What are the top brands of Chinese flashlights in 2019?

[Tachead]

Understood, he is the one I thought stopped doing them!

I don't think he did but, I could be wrong. Maybe he will chime in. Either way, it's nice they are still available over here.

 

[AVService]

I don't think he did but, I could be wrong. Maybe he will chime in. Either way, it's nice they are still available over here.

I simply forgot that this is where I got my last ones,he is still selling as of 1 minute after you reminded me.
Now back to the thread so as to not inflict any wrath from perceived hijacking.

ZL all day long!
PK on Weekends
Fenix if you don't mind putrid tint in general and lack of Moonlight options
ET for something a little different but excellent in my experience
Olight seems decent so far too
Convoy and Emisar are an unbeatable value
4/7 has a loyal following and its sure not because they are no good

Whether or not the manufacturers all build in the same place or simply see one making a terrific idea come to life and copy them I think if yo spend a little time on here reading about lights a few dominant makers always seem to come to the top.

I don't pretend to speak as an authority about any other than the ones that I use and keep buying myself.

 

[markr6]

I'm American....move to France for 2 years and set up a flashlight company, and have them made in Hungary. Is the flashlight French, Hungarian, or deep down American in disguise?

 

[AVService]

I'm American....move to France for 2 years and set up a flashlight company, and have them made in Hungary. Is the flashlight French, Hungarian, or deep down American in disguise?

Chinese obviously but nice try.

 

[bykfixer]

I don't think he did but, I could be wrong. Maybe he will chime in. Either way, it's nice they are still available over here.

Milepost is still around.

Basically late in 2017 PK made the decision to focus his attention on his roots. The early days of SureFire involved innovations of the now endangered light bulb. At SureFire they did great strides to improve lighting technology of that time. Unknown to many these days, they could hardly give the darn things away in the early days before things took off like a chain reaction of the atomic bomb.

Well his new company began about the same way. Instead of innovations with light bulbs he sought after improving the LED beyond anything ordinary, but not some 22 seconds at full blast and settle out at 45% throttle. He raised the bar to levels not seen yet, and steadily stay that way. Plus his lights had taken on a radical look that was often not very friendly looking with cool white beams. And he had no intentions of anything different since his lights were meant to double as last chance defensive items.
He coined the phrase "engineered for cultivated expectations".

By 2018 he had turned his fertile mind a new direction that was meant for extreme duty scenarios such as border patrol agents or military purposes and that has begun to finally blossom into a few new products.

Much of designing and manufacturing in China leads to stolen ideas, copycats or fakes. When you have invested tons of resources into an idea, the last thing you want to see is your products on the big auction site a few weeks before you actually released them. So he does things carefully and slowly. Not only to ensure fakes do not happen but to ensure those whose lives may depend on his lighting tools are able to count on them with 100% certainty.

The newest items are going to be like his early days at SureFire in that they'll be available in quantities from contracts.

So for now the lights from the early days of PKDL, the FL2, PR-1, PL2 and PRX are still available at resources listed at PK Design Lab dot com. Others listed at the site are coming to a military near you.

 

[markr6]

Chinese obviously but nice try.

HAHA!

 

[koziy]

I'm American....move to France for 2 years and set up a flashlight company, and have them made in Hungary. Is the flashlight French, Hungarian, or deep down American in disguise?

Why do people take such offense to the identification and analysis of a distinct segment of the market?

 

[Dubois]

My 3 Zebralights (2x sc600w and sc52) have all disappointed. Both the sc600's have switch issues - I'm never sure if it will come on properly, so they don't get used. The sc52 doesn't work properly on NiMh, but seems to be OK on 14500.

The last couple of years I've used (and relied on) MecArmy lights. The PT series is great, as they all have the same UI, which I like. Even the little X series Ti keychain lights continue to work without any problems after a few years.

 

[markr6]

Why do people take such offense to the identification and analysis of a distinct segment of the market?

