Zebralight Flashlights

Zebralight works from a PO box in Southlake, Texas, and its copyright line goes back to 2007. It makes a small range: a few 18650 and 21700 tubes, AA lights, and a family of right-angle headlamps, often sold as near-identical pairs that differ only in tint or beam. The product pages read like datasheets, listing every level in lumens with its runtime, the beam angles, and the cell the light expects. The SC70 page, for example, lists sealed, potted driver circuitry and PID thermal regulation on its four highest levels.

The headlamps are the better-known half. The H600 Mk IV comes as the spot-beam H600d and the frosted, floodier H600Fc, while the H604d drops the reflector for a pure 120-degree flood. The A6 at $59 is the cheapest way in and ships with its 18650. Among the handheld lights, the SC65c HI is the small 18650 model with a domeless Nichia, the SC600w Mk IV Plus HI the brighter 18650, and the SC70 and SC700d HI move to 21700 cells, with the SC700d HI at $139 the most output in the range. Three lights listed here have left the range: the SC64c LE, SC64w HI and H604c, replaced by the SC65c HI, SC600w Mk IV Plus HI and H604d.

The SC70 and H604d call for a flat-top unprotected cell and do not include one, so budget for cells and a charger. Zebralight's written warranty is 12 months from purchase with proof, covering repair or replacement of defective parts.

What Zebralight leaves out is what its owners prize. SC64c LE owners call the missing USB port and turbo features rather than gaps, because the light is smaller, lighter and very efficient at the levels people use. H600Fc owners describe the tint as remarkably even, and H604c owners say a reflector-free flood with high color rendering shows texture a hotspot flattens. The criticisms are consistent too: the click-count interface frustrates until learned, the Mk IV's thermal control is considered weaker than the Mk III's, the H600Fc's battery tube will not take every 18650, and the pogo-pin contact can dent flat-top cells if the light is knocked over.