From its Teflon-coated marine-grade alloy body to the smoothness of the thumboperated rotary switch, nothing has been compromised in its manufacture. It's not just the build quality that's good, either: it has plenty of well-considered features and delivers an illuminating 1,250 lumens. To put that into perspective, that's about the same amount of light as that generated from a typical halogen car headlight.
The Euphos features some neat and revolutionary concepts, the first being the switch. It is operated by rotating a springloaded outer collar about ten degrees either clockwise or anticlockwise. You either do this quickly or slowly - a kind of switch Morse code, if you like - which turns the torch on or off, adjusts the four levels of power, puts it in strobe or SOS mode, and locks it for transit. It takes a little getting used to, but after a couple of dives, we got to grips with it.
The light itself is generated by six LEDs, and you get around 75 minutes' burn time on full power or up to a whopping ten hours on the lowest setting of 150 lumens (about as bright as a good back-up torch). When you approach the end of the battery's charge, the torch automatically reduces power to give a maximum duration using the reserve charge.
Another clever feature becomes apparent when you switch it off. Each time the LEDs are extinguished, a smaller LED glows either green, amber or red for around ten seconds, denoting the battery status. This same LED and colour sequence is also deployed when charging - all very neat. Charging the batteries is carried out by through-the-case connectors, meaning all seals remain intact, and as the LEDs have an expected life of more than 50,000 hours, effectively this torch is sealed for life.
In the water, the Euphos didn't disappoint and really illuminated the magnificent plumose anemones at Raglan's Reef on the Manacles, which are particularly spectacular as this time of year on a spring tide. Amazingly, you get all this in a relatively small form factor - it's a mere 185mm long and weighs in at just 450g. After several RIB dives and a couple of shore dives, the case was completely unmarked, which is also testament to the build quality.
This is as close to a perfect diving lamp as I think you will find on the market. There's just one small problem - the price. Is anybody going to shell out nearly 700 quid for it? That £200 more than the Metalsub KL1242 umbilical, which matches its performance, is probably even more robust, but is a bit more bulky. Only time will tell, but if you do fork out that much, at least you will have the joy of knowing you have a superb piece of kit.
DIVE SAYS...
Fantastic torch - but pricey
Value 6
Performance 10
