Magicshine ALLTY 1200: Big lumens, small price tag, but is it any good?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from years of being a cyclist, it’s that not all bike lights are created equal. I’ve deposited more than my fair share of lights claiming to be the next greatest and best in beam and visibility at the local recycling centre as they’ve either surrendered to the relentlessness of the Great British Weather, or burnt themselves out. I, therefore, have an extremely high bar when it comes to praising the best budget bike lights.

Testing the Magicshine ALLTY 1200 though has made me rethink what I can - and should - expect not just from a budget bike light, but from a bike light full stop.

Promising serious brightness (up to 1200 lumens) and proper weatherproofing, the Magic Shine ALLTY manages to toe the line of a practical bike light without draining your wallet (or its battery), and has specs that rival some of the best bike lights on the market. While its older sibling, the Magicshine RN 3000, cranks out a blinding 3000 lumens, I find 1200 lumens to be the sweet spot for real-world cycling. It’s powerful enough for unlit country lanes and bikepacking trips, but not so excessive that you’re constantly worrying about charging or annoying fellow road users.

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For the past few weeks I have been testing out the MagicShine on almost all of my rides. At risk of ruining the rest of the review for you, I think it’s a pretty good light.

Design and set up

I’ll cut to the chase, even in the best bike lights, design hasn’t really evolved too much over the past few years, and the Magicshine hasn’t exactly bucked the trend. Straight out of the box, it’s a ‘torch style’ light, at about 107mm long (4.2 inches), and not too dissimilar to the Cateye AMPP900, just with a few more lumens.

The light is housed front and centre in a sleek rectangle gun-metal silver case. There is a small cut out on the sides that very slightly widens the beam of light and is particularly helpful for the use of the 1200 lumen mode, allowing the triangle to spread just slightly wider than its footprint. Short ‘shark gill’ etchings on either side of the chiseled body give it a bit of an edgy look and distinguishes it from older versions of the design.

On the top sits the single on/off and mode buttons; a long hold switches it on and then shorter presses allows you to cycle through the differing modes. The on/off button glows green and red, showing you the relative charge of the unit, though more on that later. The rear has a deep-set USB-C charging port with a silicone flap. Besides that, there’s nothing more to it. It's about as tried-and-tested as bike light design can be really.

There are two mounting options for the Magicshine to sit out-and-front on your handlebars; the first, a Garmin-insert that allows you to utilise any pre-existing Garmin mount with a quarter turn click, and the second, a strap with a hex bolt. Magicshine provides four different lengths of strap to fit most handlebars. I say most because I ride with very beefy gravel handlebars and I couldn’t get it to reliably sit with any of the strap lengths.

It does come with a mount with which you could sling it under your bike computer using a GoPro style adapter, but it's not designed to be that way up. If you want that then Magicshine specifically makes a remote operated version than can go underneath and remain right-way-up, though it's hard to find and may well have been discontinued.

This is not a lightweight bike light, weighing in at 165g (5.82oz), but also not one of the heaviest on the market. However, it feels solidly well made, with a confidence-inspiring durability.

Performance

Sitting down to write, I did wonder with mild panic how on earth I was going to find enough words to fill an entire review that basically boils down to ‘I really like this light’, but I will give it a go: I really like this light.

There’s a few reasons for my enthusiasm. The first is mostly to do with the fact that it’s easy to click in and out of the mount and shove in some bags as I go into shops when I am out on a ride. There’s no allen key and no seven-step de-mounting procedure that you need to follow with militant precision. It's just twist in and twist out, and so I really don’t fear popping into shops quickly on my rides or commute. It’s simple and straightforward and that’s what I want from bike lights.

Secondly, it is just a light. Unlike the model up – the brilliantly illuminated MagicShine Evo 1700 – it doesn't connect to your shifters and there is no additional song and dance with it. You can use the Magicshine app if you’d like, but it isn't mandatory. This is a revelation in the modern age, which seems hellbent on forcing us all to use our phones for absolutely every single mundane task in existence, including pressing a button to change the mode on a light.

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Mostly though, I like the output of the Magicshine.

The ALLTY 1200 offers three constant modes: 300, 600, and 1200 lumens, plus day and night flash modes at 300-1200 and 0-1200 lumens respectively. I haven’t yet needed to use anything other than the low and medium modes (or night flash) for most of my riding over the past few weeks. I live in a semi-rural part of England, and much of my routes are through small street lit towns and villages; the requirement here is really to be more visible to other road users as opposed to navigating, and so this range works really well for almost all the riding I do across the year.

In my experiments I found the bike was still visible at more than 150 meters away even on the low and medium modes, and I suspect you’d get even more visibility out of it - Magicshine claims more than 800 meters for its 1200 lumen setting - but I couldn’t find a road straight enough to fully test that theory out (British problems).

Another subtle detail worth highlighting is the way the light swells and glows briefly as you switch between modes; it’s a small design touch that adds a premium feel. The beam itself is equally considered: broad, reliable and uniform, ‘pooling’ around the bike rather than casting a narrow triangle of light. This meant that on trail, even in the proper dark of night, you still have exceptional visibility around the bike as well as directly in front of you.

