Guee Sol 300 Plus Front Light

The Guee Sol 300 Plus front light performs very well when out on the road, but with just a few drawbacks in its construction.

With this front light, Guee has applied a new battery-saving concept, with an ambient light sensor on the top of the unit that controls how brightly the light shines automatically. The idea is to ensure that the light shines at its full 300-lumen capacity when it's dark, and at intermediate settings as the ambient light dictates.

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In practice, it's a nifty little feature (engaged by pressing and holding the power button until the blue LED indicator stays on) and does ensure you don't waste battery power when full beam isn't needed (on full, you'll get 2hrs 30mins of run time from the 1500mAh li-poly battery).

Of course, if you only commute in the dark then it automatically flicks over to the high setting anyway. This means battery life is only really preserved if you happen to commute or ride at the time of day when the light is changing.

Although it's hard to quantify because of the varying degrees of light you tend to encounter, the bottom line is I did find the sensor worked well, changing up and down, and sometimes completely off, as light conditions demanded.

The manual settings include a high and low beam, as well as a standard flash and strobe setting. The flash-type outputs are inaccessible on the sensor settings, but flicking over to manual is easy with a simple press of the power button. Hold again for a couple of seconds and it'll go back to auto mode – any longer and it'll switch off. It's fairly simple to use.

The blue auto indicator is supplemented by a small white LED that indicates low battery on the auto setting, and a yellow LED when in manual. One thing I did notice was that, when the battery does die, it dies abruptly. You don't get a faded 'last vestiges' of light – you go from full working order to nothing at all immediately.

This can be a problem when you're caught out on a night-time commute, and I can't believe it would take too much effort to have a failsafe low auto setting included for when the battery is at 10 per cent, to safely (and legally) get you home.

Another problem I encountered was on recharging – the USB socket is incredibly small, which in itself isn't an issue, but I found the connection between the cable and the light temperamental. Occasionally it would stop charging on its own (indicated by another LED indicator; this time a red one), then kick in again for no apparent reason. I always ended up with a full battery, but I'd still worry about the connection on my test unit.

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The cable is also very short, which means that, depending on the USB port you've slotted it into, the light can end up hanging – which can only be stressing the internal port on both computer and light.

Also, the rubber seal that protects the charging port is similarly tiny, which makes it hard to pry open if you don't have long enough nails, and hard to refit again in order to keep out the elements.

It's a shame, because the light works well out on the road. It's small, the beam is sufficient for commuting purposes when you don’t have the benefit of street lighting, shining the way when you don’t want to blind oncoming traffic too. The bracket, too, which is tethered to the light via a bolt, fits to bars easily and securely via a rubber strap.

Value is reasonable too; at £47.49 it offers some nifty features and usability for the price, and if you can spot it for a discount somewhere then it's a good option. But would I choose it over rivals such as the cheaper Hecto Drive from Lezyne and Cateye's Volt 300? Probably not.

The Guee Sol 300 Plus is a great concept – one that I think works on the whole – but it could use a touch more refinement before I could recommend it.

Verdict

A great concept that works, but this light needs a touch more refinement