Photon Freedom(PF) was announced in the beginning of March 2004. And shortly afterwards, that is by the end of march the delivery begin. I've preordered mine when the announcement came out, and consequently got it somewhere in beginning of April. As a small bonus for those who preordered Photon Freedom PhotonLight included Photon holder clip. Small gadget, but sometimes it's real useful, if your hands are busy. Obviously PhotonLight was listening to their customers and doing R&D to improve their already quite complicated Photon III. Not that they got it all right to satisfy all of their customers, but in my opinion the new Photon Freedom is a better pocket or keychain light compared to its predecessors.

General

 - Major improvement or redesign for PF would be the switch. In terms of simplicity and functionality this one is the best of all Photon models I've seen before. PI and PII switches were kind of quirky to use (I mean constant on), and practically impossible in glows. PIII had dual function switch, front part and rear part. One for maximum brightness, another for your selected mode. I don't really have any complaints with that switch design, though sometimes it was not too responsive. PF switch is simplified design. Press the button, the light is on, by holding the switch you can change light brightness, it will go from dim to max, or if it was on, then it'll gradually dim, then go back to max, and after that if you are still holding the button it will cycle through other working modes, 4 of them to be precise. For improved corrosion resistance PF features 24k gold plated contacts, though I donno whether PIII had the same feature or not.
    As of the batteries, PF like all of its predecessors uses CR2032 lithium ones. Operating time was 120 hours for PII, for PF it will vary depending on your setup. Also, like PIII, PF body is water resistant.

Beam

 - This micro flood light produces nice white, bright beam. No real hotspot to speak of, but it is a floodlight, so one shouldn't expect that either. For 5mm LED it is real bright. Other than that not much to comment. If you are familiar with Photon lights then you already have the idea what to expect. If not, that it is more than enough to navigate through dark room or backyard, but won't illuminate your backyard. As with PIII PF is available in 8 basic colors, plus infrared and ultra violet. For more info see official Photon Freedom Page.

Working Modes

 - This aspect has been simplified as well. Instead of fixed brightness levels you have gradual increase or decrease ability by pressing the switch. In addition to that we have 4 safety modes. In other words strobe modes. Those are as following: fast, medium, slow, & SOS. I haven't used that, except for testing, but if you want to signal something or use it as a warning light that's pretty good, the light is visible in the dark over a mile.

Last updated - 05/06/19