Summary
With its simple design, the compact UltraFire S3 presents itself as a stylish EDC flashlight. Thanks to its discreet appearance and integrated laser pointer, it’s also ideal as a companion for everyday business use. The white light provides enough brightness for daily tasks and the UV light serves its purpose – although the high amount of visible light can sometimes be a bit distracting. The constant current driver with real temperature regulation should also be mentioned.
There is, however, room for improvement for the controls: the three-position sliding switch for selecting the operating mode and a large button for turning the light on and off are good ideas in principle. However, the flashlight is turned on by holding the button, while a short press changes the brightness – which feels unnatural. Additionally, there’s no direct access to the lowest or highest brightness levels.
If you’re looking for a slim EDC flashlight with a discreet design and don’t mind getting used to its somewhat quirky controls, the UltraFire S3 might be just the right flashlight for you.
The full review is available here
English review at BudgetLightForum
German review on my website
So does just no one care about swappable cells anymore? These are basically the last devices on the planet that still make that available...
They do. SammysHP recently posted a review of the SK05 PRO Mao EDC which takes 18650s.
I think you tend to find non-replaceable cells in these slim form factors, where the cells are almost certainly some weird, custom configuration and making the light larger to accommodate the extra space for springs and hinges is undesirable.
Yes lots of them still do. But I'm beginning to see more and more products reviewed by the community with nary a mention of the fact that they're disposable and have severely limited runtime...