Re: Zebralight SC51 (XP-G R4) & SC50w (XP-E Neutral) 1xAA Reviews: RUNTIMES, BEAMSHOT
Have you considered that the SC51 might be a ringer? The performance when compared to the Fenix (which is fairly well known as one of the leaders in circuits) leaves me wondering if the LED was hand selected. Car manufacturers have been known to do this by giving journalists cars with tweaked engines to test. I wonder if we might be starting to see that happen in the flashlight world. :laughing:
This is always a potential concern, but to date it does not seem to be a problem. I've bought a number of shipping versions of lights I've reviewed (different makers), and performance has always been within a typical expected range (so far ...).
I would think using ringers would be a dangerous game to play. Once the shipping lights get into enough hands, any significant discrepancy to the comparison results here would be noted pretty quickly (i.e. I am not just "test-driving" but directly measuring and comparing performance metrics). And that would tarnish a company's reputation pretty fast (and for a long while, since folks here have a long memory
).
Also, unless someone seriously altered the components, a ringer in one sense is likely to underperform in others (i.e. higher output but shorter runtime, or vice versa). Cherry-picking a good tint is always possible - most everything else would be tougher, unless defined bins were known (e.g. Vf).
Besides, if ZL were going to send a ringer, I would think they would have picked one with a higher PWM on Low2.
(although there again is an example of trade-off - lower PWM usually translates into higher efficiency).
