Review: The Emisar D4

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The term pocket rocket has been taken to an entirely new level. Perhaps handheld hotrod?

Regardless of what you call it, the Emisar D4 is no joke. Although cute, and diminutive in it's size, this light is a wrecking ball against other lights in the handheld category. It punches well above it's weight and will take on bigger lights with ease.

I mainly compared this light to my Fenix TK15UE. which is a full blown tactical light, and is absolutely my go to light. I used the TK because it's the closest thing I have that's handheld that can even attempt to take the Emisar on. And although the Emisar completely wrecked my TK in startup brightness -- My TK won in the end. More on why in second.

Under the glass lens and Carclo optic is 4 Nichia 219's

So, I won't get all technical about this light. I will talk though, about it's two greatest assets: Initial output and the UI.
Initial output: 3500-3800 lumens, out of a light that fits in my hand.
The following is from Toykeeper, that had a big part of the creation of this monster
"LEDs: Nichia 219c 5000K
  • Lux: ~12.6 cd / 220 m
  • Min: 1.5 to 2.0 lm
  • Max: (measured at start, not at 30s)
    • 2128 lm (Efest 18350 @ 3.76V)
    • 2843 lm (Efest 18350 @ 4.18V)
    • 3517 lm (25R 18650 @ 4.17V)
    • 3826 lm (Efest 18650 @ 4.18V)"
That all said, I'm running the infamous LG chocolate bar 18650 batts, probably putting me in the middle of the 25R and Efest.

This may very well be the worlds brightest production, handheld light.

The UI!
So, if you're studying the diagram, this is all the options you have with one simple button. It's simply ahead of it's time and I think it's the new gold standard. The ramping is simply fantastic! I can go from real low, to medium, to retina wrecker in a few easy presses. 
I can check the voltage, I can tweak the thermal management of the light, it's just that awesome!

But with all things good, there are drawbacks.
Enter it's competition in this review...
Fenix TK15UE

The TK is no joke either, this light was made for battle, check my review on it @ 


So, on to the comparison beam shots between the two!



The Emisar really lighting it up!


The TK15UE fared OK. You can really see the hotspot. But the Emisar won this round.

100(ish) feet from that dozer, this is the Emisar


This is where the TK comes to life; distance. Hotspot is on that dozer and well defined. I will call this a draw.


The Emisar! Understand this: I'm 70+ feet from those trees, and those trees are over 60ft tall....


The TK. again, TK's love distance. But comparing the two...  I think the Emisar just wins it.


So, after seeing this? Who do you think won this round?

The Emisar did.
But here's something to ponder. The Emisar does exactly what it was designed to do, and that's to throw a wall of light, and my god it does it well!
But it can only do it for a minute or two. And it puckers out.

In all the above pictures the Emisar is at it's highest setting, and so is the Fenix. 

After about a minute the Emisar is so hot it makes you uneasy, and at about that same time the thermal regulation kicks in, and over the course of another minute or so, it drops like a rock. You can certainly click the turbo back in, but it will just keep throttling down, and it may even burn you at this point. If you continue to hammer the turbo feature you may only get 15 minutes of runtime out of a 18650 battery before the light essentially shuts down to voltage protection.

The Fenix on the other hand will net you two hours of accumulated turbo time. After 5 minutes or so the Fenix will drop a tad, then jump back up, over and over. For two hours.
And although it's warm, it's certainly not scary warm.

On it's medium setting the Fenix can go on a nice, even, constant 350 lumens for over 5 hours. And over 13 hours at 150 lumens (using 3400mAh batts)
On the Emisar I'm just not sure. It just gets hot and seems to stay hot.

Summary: 

The Emisar is a fire breathing demon of a light, it's a beast that is ahead of it's time.
But, it's a hotrod. I look at this light as something that WILL NOT go on patrol with me. But if I'm walking the dog, or blowing the minds of my friends with it? You bet.
I can't trust my life on this light. It uses unprotected cells, it's not certified with any kind of an IPX rating for waterproofness and dust proofness.  Although it's made of aluminum, can it withstand the beating my lights take? How will it handle three days in a backpack at 0F?

Until I'm proven otherwise, I'd bet it can't. 

I'm sure I can get several hours of lower useable light from the Emisar, but the thing just makes me nervous!
So, it's a fun light, that is a beast. But it has drawbacks.
Although I'm a Fenix Lighting Ambassador, and very partial to Fenix. I really tried to give this light a fair shake, and I hope I did. 

Check this beast out at @ 

and the mighty TK15UE @ 


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