Cell phones with buildin flashlight

ma_sha1

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
3,042
Location
CT, USA
Some cell phones now comes with a built in flashlight,
Would love to see some more info. on that, models, pictures, beam shots...are they just 5mm leds?
 

mvyrmnd

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Messages
3,391
Location
Australia
My iPhone 4 has a nice neutral (4500k or so) unknown led for the camera flash that can be used as a flashlight. I'll grab a beamshot for you tonight.
 

tam17

Enlightened
Joined
Jun 9, 2011
Messages
737
Some low-end cell phones have dedicated flashlights (no camera and therefore no flash LED), e.g. Nokia 1208, 1280 etc.. Those LEDs are surface mount, not 5mm AFAIK.

Low lumens, purple tints, weird optics and even weirder beam patterns, if you compare them to ordinary LED flashlights...:sick2:

Nokia 1280 beamshot (phone is perpendicular to the white wall, at a distance of approx. 1ft). Tint is more purplish than what is shown here. Note the beam profile:

2qx14k4.jpg


Cheers,

Tam
 
Last edited:

Napalm

Enlightened
Joined
May 1, 2011
Messages
735
Location
Canada
Amazing how cell phone makers try to cram about everything in their devices, from cameras, gps and flashlights to vibrators. And how people rush to pay "monthly plans" to use such, even while they're so crappy when compared to their standalone counterparts.

Nap.
 

shao.fu.tzer

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 13, 2006
Messages
1,076
Location
P-Town, TX
I was handling one of my friend's giant brick cellphones and I was studying the flash which also served as the flashlight on the phone and it looked like it was a Rebel emitter... I think it was maybe a Nokia???
 

JS_280

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Sep 21, 2009
Messages
135
As stated above, the flash on the iPhone 4, which can be used as a flashlight, has a nice, pure-flood, neutral tinted beam. I guestimate it to be in the 10-15 lumen range.
 

Serial Chiller

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jul 3, 2009
Messages
83
Location
Berlin, Germany
I have a flashlight built into my cell phone (Samsung B2100). The beam has a very weird and awful shape and about a dozen different tints. But it has been very useful to me in the past. Like when I was on a holiday in Namibia, three Weeks in the middle of nowhere. I had lost my Qmini CR2 and my AA charger in the very beginning. My camera also takes AA-Batteries so I was really glad I had my cell phone light and didn't have to use the remaining charged AA-Batteries for my other flashlight.

Recently I lost my new Qmini CR2. What I love about this flashlight (it's size) is also it's biggest curse. I know that it must be somewhere in my apartment but I just can't find it. As I am not ready to order my third (!) Qmini yet, I have to use my cell phone light as my edc.
 

Scubie67

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 5, 2011
Messages
206
Location
NC
My Casio Ravine has a Very Low Powered Led flashlight, I am guessing its around 3 or 4 Lumens as it considerably Less than my L1Ds low(Which is 8 if I remember correctly).I guess it would be a good backup to find your EDC after it dropped out of your pocket probably nothing much more though.
 

Cheapskate

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 24, 2008
Messages
346
Location
Ireland
Amazing how cell phone makers try to cram about everything in their devices, from cameras, gps and flashlights to vibrators. And how people rush to pay "monthly plans" to use such, even while they're so crappy when compared to their standalone counterparts.

Nap.

My phone is first and foremost a terrific phone, the sound quality when used as a music source is as good as an iPod or dedicated CD Player. The GPS is damn good, not quite on par with a dedicated unit but still excellent. As a camera it isn't too shoddy either:
Bts3.jpg


I have two interesting apps for it. One turns on the cameras flash led, which looks neutral. The other just lights up the whol screen in either red white or blue and you can adjust the brightness by swiping the screen. Being an Oled screen, the colours seem really pure and saturated.
 

ma_sha1

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Messages
3,042
Location
CT, USA
I wish my cell phone has flashlight, but it doesn't.

I use a bright image as screen saver, I can set screen brightness to high, use it as a floody flashlight,
find staff dropped on the floor of movie theater or find key holes at dark, its surprisingly bright.

