Bookman Volume 1500 light review

Bookman is a Swedish company, which as well as bike lights sells wearable lights, head torches and reflectives for runners and other sportspeople.

All its products have a Scandinavian design-led look, with clean aesthetics and multiple colours available.

Priced at £130 / $149 / €149, the Volume 1500 is the brand’s highest-output bike light. It offers novel, well thought-out usability features that saw it gain a Eurobike award in 2023.

Rather than relying on a single button to set your mode, the Bookman light has a top button that switches the light on and off and toggles between continuous and flashing modes.

There’s a large second rotary switch on the unit’s side, which selects from five positions to change the level of constant illumination or the flash pattern and intensity.

The light has side ports to increase visibility to other road users and there’s an array of four small LEDs at its far end to indicate battery-charge level.

The battery is housed behind a cover at the rear of the light, so you can remove and recycle it when its life has expired, thus avoiding having to throw away the whole light.

Bookman provides a Garmin-compatible quarter-turn mount and a GoPro mount with the light, although not a USB-C cable.

Bookman Volume 1500 performance

The Bookman Volume 1500’s stylish looks and its rotary control set it apart from the usual run of front bike lights.

The smoothly curved edges and absence of cooling fins make for a sleek package, although at 202 grams, the light is towards the heavier end of the high-output lights we've reviewed.

Bookman quotes an unusually long runtime of three hours for its 1,500-lumen high beam mode, although I only got around 2hrs 30mins before the light went out abruptly, without stepping down to warn of impending exhaustion.

Bookman says its lowest-output constant mode will run for up to 34 hours.

You can choose between the flashing modes by double-pressing the on/off button and that extends up to a maximum quoted runtime of 105 hours.

The Bookman’s rotary dial is easy to access while riding and easier to use than most buttons. It’s still rather fiddly to operate if you’re wearing thick winter gloves, though.

The Volume 1500’s IPX5 rating is a little lower than some other lights, possibly as a result of the novel mode selector.

The highest setting also acts as a lock, so you can’t use the top button to turn the unit on without first turning the side dial.

It’s a clever detail, making it easy to lock the light and avoid turning it on in a pack, without using the typical method where you need to long-press to lock and unlock.

The design has the advantage that the rotary dial is still accessible, only switching sides of the unit, if you decide to mount the light under the handlebar using the GoPro mount.

The main on/off switch and the array of four LEDs at the rear of the unit, which indicate battery level, end up on the underside for GoPro mount users though, where they’re not easily visible.

The light’s form factor is reasonably slender, so mounted atop the bars it isn’t going to swamp your handholds, should you stick with a standard bar-top mount.

The high beam gives a strong central focus on the road ahead. There’s a good flood of sideways illumination too, making off-road riding more confident.

The side windows add some side-on visibility to other road users.

Bookman Volume 1500 bottom line

The clean aesthetics and ease of use of the Bookman Volume 1500 are appealing and there’s reasonable battery life with broad illumination.

On the minus side, the Volume 1500 is on the heavy side for a light of its output and it’s priced higher than much of the competition.