Wuben X0 Review | Unusual Compact EDC

Disclaimer: This flashlight was send to me by Wuben free-of-charge for review. I don’t earn any money from the sale of Wuben products.

Table of contents:

Intro

Wuben’s X series line-up has introduced a lot of square-shaped flashlights into the market. It’s no different with the X0. It’s a right-angle, 18350 flashlight with a clip, magnet and integrated charging behind the switch cover. Let’s see how it performs!

Price and versions

The Wuben X0 is available in aluminum, titanium and brass. There are also many color options.
This review will focus on the white aluminum version with a LH351D emitter.

Website link: https://www.wubenlight.com/?ref=grzybek (tracking link)*

* – Tracking link disclaimer

I don’t earn money from the sale of Wuben’s products. The link has an “ref” at the end, so that Wuben can track sales and clicks coming from my review.

There are often discounts available, thought.
Wuben has given me a 20% discount code to share with you:
aff20

Packaging and contents

The package contains:

• Wuben X0
• Manual
• Charging cable
• 2 spare o-rings
• 2 spare screws

I was surprised to find spare screws included. After some thought I realized that if I were to lose a screw while taking the clip off, a spare screw would be quite welcome indeed.

Shape and ergonomics

The X0 is a right angle 18350 flashlight, with the switch at the top.
The body design reminds me of a spaceship… or a LEGO brick 🙂

The body feels well made.
It can be held in a few different ways.

Retention and carry

The X0 has a clip that’s screwed onto the body.

The clip is quite stiff, which makes it difficult to clip in and out of the pocket, but that also prevents it from slipping out of the pocket or unclipping from e.g. a shirt or a backpack.

Here’s my slightly goofy attempt at showcasing this on video:

The X0 has a surprisingly strong magnet. It has no problem sticking horizontally to a metal surface.

Size and comparison

The X0 measures:

Length	57mm
Width	28mm
Height	24.5mm
Weight	82g w/ battery

Comparison to other lights:

Lumintop FWAA | Emisar D4V2 w/ 18350 tube | Wuben X0 | Sofirn HS10 | Convoy T3

Emisar D4V2 | Convoy S2+ | Wuben X0 | Sofirn HS10

Wuben X1 | Wuben X2 | Wuben X3 | Wuben X0

Switch and UI

The X0 has a switch similar to the X2, it’s quite a unique design. It’s a metal cover/flap that actuates the switch when pressed.

It also protects the USB-C port from dust. Wuben claims the X0 to be IP68 rated, meaning it’s protected against water and dust.

After some use, the flap may create a dark line on the white oxidization. I doubt it will happen on other color options as the white oxidization generally wears down faster.

Here’s the UI explained in the manual:

Mode programming and mode brightness reset

The UI also features mode brightness configuration. You can modify the brightness of each mode to match your preference. Sadly, we can’t modify the amount of modes like in Anduril UI, but this is better than nothing by a large margin.
Each mode can be adjusted in a brightness bracket (as seen below):

How to reset mode brightness:
When the flashlight is locked, single click the button–interval 0.5s–double click the button–interval 0.5S–triple click the button, the flashlight is reset to Low mode, indicating that button lock is released, and brightness is reset to default.

What I like about the UI:

• The UI is quite simple and easy to remember. 4 modes in the main group with a hold to switch modes, click for on/off, neat.
• Has a moonlight mode with a shortcut from OFF. Not sub-lumen, but I’m glad they included it. About as bright as a dual-channel Emisar D4V2/D4K’s moonlight.
• Mode brightness configuration is great to have.

What I don’t like:

• From OFF, a double click goes to strobe, but from ON, it goes to turbo. This could be a bit confusing, as in other flashlights a double click from any state usually activates turbo. I’d prefer for a triple click to go to strobe and leave the double click for turbo.
• If I were to nit-pick, I’d also suggest for moonlight not to be in the main mode group, only available through the “hold from OFF” shortcut, but still have the ability to go to the main mode group from moonlight.

Emitter and beam

My version of the Wuben X0 uses the Samsung LH351D led. I measured it to be around 4500K.

Opple Light Master measurments:

Beam shape:

Candela/lumen ratio explanation

A good way to determine the beam profile of a flashlight is to divide its candela (cd) by the lumens (lm) it produces. In return, we will get the cd/lm ratio. Here’s an approximate scale of what those values mean:

• 0.1 cd/lm: light bulb
• 1-3: flooder
• 5-15: balanced EDC-style beam
• 30: compact thrower
• 100: dedicated thrower
• 500+: extreme thrower
• 10000: laser

X0 has 4.5 cd/lm, which means it’s on the wide/balanced. The hotspot itself is quite focused, but the spill is really wide, pretty much reaching 180 degrees.

Beamshots and comparison

Below I will compare the X0’s beam to other flashlights.

