Weltool Flashlights

Every Weltool light listed here uses a laser-excited phosphor (LEP) source rather than an LED, and that is the reason to shop the brand. Weltool, which trades from Dalian in northeast China, makes LED handhelds, headlamps and weaponlights for police, military, rescue and forestry users too, but outside China it is known for compact LEP throwers. An LEP puts nearly all of its few hundred lumens into a narrow column, so these lights reach farther than LED lights many times their output and light almost nothing to either side.

The W3 Pro, now discontinued, is the oldest of the four, a 21700 thrower whose 505 lumens reach 1,205 meters. The W3Pro TAC replaces it with 930 lumens and 547,500 cd for 1,479 meters, a forward tail switch with half-press momentary, and a cell that carries its own USB-C port. The W3Pro TAC Mini puts the same module on an 18350 at 129 mm and 28 minutes on high, and its cell charges by micro-USB. The W15 is the smallest, 116 mm on an 18350 with an 18650 body sold separately, at 420 lumens and 1,193 meters. None of the four charges in the light.

Weltool gives LEP products two years against defects, compared with five for its LED lights, and excludes battery leakage, normal wear and damage from outside force. Lights bought outside Weltool or its authorized dealers are not covered.

W3 Pro owners say measured candela matched the published figure almost exactly and praise the anodizing and knurling. They also warn that unscrewing the tailcap often turns the head off instead, and that 505 lumens in a beam with almost no spill is useless for walking a trail or lighting a campsite. That holds for every light here: an LEP is a second light for spotting at distance, not the only one in the pack.