Magicshine’s fun-sized commuter Allty lights

The Magicshine Allty 400, 600, and 800 are the latest additions to Magicshine’s commuter bike lineup. Featuring single Cree LED design and aluminium finishes, the Allty lights offer small form factor with attractive prices and 400-800 Lumen outputs. The Allty 400 is the most affordable variation with a retail price of only $29.99 while the brightest Allty 800 is only $59.99. All the headlights have impressive features such as USB Type-C charging and discharging (and even support USB C2C), Garmin mounts as well as anti-glare lens design. Despite the Allty naming, the lights share the same design as the RN 1200 but use lower capacity batteries to achieve compact form factors.

The Magicshine Allty 400, 600 and 800 are compact commuter style headlights with competitive prices and modern features such as USB Type-C charging.

Rating	9.1/10
Retail Price	$29.99 (Allty 400) / $39.99 (Allty 600) / $59.99 (Allty 800)
Measured Weight (in g)	84 (Allty 400) / 108 (Allty 600) / 158 (Allty 800) / 16 (Mount)
Likes	+ Competitively priced + Versatile Garmin compatible mount + USB Type-C charging and discharging
Dislikes	– No DRLS – Lens design has basic beam cutoff – Handlebar mount requires allen wrench to install
Where to Buy (US)	Allty 400 / Allty 600 / Allty 800 15% OFF coupon code: “TheSweetCyclists”

UNBOXING

The Allty lights are packaged in compact cardboard boxes with Magicshine’s black and orange color scheme. Large cutouts in the boxes allow you to turn the headlights on and off. Inside the box you’ll find:

• Allty headlight
• Garmin compatible handlebar mount
• 4 Mounting Straps – Aero + 35 / 28 / 24.4mm handlebars
• Allen Key
• USB Type-C charging cable
• Instruction Manual
• Garmin-to-GoPro adapter

One thing that surprised us was the inclusion of the Garmin-to-GoPro adapter. This allows the lights to be mounted on various helmet, handlebar and out front style mounts quickly and easily.

MOUNTING

As with most of Magicshine’s headlights, the Allty lights use a Garmin style quarter turn mount molded into the base of the housing. This makes the lights compatible with most mounts on the market, a feature we wished other manufacturers would adopt instead of using proprietary designs with limited mounting options. That said, we’re not big fans of the included handlebar mount which is shared with many of Magicshine’s other headlights. It uses a flexible strap to wrap around the handlebar and a threaded metal insert at the end which an allen bolt secures against. Magicshine does provide multiple length straps, including a very long aero bar variation which means it should work on most bikes. 

The design requires an allen key and takes some patience to line up and tighten down. We prefer the tool-free quick connect style mounts that other commuter lights like the Fenix BC21R or the Kryptonite Incite X6 utilize. Also, with this mount design there is no side-to-side adjustment, a feature other commuter lights offer. We highly recommend using an out-front mount like the Magicshine TTA mount or other mounts on the market instead of the provided handlebar mounts. It’s also important to point out that while it may be tempting to mount the Allty lights upside down, the anti-glare lens design means they should only be mounted upright. Placing them upside down would increase glare to oncoming traffic unless you significantly tilt the headlight downward. Hopefully future Allty lights will incorporate a flippable lens or dual mounting design to avoid this issue. 

FIT & FINISH

Those more familiar with the Magicshine product line may recognize the Allty lights as being quite similar to the RN 1200. For whatever reason, Magicshine has chosen to continue the Allty name with these headlights insead of the RN product name. That said, they share the same aluminium housing design, but use sleek graphics on the sides instead of the grooves featured on the RN 1200. The design gives the headlights a more premium feel compared to plastic commuter lights and doesn’t add a significant amount of weight. The Allty 400 is the ‘fun-sized’ variation with a short and stubby design while the Allty 800 is the same length as RN 1200.

What’s particularly impressive about the Allty lights is that they all offer USB Type-C charging and discharging. This means you can actually use a USB Type-C to USB Type-C connector on the lights to charge them or use them as a power bank for other devices. The smaller battery capacity of these lights mean it isn’t particularly practical to use these as a power bank, especially compared to the giant MJ-6118 battery pack included with the MOH 55 Pro, you can easily share USB Type-C cables between devices. We look forward to seeing more bicycle lights adopt the USB Type-C standard.

USER INTERFACE

All the lights use a simple top mounted rubberized power button that is also back illuminated to show the battery status. It’s a three level battery status that uses green / red colors as well as solid / flashing states to indicate the current battery level. While it’s not as intuitive as the Allty 2000’s OLED screen, the basic design is still a helpful feature. Simply pressing the button once while the light is off also illuminates the battery status making it easy to check the battery status before you ride. All the lights have three constant and two flash output modes that can be accessed through a two-level menu. A single press with the light on cycles through the constant or flash modes, while a double press will switch between constant/flash modes. This design means that you don’t have to cycle through flash modes if you just want to change the constant output setting, something that can be quite annoying when riding on dark trails.

LIGHT OUTPUT

All the lights feature three constant modes and two flash modes. Constant modes have multiple intensities with the traditional low, medium and high levels. Flash modes include the standard on/off flash as well as a second high frequency on/off that can be quite disorientating at night. We did find the second intense flash mode great for daytime riding though as it also has a long runtime. The Allty 400 has lumen outputs that vary from 100-400 Lumen and runtimes from 1.7-6.5 hr. With the Allty 600 the output is a higher 150-600 Lumen with runtimes of 1.5-5.5hr. The brightest Allty 800 is 200-800 Lumen and 1.7-7.5 hr runtimes. The jumps between the levels are large enough to be useful while the lowest setting on all the lights is best reserved for daytime or urban riding.

Although Magicshine’s website makes the anti-glare design of the Allty lights look like a sharp cut-off, in reality the simple vertical diffusers only slightly reduce the glare. The headlights all produce a ‘dual beam design’ with a lower dim round second beam below the standard circular beam pattern. It’s not as sharp as lights like the Lupine SL or Kryptonite Incite X8 lights, but it’s still a useful feature and does help focus more output on the ground. The beam pattern is uniform and surprisingly wide despite the single LED design of the headlights. That said, we would recommend the Allty 600 or Allty 800 for those riding faster on dark trails due to the higher runtime and output and the Allty 400 for urban riding.

THE VERDICT

Overall, we found the Magicshine Allty 400, 600, and 800 commuter headlights to be well priced with modern features. The compact design of the lights and different lumen outputs make it easy to find the best light for your riding style and budget. Even the most affordable $30 Allty 400 shares the same Garmin style mount and USB Type-C charging and discharging design which is impressive at this price point. These two features mean you can easily mount the headlights on various Garmin or GoPro mounts (thanks to the included adapter) and share the USB Type-C charging cable between the lights and other devices. Although we would have liked to see integrated DRLs (as the Allty 1000 and 2000 have), the simple soft beam cutoff and wide and uniform beam make the lights perfect for commuting. The small form factor and attractive pricing of the lights make them well suited to be handlebars or a helmet mounted for commuters or mountain bikers.

Disclaimer: The product for this review was provided by Magicshine. The views expressed on this website are solely those of the authors and are here to help people make an informed choice before a purchase. The authors or the blog itself does not get any monetary compensation from the product manufacturer or third-party websites/vendor links that are posted here.