Mag Light Discussion

GeoBruin

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In addition to CPF, I'm an active member of Reddit.com and I've recently realized that there is a modest but active flashlight board there. Recently one of the board's moderators was plugging a list of flashlight manufacturers they maintained for reference on the site and someone responded asking why Mag wasn't on the list. This was the mod's response:

I believe Mag-lite has done more harm to lighting than any other company in the existence of modern portable lighting. They have single-handedly held this industry back simply for the sake of easy profit, being the monopolistic company that they are. They intentionally stifled innovation year after year to keep making an extra buck off of you and me selling yesterday's "cheaper to make - old technology" at today's prices. After two decades or so of this, finally new "no name companies" like Fenix and FourSeven's grew from obscurity into the quality customer oriented businesses that they are giving you cutting edge products. Mag-lite could of put in the newest Cree L.E.D.'s or the like at the time but did not because they dominated the market so much so that they made people think that what they offered "must" be the best. Hell, they could have led the whole L.E.D. movement ten years earlier if they wanted to and we would be a generation ahead in lighting now.
They don't want to give the customer the best product at the best price - only to corner the market by using "shelf space influencing force" to sell you ancient lights for obscure prices. What this means is they are so big they can demand that the store owners keep most of their competitors off of the shelves at the places where you see them for sale.
Mag-lite can burn in hell for all I care. Maybe I am bitter because in the 80's they were the quality "go to" lights. Then technology improved but they wouldn't change AT ALL and offered incandescent bulbs continuously because they could ride on the coat-tails of being the biggest and most respected light company on the planet. That was until they were only recently forced to upgrade because finally someone else had a little success selling better lights. The competition had its work cut out because "Mag-lite" had the branding of the "best light in the industry". They whored that image out forever while never caring about improvements and only finally started to improve a little because of competition...not because they give a damn about you getting a better light.
My point is I have twenty year old lights from them and the exact same model is still for sale. That means they don't care about you or innovation - they only care about crushing competition through unfair muscling for shelf space at Target, Wal-Mart, etc. and keeping Fenix/Foursevens, etc. and other more deserving manufactures out of your line of sight. They don't care about advancing lighting as an industry in the least, only controlling the market to get you to cough up a buck for a "name".
Inova - decent but not really up to the level of these other companies yet. Their offerings are still somewhat cheaply made (comparatively) and limited in variety for a product line. Better than some others you see though IMO. I would buy an Inova on a very good sale though with no regret.
Sorry for the rant but now maybe younger generations understand a little more about the horrible company that is Mag-lite.

I thought that was a little one sided considering everything I thought Mag has done for flashlights and their popularity as a platform among the modding community, not to mention years of service to LEOs and security personnel. I was hoping to see if anyone else thought this was out of line or if there is some truth to this person's accusations.


 

AnAppleSnail

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I'd say they're out of line. Mag Lites may not be extremely bright, but they are dependable and simple. That's good enough for their target market. The people who keep a MagLite in the tool box or boat. Blaming Mag Lite for lights being crummy in the 80s is short-sighted. Flashlights weren't impressive in the 80s because there were cheap lights and expensive good lights. Any spew of vitriol like that is pretty rank.
 

cummins4x4

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What ever Mag-lite is you certainly can't ignore them or their products. They have been the goto light for more decades than I care to remember. They certainly are NOT cutting edge but I have a Mag-charger and a 3D that are older than a lot of these other companies combined and they are still working fine. And they make a great modding platform, got one of those too..
 

GeoBruin

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Ha! AnAppleSnail, I just saw that you posted in the Reddit thread. Who knew there were other Redditors on CPF!
 

LEDninja

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The 1st part of the comments was correct. Maglite in the early '00s sued Peter Gransee and the much loved Arc AAA and effectively put Arc out of business. They also sued many others trying to develop LED flashlights. Most are single person part time and can not pay lawyers to fight Mag and simply folded. Mag used copyright which has no time limit instead of patents that do. Engraving the name on the head, the curvy shape of the back of the flashlight head etc.

But they were unable to sue Fenix in China. Plus the hundreds of Fenix clones.

Only lately have they tried to catch up. The 1st attempt was just a bulb swap - a 3 watt Luxeon when everyone was switching to Cree.

Then they got crazy with the UI because they can. XL100, XL200. Finally realized a lot of their customers want a KISS UI and developed the XL50. When they got round to properly upgrade the MiniMag, the Pro is a single level the Pro+ is only 2 levels.

