Olight S30R III Baton Review

Olight S30R III Baton – 5 stars

Summary

The Olight S30R III Baton is possibly the single most useful torch I have ever carried. Small, light and bright enough with 500 lumens for 3 1/2 hours (1,050 lumens on turbo), it also has a tough IPX8 rating.

I carried this torch for 2 years in my commuting laptop backpack and forgot it was there, it’s so small and light. It unobtrusively fits in a jeans or jacket pocket and I’ve also taken it camping where I was able to read in complete darkness with the torch in it’s ultralow 0.5 lumen mode, a brightness it can sustain for months!

A light, feature-rich, modern miracle, the Olight S30R III Baton is one of my most recommended torches.

Brightness

The maximum sustainable brightness of the S30R III Baton is 500 lumens for 3 1/2 hours (without thermal cut-out). The first photo below, taken on Datchworth Green, is at 500 lumens, the second in the torch’s 1,050 lumens turbo mode. The village sign on the right 10 metres away is clearly visible on both, but the white building (The Plough pub) about 100 metres away is less clearly visible in the first photo, highlighting the limitations of the S30R III Baton’s maximum sustainable brightness of 500 lumens. Beam distance will always be a little shorter due to the generous flood of this torche’s fixed beam.  

For it’s size, accepting that limitation, I’ve still found this torch at least adequate whenever I’ve used it, the turbo mode pushing it well in to our ‘useful torch’ range (600 to 1,000 lumens) when required.

Useful for

It’s small and unobtrusive dimensions define the usefulness of the Olight S30R III Baton. Straddling 2 torch categories – ‘handheld torches’ and ‘small torches’ – this torch is a true ‘every day carry’. As well as keeping one in my commuting laptop backback for 2 years, I took it on a few weekends away. I remember walking about a mile in the pitch black from a pub in Grasmere back to our hotel, across some fields and the unlit A591. Glad of the occasional burst of turbo mode to see across the field to where the path exit was, it kept us safe and on the right path, literally.

I’ve also taken this torch camping. It’s IPX8 rating means it can take a knock and survive a dunking in water. It also has a useful, ultralow 0.5 lumens mode, enough to read in a pitch black tent, with almost no impact on battery life.

Notable features

The fixed beam of the Olight S30R III Baton is split between a quite generous flood and a still discernable spot, a good achievement considering the tiny head of this torch.

I used the 1,050 lumens turbo mode quite a lot when I carried this torch, but only for a few seconds at a time, and it didn’t warm up significantly. The maximum sustainable brightness of 500 lumens is a little below our defined ‘600 to 1000 lumens’ definition of a useful general purpose torch, but it rarely felt inadequate.

It charges form Olight’s neat USB tailcap magnetic charger. A charging LED in the magnetic tailcap shows red when charging, then green when charged.

Tip: Don’t forget the tailcap charger when you go away, as it’s proprietary to Olight and you can’t charge without it.

There is also a useful timer function, where you can set the torch to turn off after 3 or 9 minutes, though I can’t think what I’d use it for!

With the torch on, double click & hold the button, releasing after the single blink for the 3 minute timer to start, or releasing after the double blink for the 9 minute timer to start.

The S30R III Baton has a generous 7 functions: 5 brightness levels:

• Turbo: 1,050 lumens for 2 mins (access turbo by double clicking)
• High: 500 lumens for 3 1/5 hours
• Mid: 120 lumens for 15 hours
• Low: 12 lumens for 130 hours
• Ultralow: 0.5 lumen for 100 days

With the torch off, press and hold the button for just over a second to activate the ultralow brightness.

With the torch on, holding the button down cycles through the high/mid/low brightness settings.

To access strobe, triple click the button when the torch is on.

Design

Olight products are thoughtfully designed. The pocket clip has an extra bump 3/4 of the way up the clip to further pinch your pocket, holding the torch in place more securely.

Visually, there’s not much you can do to a torch that’s barely bigger than the battery inside it, although Olight’s selective use of blue and the magnetic tailcap ensure that it looks unmistakably Olight.

In terms of usability, accessing all that functionality from the Olight S30R III Baton’s single button was always going to require some effort to get the hang of, so it’s a more concerted read of instructions to get the hang of it.