It seems silly, but at the last hot pepper eating contest, someone showed up with a new (insanely hot) pepper, even more excruciating than anything before.
This is how the world of high-lumen flashlights works as well.
One brand launches a new flashlight with an unbelievable lumen count, and then another brand tops it a few months later. I’m not complaining; I just wonder if there’s an end in sight.
Case in point: Acebeam just released its X75. This $420 full-size handheld flashlight boasts the ability to put out up to 80,000 lumens of bright white light. Supposedly, it’s the second most powerful flashlight on the planet (number one happens to be the Imalent SR32, already reviewed by GearJunkie).
In layman’s terms, the maximum output on the X75 is equivalent to “25 sets of car headlights on the high beam”.
Acebeam also claims that the X75 is the “brightest powerank flashlight.” With a built-in 14.4V, 4,250mAh rechargeable Li-ion battery, I have no doubt that’s true. But in all reality, a flashlight that can charge my iPhone without any supporting statistics is a win/win in my book without the accolades.
I’ve spent the last month lighting up the night while pissing off owls and my neighbors with the X75. However, in my adventures with it, being conservative in choosing your light setting and reserving the power bank for emergencies only can keep you illuminated well past the manufacturer’s claims.
In short: Acebeam’s X75 functions incredibly well as a flashlight. It’s also pretty impressive as a power bank for smaller electronics like smartphones. I won’t say that the X75 falls short in performing either task; if you want the battery to last a night, you may eventually need to decide if you want it to be a flashlight or a power bank. The X75 cannot be both for prolonged periods of time.
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Dimensions
6.93” x 3.62” x 5” -
Weight
2 lbs., 7 oz. -
Battery
4,250 mAh / 86,000 Li-ion (4x 21,700 Li-ion Batteries) -
LEDs
12x CREE, 50,000-hour lifespan -
Charging
USB-C -
IP Protection
IP68 -
Price
$420 -
Settings
Ultra-Low; Low; Med1; Med2; High; Turbo; Strobe -
Runtime
28 min.-8 hr., 20 min. -
Distance
147-1,150 m
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It’s a flashlight and a power bank -
Color-changing heat indicator -
80,000 lumens is a great fun factor
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Charging port is in an inconvenient location under the cap -
The battery doesn’t last very long if you’re using high-lumen settings and the power bank feature
Acebeam X75 Flashlight Review
Design & Features
The Acebeam X75 is a full-size, fully submersible, handheld flashlight that uses four 21,700 Li-ion batteries to power its 12 50,000-hour CREE LED bulbs and its onboard power bank. With seven available light settings to choose from, the X75 can produce anywhere from 900 lumens to 80,000 lumens and can go a distance of 175 m to 1,150 m.
For my fellow American friends, that’s a distance between 574 feet and 3,773 feet — or 3/4 of a mile!
Made from machined aluminum, the X75 relies on a built-in air duct and onboard cooling fan to keep the unit cool when used in Turbo or Strobe modes. It also has a silicone collar that changes from black to light gray to indicate when the head of the unit gets too hot to touch.
For its streamlined operation, the flashlight is operated by two press buttons and a mechanical switch. The mechanical switch is designed to lock out the two buttons and keep the flashlight from turning on when tumbling around the back of your vehicle or in your pack. The main — or rear — button allows you to switch between output modes. The auxiliary — or front—button allows you to turn on Turbo mode momentarily.
The power bank feature uses the same USB-C outlet found under the rear cap that’s used to charge the X75. The battery inside is 4,250 mAh. Considering that the battery inside an iPhone 14 Pro is 3,200 mAh, you could charge that battery from being completely dead to 85% roughly twice with the power bank.
However, that’s if you don’t use the flashlight. Once you start using the X75 for both purposes, you start limiting the amount each feature can do. When it comes to recharging the X75, it supports up to 100W of input. At this rate, the flashlight can be fully recharged in an hour.
First Impressions
After reading my review of its Terminator M1, Acebeam reached out to me to see if there was anything else I would like to test. The brand recommended the X75 as one of the products I ought to mess around with. I agreed, but admittedly, I didn’t dive into its specifications until it arrived.
That said, I expected it to be a lot bigger. I was born in the 1980s. I come from a time when we had crummy plastic flashlights, the biggest of which took a 6V battery. A 6V battery is about the size of a 12-ounce aluminum can. Those things couldn’t light up an outhouse door at your average suburban summer camp from 10 feet away.
And though I realize there have been many technological advancements since I was a Guppy at Camp Thundermoon, you can’t fathom the size of the container that will hold something that can project 80,000 lumens until it’s sitting in front of you, shiny and new.
Color me surprised when the X75 showed up. It was the size of a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle, without the cap on, and with a protruding carry handle. It’s less than half the size I expected it to be. But it makes up for it in weight — at just over 2.5 pounds, this isn’t the flashlight any of you ultralight hikers and backpackers are going to be taking with you.
