Coast HP10R Review

Coast HP10R – 4 stars

Summary

I recommend this Coast HP10R. It’s adjustable beam has a usefully narrow spot beam, it comes with a 2nd rechargeable battery and can even recharge your smartphone!

With it’s headline spec. of 1,050 lumens for 6 hours on one charge of it’s rechargeable battery, the Coast HP10R is an exceptionally useful torch to own. It can also be powered by 4 x AAA batteries using the battery compartment cradle supplied (at the less bright 675 lumens for just 1 hour).

Not the prettiest of torches, it’s a big old chunk of metal, has a great spec. and is easy to live with.

Brightness

The maximum brightness of the Coast HP10R is 1,050 lumens. The first photo below, taken on Datchworth Green, is with no torch, the second with the HP10R with it’s variable beam set to spot. The village sign on the right 10 metres away is visible due to the spot setting still having some flood despite having enough focus on the spot to making sure the white building (The Plough pub) about 100 metres away is clearly visible.

This torch is bright enough for most applications, and has a lower powered setting to stretch battery life, but not an ultra low brightness setting like most other torches. It will also sustain it’s brightest setting of 1,050 lumens for all 6 hours with no thermal cutout.

Useful for

The Coast HP10R is a very capable allrounder. A useful torch to use in both urban and rural environments, I’d also take it camping due to it’s long rechargeable battery life along with it’s spare battery. Adding to it’s usefulness is the dual power option.

Although a touch heavy for my commuting laptop backpack, I could quite possibly see myself in the pub or on the train after work using the HP10R to charge my iPhone.

Notable features

The spot setting (head pushed out) of the spot to flood beam control, is a nicely judged, narrow beam but with just enough flood to keep the user aware of what’s going on in the periphery. The full flood setting gives a completely even spread of light from the centre to outside of the flood beam. Usefully, the beam can be changed with one hand. Twisting the head clockwise locks it in position with a satisfying little click.

There is a micro USB charging socket built in to the tail of the torch. The rechargeable battery also be charged outside of the torch as the battery has it’s own micro USB charging socket. The HP10R ships with 2 rechargeable batteries, which is useful, as they are proprietary to Coast. But you can also use 4 x AAA batteries to power the Coast HP10R using the supplied battery cradle.

The torch also has a USB socket that can be used as a power bank to charge a smartphone. Very useful!

The HP10R has just 3 functions: high, low & strobe.

• High: 6 hours on 1,050 lumens
• Mid: 11 hours on 230 lumens

Design

Coast have not made a great effort to make this torch attractive looking. Although, to be fair, most people won’t care with this specification. But many will.

But design isn’t just about looks. The ridge at the bottom of the head makes it easy to push the beam out to spot or pull back to flood with your thumb, enabling single-handed operation.

In terms of usability, it’s 3 functions – high, low & strobe – are all easily available form the one button. No ‘function sets’ to figure out here. If I was being picky, I’d say that accessing the 3 functions with 1 click, 3 clicks or 5 clicks respectively, seems a little arduous. Couldn’t it be done it with 1 click, 2 clicks or 3 clicks?