The Nitecore NU25 is a well-liked ultralight hiking headlamp. It has a built-in rechargeable battery that you can charge with a micro USB cord, a red LED, main spot LED, and a high CRI (color rendering index) flood white light. I asked Nitecore to send me one because I wanted to have better gear than my ultralight hiking buddy.
Specs
Video Review
Button Usability
Anytime you get much past “1 button to turn off, half press to change intensity, click to go off”, it can get complicated. The NU25 packs quite a bit of features behind 2 buttons: 1 button is used for the white lights, the other used for red.
Street Fighter 2 Combos for the NU25
- Single click white: main light
- Subsequent clicks: change power setting on main light (spot)
- Subsequent long click: turbo
- 1 second press white: white flood
- 3 second press white: SOS
- Single click after: strobe
- Down, down forward, forward + punch: Shoryuken (dragon uppercut)
- Single click red: low red light
- Double click red: High power red light
- 3 click red: blinking red
- Long click red: check battery power -3 blinks max power, 2 blinks medium, 1 blink low
- Both buttons 1 second: lockout
- Both buttons 1 second: un-lock
Headband, Adjustment, Charging
The NU25 uses a single 1″ headband. Like many of their headlamps, they use a small bead of silicone on the front inside of the headband to both give it a bit more grab on your head and to divert sweat to the sides instead of your eyes. The rear of the band has a simple adjustment point to quickly adjust it for tension.
The headlamp aim can be adjusted down in several distinct clicks to get it closer to your eye line.
The built-in li-ion battery is rechargeable through a micro USB cable. Because the headlamp is geared to being lightweight, it has a smaller battery in the unit. Despite the fact that it’s so compact, the li-ion battery packs as much juice as 3 AAA batteries. While I really like the 3 AAA style headlamps, they’re much heavier and bulkier than the NU25.
Using the headlamp while camping/hiking
360 lumens at max is neat, but what I found more useful were the low power red and white power settings. Low power white is 1 lumen which is great for just grabbing things around the tent or going for a quick leak in the middle of the night. You don’t really need a ton of light once your night vision has kicked in: a full moon would be fine, or in the absence of the moon: a low power white headlamp.
And, if you use the lower power settings, the headlamp’s battery will last for a good long while. Depending on the duration of your hikes and how much light you need, you may not need to recharge the battery mid-hike. On the lowest power setting, the headlamp could run 24 hours per day for 15 days straight. The low power red light “only” gives you 2.8 days straight: which realistically could do the job for mornings and nights for a weeklong hike.
Conclusion
This headlamp retails for about $50 on Amazon, which is pretty great considering the weight. Ultralight hiking gear is much more expensive the lighter you go but this headlamp is pretty reasonable. If you want to get extreme, some ultralight hikers replace the headband with a cord to cut even more weight but I think the included strap is better for comfort and worth keeping.
So if you’re looking for a lightweight headlamp that won’t break the bank, check out the Nitecore NU25.
