The lumensfactory lamps are overall a pretty good deal, most people like them, they tend to be geared for as much throw as possible without sacrificing beam quality. They are similar to SF beams in that they don't contain artifacts or rings, but they tend to have even tighter focus and rounder beam shapes (some SFs are a bit oval). I own a HO-4, HO-9, and EO-9. All strong performers for what they are and I can't complain really at all...
There are some things you should know:
LumensFactory lists bulb lumens at a particular drive level, the exact bulb lumens you actually get will depend on what batteries are used. For example: a HO-9 with a 1.55A load on CR123s probably won't get the full 7.6V required to achieve 320 bulb lumens. When driven by a pair of good performing li-ion cells, it's possible that it could see as high as ~7.8V or better fresh from the charger, diminishing to ~6.X V through the run. So it can actually be brighter than 320 bulb lumens under some circumstances.
Surefire does not use bulb lumens, in fact, they don't even use torch lumens. A Surefire incandescent light is rated based someone loosely on the "average" torch lumens achieved through a discharge. So they have de-rated the light a LOT to be very honest about it's capabilities. The "105" lumen SureFire P90 is very similar in output to a LF SR-9 rated 220 bulb lumen.
So, what I'm saying here, is don't get too excited about the lumen ratings, they are accurate based on all the specifications given, and perfectly acceptable provided you know how to interpret them, but a "380" lumen LF lamp is not going to be much different than a "200 lumen" surefire lamp. In fact, the 200 lumen P91 can handily beat down a 380 lumen LF lamp on a pair of li-ion cells, but at the sacrifice of power consumption, the P91 runs ~19-20W on li-ion cells, the EO-9 is actually only ~14-15W.
Eric
