Love! Do you know what love is? I don’t think any one knows what love is? Have you ever felt love? Yes last week I did when I received this Niwalker Minimax MM25MB from that moment on I knew what love was. If my girlfriend reads this I am in trouble! I will need to move to America and plead the fifth.
Mad shout out to the https://theoutdoorsplus.com/ (link is external) they sent out a bunch of flashlights to a few of us to review. Go and check out their store they have a good range of high end flashlights. They also sell there own branded flashlights Palmstar EDC. They sent me one of them for review I am still testing the palmstar. It has an inbuilt charger so it will take a tad longer.I can only do so many reviews in a week what about my human rights? On a serious note thank you https://theoutdoorsplus.com/ (link is external) .
I wouldn’t so much call this a budget flashlight its more of a niche but seeing as so many people bought the Noctigon meteor there is still a huge markets for these flashlights.
The Niwalker Minimax MM25MB is a monster flashlight it is made for one thing only and that is power. The max lumen rating on the 25Mb is a whopping 7600 lumens. There is also some truth in the Minimax naming this flashlight is fairly small and compact for what it can do. It weights a nice and tidy 390 grams with out the batteries. That is about 2 fully loaded Convoy C8s in weight. The compact part is the overall length it is only 129.5 mm (12.95cm) in length and the body diameter is fairly small coming in at 52mm (5.2cm) and the head diameter is a tad bigger 64mm (6.4cm). So as you can imagine overall its still a compact light. Imagine if you told some one years and years ago that you could get 7600 lumens from a flashlight of this size. You would be slapped in the head and called mad! I will add my Samsung 25r cells and take the weight measurements again . Which is a not so hefty 588 grams the MM25MB makes me feel like I need to go on a diet! Wow the 25MB weights less then the Thorfire S70 I still wouldn’t go as far to call the 25MB an EDC its far from it. But could put the 25MB beside your bed so when you hear a noise outside you can flood your whole garden and see whats going on. Its probably just cats like always jumping on my car! The 25MB has an awesome push to hold instant turbo mode which makes it a great flashlight for this kind of use. Also some one that does patrols in there car this would come in handy. Price to performance is awesome considering you can still pay the 200 USD and get a lot less output and quality then the MM25MB. It is hard to compare the MM25Mb to other flashlights in this range yes you can compare it to the Olight X7 but the 25MB is older by at least 6 months. The 25MB weights less then the X7 from what I can tell the X7 weights about 488 grams compared to the 25MB which is 390 grams I know I have already said the weight.
The Niwalker MM25MB uses 3 Cree XHP-70 LEDs since this flashlight came out we have seen this setup becoming more common. I am not sure how many flashlights actually use this setup I can only think of 6 right now but there could be more. You can narrow that down by only including the soda can style flashlights. With the 3 XHP-70s you get a maximum of 7600 lumens which is a lot but not top of the line any more. Considering when this flashlight came out it would have been king and it is still a very respectable output. If I account for the size and weight of the 25MB. It would be hard to push this flashlight any harder and get an usable output for a long enough run time. The 25MB already gets hot so if it was any brighter you would be using this flashlight to cook your dinner. The 25MB does have thermal protection so it will step down from mode 5 which is the 7600 lumens to mode 4 the 2700 lumen when the 25MB becomes to hot. It is a thermal step down and not timed so keeping this flashlight cool is your best bet for a longer higher output time. Honestly I am not sure if you can tell the difference between the 7600 lumens and 9000 lumens in real life I tried and I could not tell the difference. There is a whole 1000 lumen difference but the amount of light is still to close to tell the difference. As I always say the amount of light is only relevant to the area you are trying to light up.
The mode spacing on the MM25MB is good I like the using the second highest it is way more then enough light for most jobs. These number are ANSI rated.
So as you can see the mode spacing is relevant to this light I could argue that a 4000 or 5000 lumen mode is needed. I really do not think it is needed. I always find my self using the 2700 lumen mode it I way more then enough light for most jobs. I can hardly tell the difference between the 2700 lumen and the 7600 lumen modes. There may be a reason behind this when I done the ceiling bounce test the mode 4 got a higher reading then what should be 2700 lumens. So that makes sense the MM25Mb is super super bright. Also they would need to use a lower mode to keep the 25MB cool. If we their was a 4000 or 5000 lumen mode the flashlight would still overheat pretty quick.
The beam pattern on the 25MB is really good it is super floody but yet still has a hint of throw I think the throw aspect comes more from the overall power then the reflector design. Then 25MB produces 22500cd so of course it is not a thrower by any means. That is good to 300 meters distance more then enough distance for a flooder style flashlight. It is more then I was expecting. I would be thinking a reflector this shallow would give me about 200 meters max. Funnily enough this is super close to what Olight claims as there max throw Olight says the X7 will do 312 meters I do not own a X7 but I would be assuming the reflector s about the same size. The beam profile link in with the textured light orange peel reflector system that they use in the MM25MB there is a little hot spot but nothing major. When the MM25MB is used at distance you can not see a clear visible hot spot. It all kind of just blends in the beam profile is super wide.
