Astrolux BL02 preliminary observations

As the title suggests, this is just my own preliminary observations of the Astrolux BL02 bike light which I recently received from Banggood. Feel free to take anything I suggest with a grain of salt. I've only had this light for a short time and haven't yet had time to give it any practical use as my city is currently under a covid lockdown.
Overall, it's a steal at its current price of around $25, but there are a couple of things that let it down.

Astrolux BL02 and Gemini Duo




Some Specs:
Dual beam
Total output: 1200 lumens (confirmed by flashaholic, review linked)
High: 700 lumens
Low: 500 lumens
Power: 21700 cell, 5000mAh (fully integrated, irreplaceable)
2 x xpg3 leds
Warm tint (low beam)
Cool white (high beam)
Digital display: shows percentage of power remaining

Link to banggood:
(note, I'm not affiliated in any way whatsoever, just have too much time on my hands)

The Brand:
Astrolux has quite a popular following amongst flashlight forums and are known for producing quality lights at very affordable prices. A bit like magicshine in the bike light world.

Output:
tested at around 1200 lumens as per spec by Flashaholic, review provided in a link below. Although low is a bit higher than 500 lumens and high is a bit lower than 700 lumens.

Build:
In general, great. Very solid, feels bomb proof, air tight, high quality, sealed and glued everywhere, including the front optics. It's going to take a very brave person to attempt to take it apart and mod it, and with just light/moderate modding skills, that won't be me.
There is however one thing that lets down the build quality which is the rubber seal covering the USB/USB-C ports. There's no protrusion of rubber entering the ports and after some limited use, appears to be sitting loosely. There's every chance it may pop off over hard bumps and I have doubts as to whether it will keep moisture out from rain.
Thermal transfer is excellent, you can feel it getting warm almost immediately and whilst it's hard to see under the optics, the emitter board appears to be copper which is consistent with other astrolux lights.

Optics and beam profile:
These observations are based on white walling, unfortunately pictures from my iphone don't match what I'm seeing so I'll just describe it.
The optics look great. The low beam profile sets a wide horizontal elliptical beam with a very good antiglare cut off which appears to be more aggressive than other bike lights I have, such as the Fenix BC30, raveman CR1000 clone or Gemini duo with glowworm wide optics.
The high beam also appears to have an aggressive horizontal cut-off, and produces a focused square shaped beam with good throw.
This makes the light a jack of all trades, good wide peripheral for trail riding, good throw and appears to be good for commuting/city riding.

Emitters:
XPG3. At first I had reservations about the choice of emitter, but after doing a bit of research it's not too bad a choice (link to xpg3 test by Djozz on BLF provided below). At around 600 lumens xpg3's are fairly efficient, beating out xpl emitters and roughly on par with the Samsung LH351D, although falling short of xhp35.2. XPG3 emitters are also available in 90CRI (high color rendition) which likely is true for the warmer tint of this light.
Choice of tint is a bit odd, warm tint for the low beam and cool white for the high beam. I don't feel however this will be a distraction, both beams are fairly well integrated and don't entirely appear as two separate beams, it appears the warmer tint of the low beam also has an effect on the high beam, changing it to more of a neutral color.

UI
This is the other part that lets the light down a bit. It effectively has two UIs, one for dual beam and one for using each beam independently.
Dual beam UI as follows using either low or high buttons: double tap ->high, single tap cycles medium->low->off (no blinky modes). Off can be avoided by double tapping either button again which puts you back in high, however there are two issues. It's not always easy to get the double tap right, a little too slow and the light turns off. Also, returning to high with a double tap momentarily sets the light off.
Using high or low: single tap turns on/cycles through all modes High/med/low/flash/sos. SOS for a bike light, sigh. There is a trick to avoid flashing modes and off, you can switch from low beam to high beam and back (no momentary loss of light), but this is a bit cumbersome.
Mount: the intended mount is solid, compact and I have every reason to believe it won't move on trails. The secondary go-pro mount looks a little flimsy, although I don't have a go pro mount to currently test it.

Overall impression:
A steal at its current price. Beam profile looks very promising and with a 5000mAh 21700 battery, runtimes look great, although I'd like the option to use my own cells. Very good compact build quality, just don't have high hopes for the UI. One of its saving graces is its horizontal cutoff, meaning changing modes often likely isn't necessary. Some additional waterproofing for usb/usb-c ports will ensure slower wear over time.

Flashaholic's review:
Djozz's review of xpg3 emitters: