LED Lenser P17 Review

LED Lenser P17 – 4 1/2 stars

Summary

This bright, well made, simple, large handheld torch is highly recommended. With that impressive headline spec. of 1,000 lumens for 15 hours, this torch is an easy recommendation as a house torch.

It feels good in the hand and is good looking. It won’t embarrass you in terms of design aesthetics sat on a shelf.

Extremely well engineered, LED Lenser have kept it simple, no strobe or SOS, just turn it on and it works.

Brightness

1,000 lumens for 16 hours puts this torch up there, compared to other 3D torches in terms of spec. Strictly speaking, that headline should be 400 lumens for 50 hours (which is impressive enough!) because the 1,000 lumens brightness is a boost, but because the boost isn’t related to a thermal cutout limitation like other torches’ turbo modes, we make an exception here.

In the photo below, with the beam set to spot, the white building (The Plow pub) 100m away is very brightly illuminated, due to the efficiency of the variable beam mechanism, with almost no flood in spot mode. The village sign on the right is not visible at all.

Useful for

A classic house torch. Using regular (not rechargeable) batteries, you can leave it in a drawer till you need it and it’ll work. I wouldn’t leave it rolling around in a truck door pocket or storage bin because that on/off button protrudes so much and doesn’t have a lock mode.

At 785 grams, I might not hike with it, but I’d definitely take it glamping. At night you can see objects a long way off with that very tight spot beam. And in it’s regular mode of 400 lumens for 50 hours it’ll last many nights on one set of batteries.

With just IPX4 (splashes) rating, it’s not particularly waterproof, though not many torches with variable beam have high waterproof ratings, so not for the muddiest environments.

Notable features

The protruding on/off button is easy to locate without looking.

The flood to spot beam control on the LED Lenser P17 is particularly efficient, meaning it has a very tight spot on full spot that can brighten objects a long way off and a very wide flood on full flood. Not all handheld torches allow you to switch from flood to beam, so this is a useful feature.

Just 3 brightness settings in the big LED Lenser P17:

• Boost: 1,000 lumens for 15 hours
• Med: 400 lumens for 50 hours
• Low: 100 lumens for 300 hours

To access medium and low, turn on the torch with either 1 click or 2 clicks. Whilst on, hold switch down for boost.

Design

The LED Lenser P17 is a beautifully made product. It’s handsome and it feels good in the hand. The head never rattles as you extend and contract it to change the beam between flood and spot, and it has a nicely damped mechanical action.

Curiously, to use the brightest setting – ‘boost’ as LED Lenser calls it – you need to keep the button pressed down with your finger continuously. When your finger comes off, the brightness reduces (or turns off). That’s actually inconvenient! But thinking about it, if that’s deliberate then it’s a clever way of keeping users in the slightly less bright, but longer runtime, 400 lumens mode. I wonder if it really is deliberate.