FOURSEVENS PREON P2

If you’re familiar with Calibre and our Range Bag section specifically, then you know that we consider our knives and multitools to be absolute essential items. Useful for everything from opening boxes and mail to effecting field repairs on firearms, motorcycles and even automobiles, we simply do not leave the house without at least one such tool in a pocket. But we’ve been negligent in our coverage of the second item that always rides right alongside our chosen knife or tool: the pocket light. And if you spend any time on the internet researching pen or pocket lights, then you’ll quickly realize that there’s one particular light that many consumers point to as the industry standard, and that is the Foursevens Preon P2.

And going through the spec sheet, it’s easy to see why. The P2 has a lot going for it, from a CREE led emitter with a maximum 192 lumen output, to the simple fact that it accepts standard AAA batteries and boasts a 23 hour runtime. It is also entirely rebuildable with parts available from Foursevens, relatively waterproof (don’t take it diving but it does work underwater) and has a whopping seven modes of operation; three of which are various brightness levels and four more speciality modes including strobe, SOS, and a pair of beacon modes.

It’s also not cheap. In any of the five standard anodized finishes available for the aluminium model, the P2 will cost you around $50, while stepping up to the titanium model will bring the price to roughly $75, depending on your retailer. Although the limited edition “Toxic Green” colour was very tempting (from a “you’ll never lose anything that brightly coloured” perspective), we’re somewhat obsessed with titanium things, so we popped for the more expensive model.

You certainly wouldn’t have known that from the packaging though. Simply put, for $75, we’d expected to be greeted by more than a grey windowed box holding a light, a pair of batteries, and some replacement parts in a plastic tray. But we recognize those complaints are the absolute epitome of whiny whiner complaints, so we won’t dwell on them, and instead we’ll say that although austere the decision to include the batteries AND a set of replacement o-rings was a classy move.

Which brings us to the light. Does it work? Yes and it works extremely well. Low mode has proven very useful at night, while the blinding high mode has been great for those poorly-lit situations where you need the light to help you see, but still have some ambient light… like when you drop a black screw something under your car seat in the middle of the day… and have black carpet. The beacon modes all work well too, but to be honest, although we have a few lights with those features we’ve never use them. The tone of the light it produces is slightly on the cool side though (it’s either very white or slightly blue in colour) and we’d like to see a more neutral colour option as the white can be a bit harsh on the highest setting.

The P2’s big party feature, however, is its form factor.  It is small enough to ride in a pocket unnoticed and has no sharp edges to snag on. It also features a smartly designed tailcap that positions a titanium cap over the rubber clicky switch so as to protect the rubber clicky switch cover from abuse and tearing. But there are some problems with the light. First off, the clicky switch is not recessed at all, which makes it very easy to accidentally switch the light on in your pocket. This has happened so frequently that we’ve taken to actually slightly unscrewing the head portion of the light most of the time as that keeps the light off. The second issue is something that’s probably particular to the titanium model, and that is the durability of the titanium finish. We’ve had our light for roughly a month and as you can see, it already looks like it’s been well used, even though it’s literally just been carried around in a pocket. And finally, the pocket clip isn’t the strongest nor the springiest, and as a result we’ll probably be purchasing a replacement clip from Prometheus Lights… which we really should not have to do, given how much this light costs.

So, given the problems, would be buy another P2? Well, if we knew someone that didn’t have a pocket light already, yes. This is probably the most versatile pocket light out there, and it’ll last forever, casts a great beam, has all the modes you could ever want, and is the right size. But we will not be buying another one just to have around. While this is a jack of all trades type of light, there are other lights that do things better by sacrificing on some aspects (usually by being smaller and dimmer or larger and longer lived), and the P2 just isn’t quite nice enough to make it as collectable as say, Swiss Army knives or Maglites. Were it perhaps ten or twenty bucks cheaper, and had a recessed tailswitch, maybe our answer would be different.