I honestly don't know. It's like they take it personally, as a discriminatory remark. I just laugh about it at this point. China makes so much stuff you can't really say it's good or bad. It's both...dependent on the actual company/manufacturer.

 

[ven]

I presume(well i do anyway) people want honesty. Canadian company, yet made in china, shipped from china.................thats Chinese to me. Zebra may be a USA registered company. But built in China, my repair went from Texas to China...............its a Chinese light to me. I get some companies use Chinese parts, heck its hard not to, especially with many LED's. If i buy Malkoff or HDS or Surefire, they are USA lights to me. There are a lot of grey areas, a lot of different views, but for me, if its built in a country..................its from that country.
:tinfoil:

So on Chinese made/manufactured, Fenix for me are one of the better brands. Nitecore have reached all corners of the planet, maybe surpassed even the mighty Fenix. But i have more confidence in Fenix and have dealt with their customer service(good). After all, no matter how much or little invested, a good company comes to light in that time of need imho. In fairness, nitecore also came through, although it took a little more leg work. Olight have been excellent in customer service, Klarus i wont spend a penny with ever again(read into that all you want). Acebeam have also come through in the past, as mentioned zebra to.

Thats my personal opinion and actual experience over the years, others no doubt will vary a bit.

 

[seery]

For hard daily use around our horse farm and property, I trust Acebeam and Fenix more than any other brands.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

One nobody really speaks of is those made by former SureFire designer PK called PK Design Labs that are made in China. Yet unlike the typical Chinese lights, PK has his own facility and uses state of the art parts and pieces crafted in house and assembled by people. He does SureFire level lighting tools at Chinese made prices.

Spring of last year I read about PK Design Lab on the Net in firearm related blog articles. Quite a few products, some eerily similar to Surefire Xseries weapon lights. No prices or information on where to purchase. Haven't seen anything since. When I looked at the PK Design Lab website, a lot of products looked like they were trying to appeal to the tacticool customer. Their statement... Design style, and new fresh Artistic attempts of machining methods for all details in cosmetic pleasure...

Apparently, this is their "cosmetic pleasure" flagship shown in Gallery I.

 

[1000cri]

For budget lights, Convoy for sure. You can order direct from them on Aliexpress. They have a lot of options including multiple high CRI LED options and programmable drivers now. I have several and have never had one fail. I have a modded Convoy from Pflexpro that's lived in my pocket for the last year as my main EDC. The fit and finish is excellent for the price too. I'm pretty sure they made the original C8 and the others are copies (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Roger Sully]

Spring of last year I read about PK Design Lab on the Net in firearm related blog articles. Quite a few products, some eerily similar to Surefire Xseries weapon lights.

I'm an Olight man, myself...I've tried my share of lights made overseas and always find myself coming back you Olight.

As to the quote above, it is not a surprise that the PK lights resemble the Surefire lights since the majority of the SF lights were designed by PK. Most of the lights on the site haven't been released yet but the ones that have can be had at Milepost28.com.

 

[bykfixer]

I don't want to take this thread onto a PK rail but do want to mention that he invented tacticool long before it was in vogue, and not to be a fashion statement but to be something that increased safety for those tasked with keeping us safe.

For clarity, I am a flashlight collector who studied the history of flashlights for a couple of years scouring the internet and written historical documentation and have had the pleasure of conversing at times with some historians and world class collectors. Even some of the players in the game changer period have shared some stories with me along the way. Then one day Paul Kim (known as PK) asked me to help get the word out about his post SureFire ideas. So I started Milepost 28 as part of that. My goal there is to eventually create a source for light collectors to gain some insight into the past and help keep the world abreast of where PK is at these days.

So the following is some insight as to how things got where they are today:

Many folks may not realize that it was PK who placed the first anti roll shaping on a flashlight. The 6P was round at first. It was taken out of the SureFire line up at one point because it was such a dud seller. Yup. But look at what it led to after it was re-released with the anti roll head. While at SureFire he did a company called Icon with lights made overseas too. They were artsee in stature but had martial arts in mind as well. Perhaps those were the original tacticool lights with their James Bond issue looks.