But they are getting better. The latest MiniMag Pro/Pro+ gets over 200 lumens from 2AA ALKALINE. But my China light is still brighter you say. Try getting the max output of your super duper China made light on 2AA alkaline. My MiniMag Pro out throw my Quark X AA2 by a lot. (Maglite 2AA MiniMag Pro LED Flashlight Presentation Box, SP2P017 Black $25.49. Neutral-white Quark "X" AA2 Tactical, Green Packaging $69.00)

Mag is still too tied to their old designs. Their cam quick focus system is not that much better than no-cam as people who have SSC-P7 or other high powered LED mod knows. Get rid of the cam, improve the heat sinking. Then they can go XM-L with 8*AMC7135 in 4 to 6 D cell Mags.
 
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Mag-man

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I'm going to unleash on facts here:

Is Maglite a publically traded company and required to annually improve returns ? No. Therefore, does Maglite have a full out Research and Development department that is constantly figuring out the latest lighting technology? Probably not. Maglite is a private American manufacturing company (not a Lighting Research Facility) and employs good American jobs building a dependable long lasting product and supports their products from a spare parts basis, even 25 later. Has this company sold out the American public yet, by moving manufacturing across seas to China ? No.

Now, I don't know much about those Chinese lights other than I realize that they are very bright. To me, a somewhat regular consumer who likes to collect and make sure everyone around me has adequate lighting (2011 was the year of the power outage), having excessive lumens is at the expense of battery life, and if I'm giving someone a light for an emergency, I don't want to give them something that will blind anything for 1 hour and run out of batteries that they can't get easily and everywhere.

WHAT I do know is that manufacturing in China is CHEAP. Pennies on the dollar verses American Manufacturing, but honestly more like a dime per dollar. So it costs 10 cents to do something that it costs 1 dollar to perform in America (due to federal (OSHA) safety regulations and levied taxes. Thus 15% of our population is out of employment, but that another story)

Now, your beloved super bright Chinese LED flashlights with a few extra machined cuts in the handle to give it an aggressive tactical look co$t 3X - 5X as much. However they co$t a dime on the dollar to make.

So why do they cost so much? Do you think they cost more to make?

Or do you think the Chinese companies take American (and Global) customers for suckers and say "if we make a brighter light using new technology they haven't adapted to yet, that looks nicer/more fancy with some machined cuts everywhere, we can attract high paying American customers for lights that cost cheaper to make their classic American Maglite." Has anyone used one of these super expensive Chinese lights day in day out for more than 8 years to test its longevity? Or do you upgrade to another over priced Chinese light in a few months, moving more dollars from the feeble American machine to the Great Chinese machine? (machine=economy) All these extra bright Chinese lights (and all Chinese products) are, a one way highway moving Greenbacks from America to China, to the detriment of our economy, our country and dimming our children's and grandchildren's future.

So, go do what you want. But I think I'll go buy a few more LED Maglites now and give them out to family members and close friends, to give a few Americans a job.

P.S. If you want a XP-G LED outting 200+ lumens on easy to find and cheap to replace AA's and AAA's, you can go find an XL200 or a MiniMag Pro (or Pro+). With multi-light settings, it can stay on for days, close to a full week. If you want a Luxeon Rebel LED at a little more than 100 lumens, you can get an XL50. Batts available at any gas station or grocery store.

Now, that's a flashlight every person needs that'd I'd be proud to give as a gift.


Not some over priced and over bright Chinese light that won't last in an emergency and for maybe 2+ decades.
 
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ragweed

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My first good light was a 3 cell Mag incan. The only downside was it went through batteries fairly quick. The bulbs needed to be replaced often as well & if you dropped it you had a 50/50 chance of breaking the bulb.
 

yellow

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(answer to magmans post, ragweed typed to quickly)
such a single sided point of view could have been expected from someone bearing such a nickname

the FACT is: those makers did provide us with lights that the big player was not able to give for years
(and all those claims then, that "a led light is in the makes and will be released shortly" - which I personally have been told from the Austrian representative for a total of three years - and then this release is a joke, light that simply is too long and offered nothing, which the chinese makes did use as "standard" already.

Plus the machining, materials used, finish (HA anodizing), UI, ..., of the better makers is not yet offered.

imho that answer from that mod is a bit hard but completely true.


Adapt or become extinct, thats what happens to dinosaurs
 

Mag-man

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Tit for tat. That was a response to the OP. I can appreciate the wonderful effects of captalism. However, I am mostly single sided to the American market. However, recall that China is primarily communistic and not democratic, which is where capticalism stems from. They are taking our lunch and none of you get it, apparently.

