Gaciron KIWI-1200 Anti-Glare Bike Front Light

The Gaciron KIWI-1200 Anti-Glare Bike Front Light is an excellent unit at a great price. It's powerful, easy to use and pretty stylishly designed when you get up close. The plastic clamp is a clunky disappointment in comparison, but it's adequate – and there's an alloy option that looks a worthwhile upgrade given the Kiwi's affordability.

Our best front bike lights buyer's guide covers illumination from under £30 to a shade under £300, while our best bike lights buyer's guide covers a wide range of front and rear lights as well as front-and-rear sets.

> Buy now: Gaciron KIWI-1200 Anti-Glare Bike Front Light for £49.49 from Gaciron

Under £65 for a 1,200-lumen headlight that floods entirely unlit areas seems like a bargain; under £65 for this kind of crisp build quality seems a bargain too. The fact the case design and finishing is not just very neat, but has clearly had some love put into its aesthetics, is only more impressive. (And it's currently reduced to £49.49.)

The matt black alloy sides have subtle and very stylish gloss black adornments; a KIWI 1200 logo and images of birds on one side, and a 'Light up your way' message in cursive script on the other.

On the unit's rear the chunky silicone bung for the charging port is a lovely 3D shield shape, and features another gloss image of a kiwi. More importantly, it's tethered and very easy to remove or insert. Tiny black screws secure the rear plate and the single button, and that button illuminates with one final outline image of a kiwi. It even changes colour to indicate the charge level, and shows with either a single short press for a status check or while the light is on.

The raised plastic insert with 'nocturnal animal' on it – again it's gloss black against matt – may seem a bit random, but it's actually a cover for a second mounting position. It lets you hang the unit below the bar and still have the button on top; tidy. Gaciron even gives you a little screwdriver for swapping it all over.

It's clear that somebody put time into making this light attractive and pleasing to use.

That wouldn't count for much if it didn't light up the road very well, but it does. At full power it lights pitch-black country lanes well enough for 25mph+ riding, and the beam spread is good with no dark spots.

Gaciron makes quite a thing of the 'Anti Glare' aspect of its 'cut-off beam', and this refers to the lens limiting the light spreading up above the horizontal plane to avoid blinding oncoming drivers and pedestrians. Certainly it threw significantly less light up at eye-level for walkers than the Lezyne Super Drive 1800+ I was testing at the same time, but didn't suffer in terms of how well it could illuminate the road.

The single well-shielded button is easy both to use and to understand. Though it has five modes in all, two – the 600 lumen Daytime Flash and the 50-100 lumen pulsation of Breathe – are very sensibly separated from the others. Normal quick presses only cycle you through three steady modes (300, 600 and 1200 lumen), without forcing you through the disco stuff; a long press switches you over to those two. You don't even need a manual to work out how to get what you want. Always a good sign.

If I were being picky I'd like a middle mode that's closer to 1,200 – 800 or so, perhaps – to make the step less pronounced, but in practice 600 lumens is enough for slow climbs even on rough forest gravel. And if I were being ultra-picky, a high-low setting would be better than having three powers to cycle through each time. Still, the 4,400mAh battery gives you around 90 minutes even on full power, and twice that on the medium setting (very useable if there's street lighting), so you won't necessarily have to actively save juice as you go.

Note the red charge light starts flashing as shutdown gets near, but it doesn't automatically lower the output.

Recharging from flat takes roughly 1.5hrs on a typical 2A USB wall plug, which is much faster than the claimed 2.5hrs; maybe that's at 1A.

The one real disappointment is the handlebar clamp. While the receiver section of it – and the latch that makes sure the lamp doesn't disappear – is good, the handlebar part below feels plasticky. It's an oddly jerry-rigged, last-minute-looking design.

It's basically a big zip tie but with a worm drive controlled by a knurled collar, and it works; its orientation can slowly slip under vibration as the various rubbery pads aren't particularly soft and sticky, but it works. If the knurled collar were aluminium rather than plastic it might feel better; you can only tighten so far before worrying it might distort and slip back a notch, or worse still, break. To be absolutely clear, neither thing happened during the test and the collar's plastic looks extremely rugged and un-brittle, but still. It doesn't feel good.

Another operational issue is that you have to separate that collar completely to install the clamp; lose it and the clamp is useless. It's 3g and matt black, so whatever you do, don't drop it...

On the upside, the price of the Kiwi 1200 makes this one small stumble very easy to forgive. There's also the option of Gaciron's H10C alloy out-front mount that carries a computer as well, though while it will eliminate the issue, at £30.54 it costs about three fifths as much as the light at its present sale price.

Value

Gaciron looks a serious rival for the likes of Ravemen and Magicshine, and not just in having a slightly weird name: all three are based in Shenzen, China, and produce high-quality lights for impressive prices.

Chris recently reviewed the £79.99 Magicshine Ray 1600 and scored it 8/10. Stu gave the Ravemen LR1200 USB Rechargeable Front Light the same score and it also comes in at £79.99.

These kind of outputs can easily cost you way more. The 1,300-lumen Exposure Strada MKII RS AKTiv that Stu reviewed last February was £285 at the time, and this year's 1,450-lumen Mk12 version will set you back £325, while the non-AKTiv Strada Mk12 RS is £295.

Even the more mid-market Lezyne Super Drive 1800+ Smart LED Front Light I mentioned above is £150, and while it's more powerful and has wider beam spread, in all other respects it feels like something from a previous decade in comparison to any of those above.

Basically, not everything that's cheap and Chinese is junk, and this Gaciron is a good example.

Overall

This is a great light; it's effective, very nicely made and impressively neatly designed. Yes, the clamp feels oddly rudimentary and is a bit of a disappointment, but in reality it's built to the level you'd expect of a £65 light. That it's the only part like that, and the rest of this thing looks like it cost hundreds, is the real point.

Verdict

Quality and performance you'd be pleased with at twice the price