The Magicshine MJ-816's ‘Mickey Mouse’ head design flanks a P7 spotlight with two smaller Cree XPE floods. These are controlled from a brightly backlit, mode and charge indicating remote switch with ‘stepless dimming’ fade function control. The flood on, spot on, both on, both off sequence caught us out occasionally when switching modes though.
It’s not as bright on trail as 1,400 lumens would suggest but the highly focused spot and letterbox spread from the sidelights is still impressive for a sub-£100 light. Even with a fully conditioned battery in 10°C indoor tests run time was shorter than the ‘up to three hours’ claimed on the website, so judge usage accordingly, particularly on very cold nights when it’ll drop below two hours at full chat.
The tall, O-ring-secured head unit tends to wobble on rough trails, which can be distracting. The single strap soft cell barrel battery can be squeezed onto most frames though. The whole light is covered by a 12-month UK warranty and Magicshine UK have a good reputation that makes it look a tempting direct buy package.
