Petzl Myo RXP Headlamp

I've had this light for nearly two years, and all I have to say is WOW! Despite the fact that it is a very hefty light, it does offer certain advantages. It's what I use for mountaineering and lengthy climbs that might go all night. It's quite bright, and I've never had any difficulty seeing what I'm doing. The battery life is decent, and it is really robust!

Ok, to backtrack, i've owned a basic Petzl Tikka Plus(35 lumens) 4 LED headlamp for about 5yrs now and loved it but the elastic strap has lost its stretch now and 35 Lumens isn't very good nowadays so for 2013 xmas i treated myself to a new headlamp. I ordered on Amazon for £23 a LED Lenser Head Fire Revolution 100 lumens fixed spotlight beam, but hated it. Didn't research it at all. The beam was super focused spotlight, no way to adjust to flood beam, the angle of adjustment of the headlamp was about 30 degree intervals which is useless as it never pointed where you wanted it to, and the headband on its loosest setting was too tight. Total FAIL!

So i looked into headlamps much much more and decided on going back to a Petzl for their Myo RXP, choice of 10 different brightness levels which you can then program any 3 to use. I set mine to use level 1, 4 and 8, so it comes on dim then brighter then even brighter, for a quick use theres a boost button that you hold down to give you a full 205 lumens. Blacks(camping shop, uk) online had them on sale for £60 from £75, they've been out since 2009? but still well rated by people even today and being regulated the brightness setting doesn't gradually dim as the batteries get lower power like most headlamps, instead it maintains that chosen brightness setting until it physically cannot any more, and then drops down to a lesser one etc.

Within 5 mins of it arriving i was smitten. It felt so much better made than the LED Lenser. I don't do running or climbing like most perspective buyers but i use it every morning when unlocking my motorbike in the dark, and working on them outdoors in the evening, general use round the house, cycling etc etc. All round use really.

First thing is the nice wide headband, generous length and easy to adjust. The battery pack on the rear uses 3 AA's as opposed to the more usual AAA's, weight isn't a concern for my use of it, but it does come with an optional over-the-head band if it is. The beam is not what i'd call precise and round with a light to darkness sharp cutoff like the LED Lenser, more main concentration of light in the middle and then the surrounding it fades away gradually. In my eyes its excellent as it doesn't leave a cut-off into darkness, and also there's a flip-up lense diffuser that creates an excellent wide pattern of gentle/soft light, depending what brightness setting you have will give less/more intense floodlight brightness, but even on setting 1 which is 13 lumens its easily bright enough to walk by, camp by and if anything i'd like even half that rating for example, waking up at night and not disturbing the other half when i turn it on. Even 13 lumens is bright when its pitch black around you.

Using rechargables in this lamp is where it becomes even better as being regulated you get to use more of what is stored in the batteries before they need recharging, where other unregulated headlamps the brightness can drop from 170 lumens down to 100 in the space of 15mins, and then gradually getting dimmer as time goes on, you tend not let it get too low before recharging the batteries, but in reality the batteries may still have half or more life left so you get more out of your rechargables with a regulated headlmap like this Myo RXP than a non-regulated one.

I did some brightness tests, sadly in Lux as my phone app only had this option and not callibrated(it is an app!) so take the results with a pinch of salt, but an average brightness drop of 20% was shown when using Sanyo Eneloop rechargables(HR-3UTGA 1.2v 1900mAh) compared to general Alkaline batteries as supplied with the headlamp. Barely noticeable in brightness tbh but the fact you can recharge them up to 1000 times its a no brainer for me, i'll always use rechargables.

The things i'd like to mention as downsides are the weight of 3xAA's, if your running you may need the overhead strap and tighten the headband a little more to stop it bouncing around, it doesn't come with any pouch or storage bag so it having a cable and headlamp and seperate battery pack, its not the neatest thing to try and wrap up to store so a bag would have been nice, no foam insert on rear of torch to aid comfort over long periods of use, and lastly, when the diffuser is not used and flipped down, the little ridge/lip they added on it to give you something to get hold of when using it, seems it can collect the light beam so when looking ahead there is a bright spot at the top of your vision. Try it and you will see what i mean, i saw this mentioned by someone on a review and it annoyed them, you could trim it down a little but tbh its a minor thing for me so i won't bother.

Overall i am super impressed by this Myo RXP by Petzl, its wide comfortable headband, programmable features as well as SOS flashing mode, plus using larger capacity and more attainable AA size batteries makes it a 10/10 buy for me.