Runtimes and measurements

Here are the X0’s specifications given by the manufacturer:

Mode	Candela	Throw (ANSI)	Estimated perceived range*
Turbo @ 0s	3600cd	120m	40m-60m
Turbo @ 30s	1225cd	70m	23m-45m

* – Explanation

The throw/range of a flashlight is defined by the ANSI FL1 standard. It says that a flashlight’s range is how far it will light up a surface to 0.25lux, which is about as bright as full moon.
This most of the time isn’t bright enough to actually see what you’re shining on, so I added in an estiamte to what you can expect the maximum range of the flashlight to be.

Runtime details

Turbo: The Wuben X0 start decreasing brightness at 10 seconds and then stops at 30 seconds on 235lm. Then it shines up until 2:08:00 where it shuts off due to drained battery. The stepdown is timed and isn’t affected by the temperature of the flashlight.

High: Stable output of 200lm until 2:37:00 where the battery is drained.

I was quite surprised to see such a quick stepdown on Turbo, mostly because other reviewers measured Turbo to last up to a minute.

I contacted Wuben on this issue and I was informed that the Turbo stepdown has been adjusted due to Customer feedback about the lens burning up (I’m guessing burning up when e.g. the flashlight turned on in a pocket).

I am not a big fan of this change, as the X0 doesn’t even have a chance to heat up before the stepdown, but I can understand why such a change was made.

To clarify my measurements are correct and that my X0 isn’t faulty, I was send a second X0. I confirmed it to perform the same way.

Turbo unusual PWM behaviour

When I turn on Turbo, I can hear a faint high pitched noise (about 15kHz), most probably won’t be able to hear it. This usually happens when a flashlight is using PWM for brightness control.

I tested it with the Opple Light Master and sure enough there was an extremly fast PWM on Turbo:

Now I’m not sure why it happens. The PWM isn’t visible to the human eye, nor to a camera.

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To test the regulation of the driver, below I compared Turbo brightness when turned on with a fully charged battery and then when turned on with an empty battery.

Here I also compared the Wuben X0 to the Sofirn HS10:

I didn’t expect the HS10 runtime to be so.. short, so I tested the 16340 cell the HS10 comes with. Turns out it only has 658mAh of capacity (lower than the advertised 800mAh), which explains such poor runtimes. X0 uses a 18350 1100mAh cell which I tested at 1115mAh, neat.

Battery and charging

The X0 is charged with a USB-C port under the switch flap.

The indicator light will shine red when charging and then blue when fully charged.

The Wuben X0 uses a 18350 1100mAh cell.
By design, the cell isn’t supposed to be taken out of the body, but it can be done without much effort. Opening up the flashlight and replacing the cell might void warranty.

To unscrew the tailcap, it’s best to use split ring pliers. I didn’t have them, so I used standard pliers, which sadly resulted in some scratches on the tailcap.

Manual and warranty

Imgur Album: here

Competition

• Sofirn HS10 – Less expensive, rubber headband, smaller battery, lighter, worse driver, clip-on clip, longer lasting turbo
• Skilhunt H04RC Mini – Similar price, great plastic headband, magnetic charging, clip-on clip, dimmer turbo, higher sustained output, slightly smaller, lighter
• Skilhunt H150 – 14500 right-angle headlamp, similar price, magnetic charging, ability to use 14500 and AA alkaline cells, thinner and longer, shorter runtime, slightly higher sustained output, dimmer but longer lasting turbo
• Wuben H5 – 14500 right-angle headlamp, similar price, longer, unique headband, charging integrated into battery, ability to use 14500 and AA alkaline cells, slightly shorter runtimes, dimmer

Pros & Cons

+ Pretty host, looks like a spaceship
+ Great runtimes
+ Simple UI with programmable modes
+ Screwed-on clip
+ Strong magnet
+ Cell can be replaced with another standard 18350 cell
+ Different materials are available
+ High Cri emitter available

+/- Not the slimmest flashlight in a pocket
+/- Beam shape might not be ideal for everyone

– The cell requires a tool to take out and doing so might void warranty
– Can’t be used as a headlamp (not that it is one anyway)
– Stiff clip makes it hard to clip in and out of a pocket
– Short runtime on turbo, doesn’t utilize the full extent of available thermal mass
– Scratches and marks are more visible on the white color option.

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Conclusion

The Wuben X0 introduces something new to the market. I really like the strong magnet. The UI is quite easy to use, you can even modify each modes’ brightness. The body design is creative. I’m not quite keen on the clip, it’s a bit stiff for me and I just end up not using it. The flappable switch cover is a neat, adds to the design.

I’m personally not a big fan of the 18350 format, but the X0 sure is a great option if you don’t mind some of it’s caveats. There are many that really like it and for a good reason.

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