For the other side of the story, shame on Maglite for waiting until someone took their spot at the lunch table until they did something. They had a horse and they rode it. You'd do the same. However, within the past 6 months, I believe they have done something to proclaim their place at the table with the release of State of the Art, including the soon to be released MAG-TAC (developed for the U.S. Military), that will make your Chinese lights look like well, Chinese lights. I agree Maglite may be late to the game, but better late than never, and becoming extinct.
 
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Mag-man

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My first good light was a 3 cell Mag incan. The only downside was it went through batteries fairly quick. The bulbs needed to be replaced often as well & if you dropped it you had a 50/50 chance of breaking the bulb.

Wasn't that State of the Art (and Technology) for 1980 - ~2003 . What else did you want back then ?
 

Mag-man

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(answer to magmans post, ragweed typed to quickly)
the FACT is: those makers did provide us with lights that the big player was not able to give for years
(and all those claims then, that "a led light is in the makes and will be released shortly" - which I personally have been told from the Austrian representative for a total of three years - and then this release is a joke, light that simply is too long and offered nothing, which the chinese makes did use as "standard" already.

Shame on this American company for fully developing a fine product, not a cheap Chinese piece of crap that craps out in a few months of day-in day-out use, forcing you to buy another cheap Chinese piece of crap that will break again. Shame on them for getting it right before releasing a final and complete product. I completely agree. They should have released half-baked products so we could have something in our hands and get pissed off at them. They should have released the early flashes that over-heated and had unacceptable battery life for the average consumer with electronics that wouldn't last the test of time. Just to make a few more bucks. And they should have charged close to a hundred dollars a light. Because the new releases (Mini Pro+, XL200) are priced accordingly.

You my friend, know nothing about business, manufacturing and research & development.
 
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ScottFree

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I would be interested to hear if anyone has a "cheap Chinese piece of crap" from a while back that is still working fine. Personally I have a old Fenix PD20 Q5 that I found after clearing out my house. It still works fine and is currently in my pocket and lights up perfectly fine. I had to clean it a bit though.

I would also be interested in what schooling you have had in "business, manufacturing and research & development". You seem to be such an expert, or at least from what I've read, so much so that you can denigrate yellow so badly.
 
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nbp

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Ease up Mag-Man, and leave out the personal slams. You'll find this thread locked if you don't.

To be honest, even in the 80's, Maglites were not that revolutionary. Battery --> contact --> Incan bulb. Flashlights had been constructed that way for decades already. The tougher anodized aluminum body is about the only thing I see on Mags that was a significant improvement over plastic or cheap steel bodies. Even the cammed reflector, though novel, was never very good in my opinion with the unforgivable rings and artifacts it created.

I don't really have anything against Maglite, and don't care to bash them too much. But I also don't use them with any regularity either. They make a product that is OK for some people. Other manufacturers make other products that are better. I buy the other products.
 

Chicken Drumstick

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I like Maglites, I know they aren't the best, or the most compact or even the brightest. But to coin a phrase "they do what they say on the tin".

They are easy to use, reliable and produce fairly good light. I like the build, feel and quality of them. Really fail to see why anyone would want to hate against such a company or their products tbh.
 

ArmoredFiend

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Those who say "cheap chinese piece of crap" must have overlooked the Fenix Tk40 Torture thread...u might wanna use the search function and go through it before deciding it is really a 'piece of crap' after all...

I have nothing against Mag Lite..i own 3 of it.

But seriously, if the 'cheap chinese piece of crap' doesnt come out with LED that's capable of throwing out 180lumen on 2xAA a couple years ago, we might still be thinking that krypton is the brightest flashlight ever available to mankind even up till now.

And for those that still think about keeping the greenbacks in America, wake up please. Everything is now interconnected globally, and there's a word for it - globalization. The many American-based companies has been setting up manufacturing plants/offices outside USA. The computer manufacturing plant i used to work in has it's computers printed 'Made in China' while it's CEO and half of the 80k employees reside in Texas. So do we still buy this 'made in china' computers then? No means 40k+ employees in Texas might be losing their job soon.
 