Cell phone led "Screen Flashlight" Beam shot :eek:
dscf0897a.jpg
 
Last edited:

Arcus Diabolus

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 15, 2010
Messages
34
I have one of those cheap phones that have a built in flashlight. I'll try to get some beamshots and pictures of the light itself for you guys to examine. :)
 

alpg88

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 19, 2005
Messages
5,282
during 2004 blackout in NYC, when ppl were exiting building guess what they use as a flashlight, screens of their cell phones, it was quite a view, moving zigzag of lights coming down the stairs, oh the emergency lights in the staircases worked 1 out of 10.
i have nextel brute, it has a led light next to camera, it can be used as a flashlight.
 

mrlysle

Enlightened
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
649
Location
West Virginia
My HTC EVO 4G has a couple leds sitting one above the other right beside the camera lens. The phone has a built in app for using it as a flashlight. I was pretty suprised at the beam from this thing. Actually very smooth with a nice tint. You'd swear you were looking at the beam from a regular led flashlight! Obviously not the brightest, but if I was ever in a bind, it would be super handy.
 

hoongern

Enlightened
Joined
Apr 19, 2009
Messages
435
Location
Cambridge, MA & Malaysia
I think it's great that many people who would have never carried a flashlight now have access to one through their phones, even if it's no where near the brightness & quality of dedicated flashlights. One can hope that it would make it easier for them to realize the usefulness of a portable light.

Of course, in an emergency, most phones don't tend to be waterproof, as durable, as bright, or have runtime like a real flashlight. Runtime especially suffers on many of these smartphones!
 

yowzer

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
566
Location
Near Seattle
I used to have a Kyocera candy bar style phone with a 5mm LED on the top for a light. It didn't work very well. My Droid X has an app to turn on the flash LEDs. They have a lovely neutral tint, and about 15-20 lumens of lovely pure flood. I just wish there was a way to adjust the brightness down.

I also have a hand held two-way ham radio with a 5mm LED on top. It doesn't work very well.
 

Cheapskate

Enlightened
Joined
Feb 24, 2008
Messages
346
Location
Ireland
I seriously doubt this.

Nap.

Most people do. I have often made the claim the sound quality from my iPod through my high-end audio system is as good as my well regarded CD player with it's dedicated DAC's for each channel. Since I know that no one who has listened to the two sources on my system could hear a difference, I digitally recorded the direct output from the CD player and iPod of the same piece of music and used edititng software to splice bits of both recordings together into a single track. I have posted the file and challenged people to download it, listen to it, and tell me the time points where they can hear the sound quality of the track change. No one has ever been able to do this. This Stereophile review of my ipod might explain why they couldn't: http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/934/index.html To quote John Atkinson "The iPod's measured behavior is better than many CD players"

As I have said, my phone sounds as good my iPod or CD player listened to on either excellent headphones or my main system. here are the audio specs as measured by GSM Arena in their tests:
Samsung S8500 Wave
Frequency response +0.03 -0.04
Noise level -90.9
Dynamic range 90.9
THD 0.016
IMD + Noise 0.020
Stereo crosstalk-92.5
gsmarena_a001.png


Now I could of course do as I have done for the iPod and record the output from the phone and CD player and make another file, but at this point i really can't be bothered.
 

leon2245

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,335
Amazing how cell phone makers try to cram about everything in their devices, from cameras, gps and flashlights to vibrators. And how people rush to pay "monthly plans" to use such, even while they're so crappy when compared to their standalone counterparts.

Nap.

Despite what I assume are impressive photo & audio demos by cheapskate (& tam's beamshot doesn't look too bad either), I too disapprove of the trend you describe. But for me it's mostly getting pwnd by the in-your-face "No, you HAVE to get a phone that does _____!" guys, & those "big boy phone" song commercials, where the man can't get a job because of his old phone- the interviewer (& muppets) are laughing at him because he still has a flip-phone!

:crackup:
 
Last edited:

Xacto

Enlightened
Joined
May 22, 2010
Messages
569
Location
Heidelberg Area, Germany
Since the LED in my iPhone can not be exchanged as easily as a dropin in one of my hosts, I do not use it as a flashlight. But I stopped EDCing my Canon Powershot A510 finally since the iPhone4 picuture quality is good enough for most tasks. OTH, I actually have an iPhone because I want to check my e-mails and websites every few minutes no matter where I am and not because I want to talk on the phone (have to do that for a living 8-10 hours on workdays)

Cheers
Thorsten
 
Top