However, based on its compact size and incredible output, the X75 seems like an excellent choice for the flashlight you take off-roading, overlanding, ATVing, family camping, and on any excursions of that nature.
In the Field
Considering that the lowest setting on the X75 is more than double the highest output on my most powerful headlamp, you’ll probably freak some people and animals out if you take this flashlight on a night hike. However, after messing around with it during various activities ranging from tent camping to off-roading to exploring the great depths of the Green Mountain National Forest, I can tell you that its effectiveness as a flashlight is worth a standing ovation.
On the Ultra-Low setting, you will fill whatever is in front of you with ample light. This is great for setting up camp in a remote location or getting a better look at the trail ahead of you when driving offroad on trails and unimproved roads.
When you throw it into high gear and switch to Turbo mode, you can see everything clearly and without question. I’m not kidding, you can see the veins on leaves from 100 feet away. It’s almost absurd. But this isn’t the setting you’re going to be using on the regular.
When I used the X75 for nighttime tasks, I found myself using Med1 when I wasn’t using Low or Ultra-Low. Turbo is there as a wow factor function. The Strobe setting requires welding goggles to use.
This is probably a good time to bring up the power bank option. I think it’s odd that Acebeam positioned the USB-C plug underneath the rear cap, in the center of a set of factory-greased threads to keep that cap tightened. This isn’t an area folks should access that much.
If it were just for charging the batteries for the flashlight, it might make sense. But, when you’re using it to recharge your cellphone or another electronic device, you’re leaving those greased-up threads exposed to the elements. It could get messy.
All said, the bank itself did an excellent job of recharging a couple of iPhones and still having battery life left over to run the flashlight for the rest of the night.
If you consider that Ultra-Low can run for almost 8½ hours, if you charge an iPhone 14 Pro to 85%, you should expect 4-5 hours from the flashlight after the fact. However, after bringing my daughter’s iPhone 12 back from the dead so she could play Roblox one night, I could still get nearly 3 nights out of the flashlight.
If this were just a flashlight rated for that length of runtime, I wouldn’t think anything of it. After all, you’re not constantly running the light. But I was impressed at how little the impact on the battery that using it to charge the phone had.
On the flip side of the coin, I used the flashlight alone for a couple of nights, just on Turbo, off and on for various lengths of time throughout the night. By 11 p.m. on the second night, the battery was dead. If you’re running the X75 on a lower setting and using it to recharge your phone, you’re probably good for a few nights.
But, if you’re using the higher settings, you will want to reserve phone charges for emergencies because High and Turbo drink that battery juice up fairly quickly.
Regarding recharging the X75, Acebeam was spot on with its timing. I used a wall socket and a new embargoed 100W power bank to charge it with the appropriate USB-C PD 100W cable. The wall socket took 59 minutes, and the power bank was an exact hour.
So, What Does 80,000 Lumens Look Like?
The big thing you need to consider with any high-lumen flashlight is the difference between what’s right in front of you and what’s out there in the distance. The X75 is more of a flood light and a spotlight.
On the Ultra-Low, and Low settings, light blankets the surfaces of the areas around you. When you get into the Med1 and Med2 settings, the light penetrates those surfaces and gives you quite a bit of depth. These two settings offer crisp clarity in front of you while lighting up areas in the distance.
Things get a little weird when you get into that 80,000-lumen Turbo setting. The area right in front of you is flooded with light. It’s to the point where you lose some details in what you see and are left with shapes representing objects. However, out in the distance, everything is crisp and detailed.
It’s a strange juxtaposition that makes complete sense. There’s just so much light that it saturates the area. Once the light beam can be pushed out the farthest distance, it’s not as intense and finds some semblance of balance.
I recommend you try it out for yourself. It messes with your head as if we’re not wired to compute things that grandiose.
Overall
The X75 is an overbuilt illumination solution that can charge your smaller electronics. In testing, my operating times exceeded what Acebeam posted on the product’s webpage. But those times got a little iffy when I started using the higher settings and charging cellphones.
Though Acebeam claims the X75 could recharge a laptop, you’re not going to get a full charge on its own, let alone if you’re also using it as a flashlight as well.
So, my recommendation would be to be conservative and realistic. You really don’t need to be operating past the Med1 setting for prolonged periods of time. That said, is this flashlight something you should invest in? Sure. If you have the extra money, you can’t go wrong.
I think the X75 is a great tool to have in your off-roading, overlanding, ATVing, and family camping toolkit. It also would perform quite well as the flashlight you rely on at home or if you Airbnb at a remote cabin somewhere where there’s little to no light pollution. It’s durable, reliable, easy to use, and will come in handy in a jam.
In the end, I really enjoyed my experiences with the X75 and look forward to many more. However, my neighbors, the owls, and the planes flying overhead would probably prefer it if I left it on a shelf and forgot about it.