Robin24k

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I would also be interested in what schooling you have had in "business, manufacturing and research & development". You seem to be such an expert, or at least from what I've read, so much so that you can denigrate yellow so badly.
There's a lot more that goes into product development cycles than what meets the eye. When you're designing products for the mass public (not enthusiasts) and back those products with lifetime warranties, you better do it right the first time or it's going to get costly. Since there's also not much of a brand image to protect or uphold, testing and evaluation phases are much shorter with the import brands, which generally have no retail presence and don't need to worry about warranty coverage because the warranty is either too short, or too costly/risky for consumers (ie. international shipping).

Consider how often do Maglite, Pelican, Streamlight, or SureFire releases new products. Even then, we know how many delays there have been with Maglite and SureFire. I can tell you, the majority of those are attributed to T&E, such as UI changes, component upgrades, packaging issues, etc. It's fairly common to find some sort of grammatical or typographical error on the packaging for import lights, but for the ML125, a problem with the packaging resulted in an additional delay. With Maglite, there's also independent ANSI testing, which adds more time to the development cycle, especially if there's some change that affects output and it has to be done again (ie. low runtime on the XL200 is 218 hours, and FL1 requires a minimum sample size of 3 units).
 

radioactive_man

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I don't want to interrupt a derailed discussion with facts, but still:

Fenix introduced their L1 flashlight in 2005.
I got my first high performance flashlight in 2006 (Inova T4 rechargable).
Maglite introduced the first LED flashlight in their product line in 2006 (according to Wikipedia).
Surefire introduced the first LED flashlight in their product line in 2007 (according to Wikipedia).

From these facts I derive the following two things:

1: The great leap happened around 2006, and Maglite wasn't exactly slow to incorporate LEDs in their product line-up. Did they use the latest and greatest? No! But Maglite has never been known for being an innovation leader. This role has fallen to Surefire, while Maglite catered to the masses, who don't give a rat's butthole about regulation, perfect heat sinking, and battery chemistries. Criticizing Maglite for their decision to not be on the bleeding edge is like criticizing Toyota for not making Porches. Different markets. Deal with it. If you're a flashaholic then stop the Maglite bashing, ignore them, and get a Surefire.

2: From Mag-man's posts it looks like all LED flashlights prior to Maglite's entry into the LED market were cheap chinese pieces of junk. I wouldn't exactly count Fenix and Inova in this category, so I don't agree with his point of view at all. However, there probably was a lot of crap on the market (I wasn't that much into flashlights back then, so I don't know), and Maglite probably did the same thing, as they did when they entered the flashlight business: took inspiration from existing POS products, improved them considerably without making photon cannon hot-rods, and sold them to the masses, who now have access to better and brighter flashlights than ever before. Good for everyone. If you want a light saber that'll cut down trees and vaporize kittens and pandas, get a Surefire or any other quality light, American or otherwise.

EDIT: Just to clarify: the last sentence was not meant to suggest, that Maglites aren't quality lights. They are. Just like Toyota makes quality cars. It's just that they don't make great cars, and Maglite doesn't make great lights.
 
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T45

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Now THIS is the type of forum I like to read through on CPF. There are many elements of truth expressed here, for and against Maglite( query: why do so many people use the odd spelling "M@glite"?), but what I really hope comes from this well spoken and passionate debate are better products for all of us, the end users here on CPF and every where else.
 

ArmoredFiend

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Now THIS is the type of forum I like to read through on CPF. There are many elements of truth expressed here, for and against Maglite( query: why do so many people use the odd spelling "M@glite"?), but what I really hope comes from this well spoken and passionate debate are better products for all of us, the end users here on CPF and every where else.

This i have to agree.. Regardless of whether we are against or with Maglite, it is usually the end-users (read us) that benefits from such race...

And i jst recall i have 4 mag-lite instead of 3..always slip my mind on maglite solitaire..
 

Robin24k

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EDIT: Just to clarify: the last sentence was not meant to suggest, that Maglites aren't quality lights. They are. Just like Toyota makes quality cars. It's just that they don't make great cars, and Maglite doesn't make great lights.
That is actually a great comparison, but let me clarify that further because "great" is subjective.

If you are looking for simple and economical, you'll find that Maglite and Toyota make great products. If you want to make white-wall comparisons and drive on a track, you'll find that they aren't great. However, both make quality products because those products meet manufacturer specifications for performance and quality.

Just like how it wouldn't be reasonable to expect leather seats and a 400HP V8 engine in a base model Camry that costs $20K, don't expect an AR-coated glass window and 500 lumens in a Mini Maglite Pro that costs less than $30. Same goes for the other way around, don't complain that a Lamborghini is expensive and only gets 10MPG. If your expectations are reasonable, you won't be disappointed.
 
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