Brinyte A01 Apollo Flashlight Review

The Brinyte A01 Apollo is an “EDC flashlight” offering a white main output with an RGB secondary option, serving mostly as a lantern. Read on!

Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the Brinyte A01 Apollo flashlight product page.

Versions

There’s just one version as far as I can tell.

Price

I can’t find the A01 for sale anywhere yet.  I would expect the price to be under $20, though.

Short Review

From just a fun standpoint, the Brinyte A01 Apollo is fairly fun.  The Red, Green, and Blue output makes this a fairly good lantern/toy, and something I wouldn’t mind handing to a kid to play around with.  I love that it can use an 14500 cell, and even gets an output bump when using one, but performance with an AA is good enough, too.

Long Review

The Big Table

^ Measurement disclaimer:  I am an amateur flashlight reviewer.  I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment.  I test output and such in PVC tubes!!  Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).

What’s Included

• Brinyte A01 Apollo Flashlight
• Lanyard
• Spare o-rings (2)
• Primary AA battery
• Manual and paperwork

Package and Manual

I love this little wax paper package for the spare o-rings.  So much better than those tiny zip-top baggies!!

Build Quality and Disassembly

Brinyte describes the A01 Apollo as “a practical and compact four-color EDC light.”  I couldn’t say I’d use this one for EDC, really; I’d probably consider it more of a keychain lantern style light.  Or just a colored lantern.

While the light looks wholly plastic, it’s not actually – the flashlight bits are aluminum and they have a clear plastic sleeve.  I think the metal-looking part (the “front” of the light) is aluminum too. That’s great for heat management, though this light isn’t driven hard anyway.

I should note that I did flip the little blue ring.  It made more sense from my vantage point to have the text legible when the light was headstanding.  However that might be “backward” (or “upside-down”) – all the product photos show this blue band with the text the other way.

As you can see, the threads here are long and aluminum.  There are two o-rings, which help support the 150 meters underwater rating.

All of the RGB that’s displayed on the body comes from the ring built into the head.

Only the negative terminal has a spring, but it’s enough.  This isn’t a tactical flashlight!

The aluminum walls are actually fairly thick, too!

Size and Comps

Dimension 30.5mm (Head Dia) x 76.15mm (Length) / 1.2in (Head Dia) x 3in (Length)
Net Weight 50g/1.76oz(excluding battery)

If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo).  If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll show that here, too (usually the fourth photo).

Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+.  Mine’s a custom “baked” edition Nichia 219b triple.  A very nice 18650 light.

And here’s the light beside my custom engraved TorchLAB BOSS 35, an 18350 light.  I reviewed the aluminum version of that light in both 35 and 70 formats.

Retention and Carry

I have just carried the Brinyte A01 Apollo flashlight loose in my pocket, but a lanyard is included.  There’s just one place to attach the lanyard, and that’s this loop in the tail end.

Power and Runtime

Brinyte surprisingly uses a driver here that supports both one 1.5V cell or one 4.2V cell.  The cell size is AA, so any type AA will work, including primary alkaline, NiMH AA, and the 14500 lithium-ion sized cells.

A primary alkaline cell is included.  Whatever type cell you use, it is installed into the A01 with the positive terminal toward the head.

Output is more or less as you could probably guess.  Lithium-ion provides higher output, and output just falls off as cell voltage falls off.

Output with the 1.5V cell is similar, but does hold near the rating of 50 lumens much more steadily and for longer.

Modes and Currents

Pulse Width Modulation

There’s some very slow PWM used on the A01.  Below are graphs for just the white output.  I am showing my usual timescale, but I had to back that window out quite a bit so you can see more of the full picture.  The PWM is very slow.  Interestingly, the PWM seems to be the same for both AA and 14500.

AA:

14500:

For reference, here’s a baseline shot, with all the room lights off and almost nothing hitting the sensor.  Also, here’s the light with the worst PWM I could find.  I’m adding multiple timescales, so it’ll be easier to compare to the test light.  Unfortunately, the PWM on this light is so bad that it doesn’t even work with my normal scale, with is 50 microseconds (50us).  10ms.  5ms.  2ms.  1ms.  0.5ms.  0.2ms.  In a display faster than 0.2ms or so, the on/off cycle is more than one screen, so it’d just (very incorrectly) look like a flat line.  I wrote more about this Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight and explained a little about PWM too.

User Interface and Operation

The Brinyte A01 Apollo flashlight is a twisty light.  This grippy ring helps with actuation, and the twist-action is very smooth.

Here’s a UI table!

That’s probably one of the more simple UI tables I’ve written, but the “next mode memory” both tells you what you’ll get when you turn on the light, and how to advance through the modes.  For the record, next mode memory is terrible.

LED and Beam

As far as I can tell, Brinyte does not state what any of the emitters are in this little light.  It doesn’t matter so much for the RGB, but it’d be nice to have a specific emitter stated for the white output.

When headstanding, no light will escape.  The A01 can really not be used as a white lantern.  The lantern feature only works for RGB.

The beam profile is surprisingly great, in actuality, for the white mode.

LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)

AA:

14500:

Beamshots

These beamshots are always with the following settings:  f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.  I accidentally’d these beamshots and they’re actually at f8, ISO1000, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.  I’ll probably update these later at the normal settings.

AA:

14500:

Tint vs BLF-348 (KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b version) (affiliate link)

I keep the test flashlight on the left, and the BLF-348 reference flashlight on the right.

AA:

14500:

I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Conclusion

What I like

• RGB makes for a fun lantern
• Supports both 4.2V and 1.5V cells (that is, AA and 14500)
• Great beam profile from the white output

What I don’t like

• Next mode memory
• Can’t really be used as a lantern in white output mode