When he left SureFire and became a consultant designer a couple of up and comers hired him to design the most radical thing he could come up with. So the first one out the box looked like a Klingon Empire issue number. Those are the ones shown in post #32 and are highly sought after by weapon light collectors.

Many folks may not know this as well, but there once was a CPF edition SureFire PK did to raise funds in the early days of this site. It go so intense long ago that a couple other "anti-SureFire" flashlight forums popped up. Places where other fertile minds long since gone could muster their ideas without the SureFire crowd of the time injecting their...(for lack of better word) bias's.

So one day the Chinese factories started going from making pure junk to being somewhat competitive with the advanced nations. Made in Japan at one point meant "inferior" to most. Made in China meant it would self destruct in 60 seconds. Later on made in Japan meant American know how with German craftsmanship at less cost. And Chinese still meant junk but things were getting better. Slowly though, the Chinese factories were built to create products that could compete in the world market and big companies saw ginormous profit potential due to uber cheap labor. Their were no labor unions and big bloated executive salaries. Just lightning quick mechanized factories able to out produce anybody else and at ridiculously cheap prices. Plus the Chinese government was funding much of the deal in a 100 year plan to take over the planet economically.

It was the wild west in China and at times a manufacturing exec would roll out a set of drawings for a product they wanted to produce over there and while the discussion took place a spy camera was taking photos of the idea. In a couple of weeks that product was being cloned across the hill in another factory.

So by 2015 the Chinese made flashlight was here to stay. Now it's up to the market to decide which 'new kid' stays and which fades away into the anals of mediocrity. FourSevens made a go for a while and did a lot of lighting tools highly prized for a long time, then the owner cashed in his chips for reasons unknown. Lots of speculation swirled why he sold the company but nobody really knows. Lots of rumors and inuindos were discussed but it probably came down to the same reason PK left SureFire...it was just time for a change in the dog-eat-dog world of brighter for less and less world of flashlights at the lumen wars spiraled out of control and claims got more and more exagerated in the goal of snagging a larger portion of a shrinking pie.

I coined a phrase at one point here: "even bad flashlights aint bad these days".

Here is a bit of history versus today: (2016-ish)

Then and now.
The top two were attempts at American know how via Chinese cheapo, third from top is a typical America designed Chinese made deal and the bottom is a Chinese tacticool cheapo of today.

Shows the evolution early on.
The top one is an early number from the 1970's when the Maglite had not become available to the masses and Eveready was still king. The bottom one was an early edition of upgraded craftsmanship built in China in the late 70's for a way to raise quick cash for a project by a conglomorate who wanted to advance lighting technology.

On the right it wasn't even a perfect circle.
To the left shows things were progressing. Uh oh. Yet nobody noticed (yet).

Horrible.
But that is no longer the case.

A case of tacticool versus tactical.

 

[Tachead]

Thanks for the history Bykfixer👍.

I wish PK would start making those old Foxfury lights again, they were pretty cool.

 

[Tac Gunner]

Well this thread seems to have gone all over the place but to answet the OP's original question, I consider Fenix to be the top of the line for Chinese lights. I have several of their products that get best and banged and some flat kut abused and have never had an issue.

 

[ven]

Well this thread seems to have gone all over the place but to answet the OP's original question, I consider Fenix to be the top of the line for Chinese lights. I have several of their products that get best and banged and some flat kut abused and have never had an issue.

Yes fenix are certainly up there near or at the top, i rest my case:thinking:

Awesome stuff mr fixer, love the way you write and can read all day about PK. That guy is one hellovadude

 

[koziy]

Well this thread seems to have gone all over the place but

That's fine with me. I just didn't want it to become a thread about bashing Chinese products just because they're made in China.

 

[Bullzeyebill]

I second that. Those bashing threads get closed pretty fast.

Bill