Speaking of 1200 lumens, can I just say this is absurdly bright. I know you can get much higher lumens on the market if you’re willing to part with more cash and are so inclined, but I’d caution against it unless you're doing a lot of night riding in properly unlit areas. I used to stick 1200 lumen bulbs in my first car and that level of power is pretty impressive on a bike.

The first time I used these lights at night, another cyclist actually stopped me to ask me where I got them from; we stood in the pool of light emanating from the ALLTY 1200 and I felt like I was on stage. Though they’re not necessarily needed in day-to-day riding, the option of 1200 is incredibly handy to have. It means I don’t have to worry about getting caught out on longer rides, and for bikepacking trips I only ever need to bring the one light with me.

But what about battery life? A bike light is nothing if it’s got a temperamental run time, or if it’s dead after a few minutes of using it. Magicshine states that at the full whack of 1200 lumens you’ll get 2 hours of battery life. I got closer to just over 90 minutes if I am honest, but of course output is always dependent on temperature and weather conditions. Even so, for a budget light, I don’t think 90 minutes is too bad.

For the lower modes, I actually found it rather challenging to review the battery life, because it lasted so long on each of the lower lumen modes that I kept forgetting to record the number of hours of use between each charge. Magicshine states that on both low (300 lumen) and day flash (0-1200 lumen) you can get between 11 and 12 hours of usage, and I don’t doubt you’d get close to that in the summer months. For medium mode, it claims it’s about 4 hours, which again I feel is accurate based on the average usage I got out of it. I must admit, I’ve personally never needed a bike light with 600 lumens for 4 solid hours and I do hope I never end up needing one, but it's good to be aware of the capabilities nonetheless.

When charging it up, you’ll be pleased to hear that the bike lights industry is very steadily progressing to USB-C, and Magicshine is no exception here. I cannot tell you how many bike lights have ended up recycled because I have misplaced the tiny proprietary cables mere days after purchasing. Charging is quick; two hours or so to about full, and even a short thirty minute blast can give you a couple of hours on low mode or night flash.

Weatherproofing is also a core factor of a quality bike light and despite my initial reservations that a metal casing wouldn’t be rain proof enough to withstand British downpours, it seems to have done alright for itself. The weather gods have been kind so far, and I haven’t yet subjected it to the true relentlessness of winter mornings, but Magicshine has rated it at IPX7, which means it technically can withstand being submerged in up to 1m (3.3 ft) of water for 30 minutes.

Before I progress to the things I found a bit annoying about the ALLTY 1200 (don’t worry, they’re brief!) I just want to point out the change in the on / off button from earlier designs. In our review of the Magicshine RN 3000 it is mentioned how stiff the button is, and how that became problematic in winter with cold hands. The new design offers a much easier clicking experience, far more accessible and usable to people with dexterity issues, but conversely is much more likely to accidentally switch on when slung into bikepacking bags.

The downsides

And speaking of some slight negatives, there are some. If I was going to be a bit nit-picky, I would tell you that it’s a real pain trying to decipher the battery levels without a clear indicator. It’s either green for charged, or red for not-charged-and-maybe-about-to-die, and I still haven’t got quite to grips with when it needs to be charged and how long I might be able to get away with it for.

Secondly, the metal case gets incredibly hot, and I have more than once brushed and slightly burned my hand on it. It therefore might not be the best if you have young children near or around it, and be careful not to just pluck it off your bike unthinkingly when at a café stop.

Thirdly, it's not the easiest to get it to switch into day and night flash. You need to be in the correct mode (1200 lumens for day mode and 300 lumens for night mode) before you do a precise long press. A fraction too long and you'll turn it off, which is annoying and not the easiest to determine when you're in the saddle. Not a huge deal, but certainly one I found a little bit of a pain getting used to, and an issue that's common with a lot of Magicshine lights.

Finally, I don’t personally recommend the strap mount, and prefer using the Garmin mount, which is obviously a problem for anyone who has not pledged unswerving allegiance to Garmin. On my first usage of the strap mount (precariously attached as none of the straps offered a secure fit), the bolt came undone and the light flung itself at the ground with such force that I, as I got off my bike and ambled over to its lifeless form on the ground, could not imagine how it might have survived the impact. Happily though, it did, with only a few minor scratches around the face. I have subsequently added ‘durability’ to my list of pros for the Magicshine, but have learnt that it does need a more secure mount on the handlebars than a few flimsy bits of plastic and a noncommittal hexbolt.

Verdict

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from accidentally breaking bike lights over the years, it’s that price rarely guarantees real world performance, and even the priciest of units and specs can disappoint once in daily use. But the MagicShine ALLTY 1200 surprised me. It’s bright enough to handle pitch-black lanes, durable enough to cope with my clumsiness, and simple enough to use without an app. It doesn’t try to be anything more than a good quality light that keeps you visible and on the move.

Of course, it’s not perfect. The battery indicator could be clearer, and the strap mount needs improving, but it gets much more right than it does wrong. For £69.99, it’s the kind of light I’d confidently recommend to anyone looking for a reliable front light without blowing the budget. There's also plenty of lights with much higher lumens, or with greater connectivity and smart features. For most of us though, I am not convinced you actually need more than what the ALLTY 1200 offers for day to day riding.

In short: It's not just a good budget light. It's a good light, full stop.