Hardware: great. Small, robust (not scratched up by other pocket contents), bright, good pocket clip that works for deep carry.
Software: what were Rovyvon thinking?
When unlocked:
Hold the button for turbo brightness. This being the option for firefly mode on most lights, which at least is harmless if unnoticed for a while. If squashed in a pocket you'll be burned or the battery will be flat by the time you notice. You also have to hold it to keep max brightness. But that's okay, because if you use any other lights you'll probably do this accidentally when you didn't want to ruin your night vision, and immediately let go in shock.
Double click to turn on. So most people can't work out how, or expect this to be turbo mode. Hand the flashlight to someone and when they want to turn it off, they'll likely change the brightness and either hand it back dazzling or set it down for the battery to go flat. Accidentally poke the button in use and you change brightness (needing several presses to fix with your finger blocking excess light), rather than turning off, which would easily be reverted. This makes little sense even on the A8, which justifies a more complex interface.
Change the brightness by pressing the button while the light is on, then wait three minutes of you want that to stick. So... Waste battery and annoyingly emit light, or hold the lens against something for a bit. Been using a bright light to look into cupboards in the day, then go for an evening walk and want to check whether that's a leaf or dog poop you're about to tread in? Hope you didn't like your night vision, especially if you want to do this more than once. And have a stopwatch so you know when three minutes is up. What's wrong with "turn back on at the last brightness"? Made worse by the lack of instant access to firefly mode. (I actually looked this up, because I couldn't believe there wasn't one.) I can believe someone thought it was helpful for a light to have a set-once default brightness for each time you turn it on and not want temporary brightness changes to have an effect; I can't believe someone actually tried Rovyvon's implementation and decided it was the best way to implement it.
Lock/unlock: five presses, unless the torch rotates in your hand or you don't do it fast enough, particularly handy if you didn't *really* want to unlock in a hurry, or wanted to set off a strobe when trying to lock. Compare with, say, tap-then-hold for a second, for competitors.
When charging and next to a power source, you're obviously going to want to add to the brightness with your light. Because otherwise what would the automatic unlock on charging feature be other than annoying? Top up the light and you better remember to lock it again. Obviously nobody wanting their light to be unlocked for static use could just unlock it themselves.
Oh, one hardware niggle, the USB C socket isn't fully connected. Use a cheap cable/adaptor and you might need to rotate to make it charge.
Nice to have a more robust alternative similar to my A8 when I don't expect to need the side light features, but every interface feature seems measurably less convenient than of they'd just copied the competition. I wondered if it was a matter of getting used to it, but now I am - and it's not.
Guess I'll be buying updates if they come to their senses.
