I'll have to say that I am impressed with the light, but I'm also disappointed at the same time. And, some of this is simply that it can't be everything in every situation.
One concern I had was that it would be too complex to use in a stressful situation, but that concern is mostly unfounded. You can simply set it for the stressful situation you want and leave it there. If you want to use it for something else, you can change it to a more suitable mode, use it, and then return it to it's "stressful situation" mode.
The light is easy to use. As it comes, you simply rotate the mode ring ccw wise to set up the bright/dim mode, rotate to the middle position for the strobe mode and fully CW for the full on momentary mode. I almost immediately re-programmed the bright-to-dim mode to dim-to-bright mode. My thinking is that I have the full bright on the momentary mode (full CW), so in the other mode (full CCW) I want it to come on in the dimmest intensity and steadily increase to the situation. I would not use that mode in a life threatening situation.
I thought the dim mode would be great to walk in the yard after dark to let the dog do her business. I'd have a choice of intensity so I wouldn't have too bright of a light. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Oh the intensity works great, but the light is so sharply focused that the beam that lights your path is only about 6 inches in diameter. You could step in "something" before you saw it. It does have that outer beam, but when the outer beam is bright enough to see by, that sharply focused inner beam is really bright. OTOH, the Surefire L2, has a much broader beam and you can actually see better. However, the L2 is not nearly as effective at 50 feet or so as the Gladius.
Inside, shorter ranges, there's the same problem, that very tightly focused beam that doesn't effectively illuminate the "far reaches" of the room like the L2 does.
For a two cell, CR123 light, it does reach out and it's beam is bright and white. Unfortunately, due to the electronics, some standby current is always drawn from the battery whether the light is used or not. I think three years is about the life of the batteries although they have a shelf life of 10 years in other lights.
Right now, I like the light. If I could have my druthers, I'd druther have a little less focused central beam and no drain when off. This wouldn't be a light you want to keep "loaded" for that SHTF moment.
One concern I had was that it would be too complex to use in a stressful situation, but that concern is mostly unfounded. You can simply set it for the stressful situation you want and leave it there. If you want to use it for something else, you can change it to a more suitable mode, use it, and then return it to it's "stressful situation" mode.
The light is easy to use. As it comes, you simply rotate the mode ring ccw wise to set up the bright/dim mode, rotate to the middle position for the strobe mode and fully CW for the full on momentary mode. I almost immediately re-programmed the bright-to-dim mode to dim-to-bright mode. My thinking is that I have the full bright on the momentary mode (full CW), so in the other mode (full CCW) I want it to come on in the dimmest intensity and steadily increase to the situation. I would not use that mode in a life threatening situation.
I thought the dim mode would be great to walk in the yard after dark to let the dog do her business. I'd have a choice of intensity so I wouldn't have too bright of a light. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Oh the intensity works great, but the light is so sharply focused that the beam that lights your path is only about 6 inches in diameter. You could step in "something" before you saw it. It does have that outer beam, but when the outer beam is bright enough to see by, that sharply focused inner beam is really bright. OTOH, the Surefire L2, has a much broader beam and you can actually see better. However, the L2 is not nearly as effective at 50 feet or so as the Gladius.
Inside, shorter ranges, there's the same problem, that very tightly focused beam that doesn't effectively illuminate the "far reaches" of the room like the L2 does.
For a two cell, CR123 light, it does reach out and it's beam is bright and white. Unfortunately, due to the electronics, some standby current is always drawn from the battery whether the light is used or not. I think three years is about the life of the batteries although they have a shelf life of 10 years in other lights.
Right now, I like the light. If I could have my druthers, I'd druther have a little less focused central beam and no drain when off. This wouldn't be a light you want to keep "loaded" for that SHTF moment.