The tint is hard to explain I am sure this is more of a cold white tint flashlight but it looks so neutral so I am not sure. I just compared it to the H03 NW this is just a tad colder so I would put this around the 5500-6000k tint so it is not super cold. That could also be because of the OP reflector system gives it a nicer tint. Either way it is no where near to cold. Compared to a XPLHI V2 1A this is a lot warmer.
The 25MB uses all the standard high end gear to make this light what it is. It comes with the usual toughened ultra clear tempered glass lens with an anti reflective coating. This sounds so much better then saying AR coated lens lol. Writing that just triggered something in my brain now I am hungry I really like tempura batter its so light and fluffy I might have to get some Japanese for dinner. The 25MB is made out of Aircraft grade alloy of course I would expect nothing less now days. They do add that the 25MB has a large copper they spelled it cooper heat sink. I think Cooper trooper is a character made by Nintendo of course this heat sink is big but not crazy big considering the weight of the 25MB.
Working voltage of the 25MB is 12.1v-16.8 volts so you will always need 4 cells to make the light work. I tried to run the 25MB with 2 and 3 cells and I couldn’t get it to work it should technically run on just 3 cells but it wouldn’t for some reason unknown to me. If we do the maths three cells should equal 12.6 volts when fully charged and 4 cells should be 16.8 volts on the dot. They not leave much head room. Then again you can not psychically fit extra cells into the light unless you where to use 16340s which you can not use so be warned.
You will need high drain cells for the 25MB and good ones at that. It takes flat tops cells and even recessed flat top cells if that makes sense? The Samsung 25R’s I have in there now are recessed but the battery holder has springs on one end and tabs on the other side the tabs do not stick up very high but they are enough to make good contact with the cells. The springs them selves are very hard and do not budge much they are super thick as to handle the high current. I touched them after using the 25MB for an extended period and do not recommend you do that they get super hot. All the springs on the 25MB appears to be silver in color I am not sure if they are silver coated. I highly doubt they are plan steel. At a closer look and by using my brain for once! They could very well be Beryllium copper they are the exact same color. So probably not silver coated just beryllium copper these springs are used a lot in high amperage applications. The springs are far to shiny to be plan steel that is for sure. The contact points are really big on the battery tube so they are most likely steel. The spring on the head of the 25MB is a double spring setup which is good to get more power through at once its the same as doing a spring bypass. I almost forgot the battery holder is reversible so you can insert the battery holder either way and the 25MB will work.
The battery holder its self is good quality its thick and seems durable it is held together well the supporting bars are thick and they are screded together on both ends so they are replacable if any thing does happen. I had a few break in LED lenser flashlight so I know they can be touchy but this seem much better quality then the LED lenser ones. Plus there is not to much tension on the batteries so there is not that much resistance pushing against the battery tube.
The UI on the MM25MB is good its a bit tricky and can be a bit annoying at times. Its not bad just a hassle. It has the usual quick push to turn the light on and of. When the light is on you have one second to cycle through all the modes and chose which one you want. Now this is the annoying part I am not the best at making decisions on the stop so I find this hard. I do not have time to umm and arrr lol. Once you have chosen your mode the 25MB has memory so it will remember your last used mode this is a super handy feature for sure. Now if the light is on and you want to change modes you will need to turn the light of then turn it back on and cycle through the modes this is a pain like I have already said. But I can understand why they done this with this size light there isn’t much point to cycle through the lessor modes.
Coolest UI feature is the push and hold from of for instant max output this is an awesome feature. No need to cycle through the modes from of just push and hold and the light will stay on the highest output till it either step down or your finger sore and you cant hold the button any more.
The 25MB has 3 hidden modes. You simply double click when the 25MB is already on to access 2 of them the SOS and beacon modes. Then you double click again to chose the next hidden mode this work for the SOS and beacon modes. You have double click from of to access the strobe mode I think this is more of a security feature.
The hidden modes appear to be in the highest output and I currently freaking blind! So in total you get an SOS and Beacon and strobe mode. There is no memory for the hidden modes.
I will add the 25MB is awesome build quality every thing looks very well finished and polished not one aspect of this flashlight has been over looked. The 25MB even comes with a IPX8 water rating and a drop resistance rating of up to 1.5 meters. Me personally I chose to baby this flashlight considering how it is worth. I have dropped it once and it makes quite the thump my girl friend was looking at me like are you serious hahaha some times I have mad better fingers. If I flashlight can survive with me it will have no problems being used by some one else considering how hard I am on most my gear. Also the switch has a green and red indicator green is on in normal use and red switches on when the batteries are starting to get flat. I have noticed on the highest output it can turn red even if the batteries are not fully flat that would be because of the voltage sag under heavy load.
Now these beams shot where done on location at another set of World war 2 bunkers. Very weird night! But some awesome photos!
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