possible options for powering the HP7R. First is a triple A option, which requires 4 cells.

The photo at left shows the springy terminals. And the photo at right shows the connections for the tailcap, which are required for the battery pack to work.

Also included is a liion battery pack, which is almost certainly a single 18650 cell. Onboard charging is included, and there’s a charge indicator, too.

As far as I can tell (and unlike the Polystell 600R), these two battery packs perform exactly the same.

I tested only one runtime, and that was with the rechargeable battery pack. The output didn’t hit the specification, and had a couple of stepdowns. The HP7R just ran and ran and ran at the lower output of around 90 lumens.

Because of the extended runtime, I stopped the test when it was around 10% of initial output. Also because there was no good way to test the light on my bench power, I wasn’t able to determine if there’s Low Voltage Protection.

The battery pack has built in charging, by micro-USB. The battery can be charge in or out of the light, and all modes work while charging inside the light.

Charging takes quite a long while, at under half an amp. But the profile in general looks pretty good.

Coast includes a wall wart capable of outputting 1A, but the light won’t utilize that rate. Also included (not pictured here) is a car cigarette lighter adapter.

Modes and Currents

Mode Mode Claimed Output (lm) Claimed Runtime Measured Lumens High (Liion) 300 7h 229 Low (Liion) 30 33h 30 High (AAA) 300 7h 230 Low (AAA) 30 33h 25

PWM

Both modes have PWM. It’s not so noticeable on High, but it’s present. PWM is extremely noticeable on Low.

Here’s a photo of the pwm in action – at 1/640s.

Below just out of curiosity (and notably on a different timescale!) is the Strobe.

For reference, here’s a baseline shot, with all the room lights off and almost nothing hitting the sensor. And here’s the worst PWM light I have ever owned. Also one of the very first lights I ordered directly from China!

User Interface and Operation

There’s a single button on the HP7R. It’s a mechanical forward clicky on the tailcap. The button is nicely dimpled, and has the Coast C logo. The forward clicky allows momentary in any mode.

Here’s a UI table!

State Action Result Off Click High High Click off then on Strobe Strobe Click off then on Low On Click Off

If the light isn’t operated for 5 seconds, the next cycle will be to High again.

And you read that right. To get to Low, you must go through Strobe.

LED and Beam

The emitter is unspecified for this light. It’s cool white though.

There’s a very interesting feature of the zoomie aspect, though. The head is a push pull type zoomie, but it can be twisted a 16th of a turn til it clicks, and the head will be locked in to any specific zoom level! That’s a feature I haven’t seen before, and it’s clever.

These beamshots are always with the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.

High first, then low. Zoomed out all the way first, then zoomed in all the way.

Tint vs BLF-348 (Killzone 219b version)

I compare everything to the Killzone 219b BLF-348, because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Conclusion

What I like

Clever zoomie feature with a locking head

Access to the micro-USB port without removing the tailcap

Push pull zoomie

Zoomie aspect is well focused (no picture of the LED on the wall!)

What I don’t like

Orange parts don’t match

Big

Expensive

Cool white

High Strobe Low

Seriously, High then Strobe then Low

The PWM is very bad

Notes

This light was provided by Coast for review. I was not paid to write this review.

This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!

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