Streamlight ProTac HL-X vs Fenix PD36R Pro

For duty carry, buy the Streamlight ProTac HL-X. Buy the Fenix PD36R Pro if you want the most light and the most stored energy and will accept a thinner spec sheet. The Streamlight publishes candela, beam distance and runtime for all three of its modes, carries IP68 and a 2 m impact rating, and runs on two CR123A primaries when its pack is flat. The Fenix publishes 2,800 lumens against 1,300, six meters more reach, and an 18.5 watt-hour cell - but no candela, no per-mode table in text, and no IP code.

We have not handled either light. We own none of the products on this site and have no laboratory. Everything below is read from each maker's own product page on the date cited, plus the arithmetic ANSI FL 1 allows - see our methodology.

Both sheets, side by side

That table is the comparison. Fenix wins the first row and Streamlight wins almost every other one, and whether that is the right trade depends entirely on whether you need a number or need the light.

Twice the lumens, six meters

The PD36R Pro publishes 2,800 lumens against the ProTac's 1,300, and reaches 380 m against 374 m. Those two facts in one sentence are the most useful thing on this page, and they are the clearest demonstration on the site that lumens do not buy distance.

Note which of those two candela figures is published and which is computed. Streamlight prints 35,000 cd and prints 374 m, and they agree - the strongest evidence a spec sheet can offer that somebody measured the light. For the Fenix we have one number and arithmetic on top of it. Lumens versus candela explains why the two answer different questions.

Runtime: three figures against one and a half

Streamlight publishes a runtime for every mode on both power sources - six figures in total. Fenix publishes a Turbo figure and a maximum in text and puts the remaining modes in a chart image, which is better than nothing and worse than a table.

The Fenix figure that gets quoted is 3 h 30 min on Turbo, and it is worth being precise about what that is. Fenix measures to the ANSI FL 1 rule, which runs until output falls to 10 percent of its starting value, so those three and a half hours include the step-down from 2,800 lumens that any light this bright performs within a minute or two. It is not three and a half hours of 2,800 lumens, and nobody should plan as though it is.

The middle mode, and what a chart image costs you

Nobody works on turbo. The level a duty light spends its night on is the middle one, and this is where the two sheets diverge most sharply in practice rather than on paper.

Fenix does publish its other modes - as an image. That is better than silence and worse than a table: it cannot be quoted, searched, read by a screen reader or compared against a competitor without someone squinting at a graph. On the Streamlight side you can state plainly that 420 lumens reaches 210 meters for 3 hours 45 minutes, and check it: 210 m works back to 11,025 candela against a published 11,000.

This is the whole reason we rank disclosure rather than output. A buyer who wants to know what the light does at the setting they will use all night can answer that question from Streamlight's page and cannot answer it from Fenix's. Our tactical hub applies the same test across the category.

The CR123A fallback, and why duty users care

The ProTac HL-X takes two CR123A lithium primaries in place of its rechargeable pack, and Streamlight publishes the full runtime table for that configuration: 1 h 15 min, 3 h and 20 h. Energizer's own datasheet rates CR123A for storage and operation from -40 C to 60 C.

The Fenix has no primary-cell option at all. For a light that lives on a belt and gets charged at the end of a shift, that is a non-issue. For a light that has to work on the third day of something, or in a vehicle, or after a year in a bag, it is the whole argument - and it is why we rank the Streamlight first on flashlights for police and duty use and why the car emergency kit page is built on the same chemistry.

Weather and impact: a coded rating against a sentence

Streamlight publishes IP68 and a 2 m impact rating, tested. Under IEC 60529 the 6 is dust tight and the 8 is continuous immersion to a depth the maker specifies - Streamlight states 2 m.

Fenix states the PD36R Pro is waterproof underwater to 2 meters and that it is impact resistant, and gives neither an IP code nor a drop height. Those are real claims from a serious company and we record them as such; they are also unverifiable against a standard, which is a different thing from a tested IP68. This site corrected its own records on exactly this point in October 2026 - we had previously said Fenix published no ingress claim at all, which was wrong.

Which to buy

Buy the Streamlight ProTac HL-X for duty carry. Best for anyone who needs to know what the light does before they need it: candela and distance for three modes that reconcile with each other, runtime for three modes on two power sources, IP68, a tested 2 m drop, a CR123A fallback and 162 g. Honest downsides: 1,300 lumens is modest in 2026, Streamlight does not publish its pack's capacity, and the programmable interface is a menu you have to learn.

Buy the Fenix PD36R Pro for maximum output and endurance. Best for anyone who wants one rechargeable light that fills a space and runs a long time: 2,800 lumens, a published 18.5 watt-hours, 42 hours at its lowest level, USB-C charging in about three hours, and 169 g. Honest downsides: no published candela, no per-mode runtime table in text, no IP code, no primary-cell fallback, and a Turbo figure that includes its own step-down.

If neither is quite right: the SureFire G2X Pro is the two-mode, no-menu, CR123A-only answer with a published 8,700 cd and 52 hours on low; the Streamlight Stinger 2020 publishes 2,000 lumens with candela and runtime for every mode but weighs 350 g and needs a charger. The brand-level argument sits on Streamlight vs Fenix.