"Be honest..."
Never on CPF;-)
Based on the photos I've seen, they're 'novel', but not something I have a use for.
A .50BMG Barrett is a neat rifle too, but I have no use for one of those either.
I've learned I'm not a part of every 'market' segment, nor should I feel the need to be.
That said, I hope people have fun playing with them!
That reminds me of this time I was shooting with an acquantence through work. I had sensible caliber handguns, and this guy ONLY had one gun, cause he spent a mint to get a .44 Magnum revolver and some ammo, and at the time we were shooting, each shot was costing him like well over 10X the cost cheaper calibers had been (this was back when 9x19 was somewhere in the teens per cent per round).
My brother and I tried a few shots...and just noped out of it. Was it fun? Kind of. It was awful on the hands, super loud, and just so expensive. I'd "traded rounds" of equal cost to the guy, who got to shoot some of my cheaper caliber handguns, and when he finished he told us he completely regretted buying his memegun, and wished he'd just bought something useful, haha. We thanked him for letting us try it. To this day, I've never bought any of the high recoil guns of any kind, because of that experience. Plinking .38 in a .357 revolver, blasting through mags of .22LR, or just shooting a "boring" 9mm is so much more enjoyable...and affordable. When that guy traded me a cylinder of maybe 5 or 6 rounds for his gun, and I gave him a pile of rounds in equivalent cost, he just had this absolutely crushed soul look on his face.
I'd completely forgot about that until you mentioned the .50 BMG, haha. I should have trusted my instincts and experience on memes, haha.
Disappointed? Are you kidding me? I love my Fenix TK30 LEP!
The Fenix TK30 is a white laser flashlight that throws 500 lumens a jaw-dropping distance of 3937 feet (1200m)—that is 3/4 of a mile!
www.fenixlighting.com
...I liked it so much, I bought 3 more, trying to duct tape them all together.
EDIT:
I didn't buy any of them new. All were either outlet or returned units. Though all of them came to me as new, with everything included in the original packaging.
Yeah, that's my saving grace. I got the Thor3 for under $90 shipped and taxed by stacking some Ali coupons. Was that the most money I've ever wasted? No. Was it a huge amount of money? No. Am I going to be upset forever? No. Do I think they're worth the cost premium over a throwy LED? No (unless you're using it with a scope on a rifle).
Was I surprised at how weird and underwhelming it is in person? Yup.
While the "lightsaber" or "spotlight" effect is kind of fun, you can't really see it way high up in the sky, per se, so it doesn't look much different than any bright light with a narrow beam.
Can I light stuff up like radio towers? Sure, but I have other lights that can do that, too. The LEP does it from further away, but then I actually need my binoculars to notice that.
If anything, I think I do have a more positive takeaway. I'd seen a LOT of people online mentioning LEPs are kind of unimpressive, so I fell for "go big or go home," and figured over 1.5 million Candela would "wow" me.
In retrospect, I think getting one of the less powerful, but more compact ones would be more fun. I think that's why the Surefire EDC1-DFT is so fun; it's not really that big. The small LEPs seem about as powerful, but if they were more compact, that could be a little more fun. Plus, their throw is more in line with the limitations of human sight. Lighting up things you can't really make out isn't as fun as lighting up stuff you can clearly discern.
So, maybe it's better for people in the fence to wait for the small ones to get closer to maybe $50. For me, that's my USUAL threshhold for Chinese lights, as the quality tends to not really increase with the price for their lights, since they seem to be charging the premium of "technology" or whatever, haha.
I think US brands have kind of spoiled me in terms of build quality expectations. While the Surefire EDC1-DFT is over twice as much as a Thor3, the Surefire feels about 5X nicer in the hand.
I wonder how much THAT is actually part of my underwelmed experience. I think mediocre build quality is why both Armytek and Zebralight were underwhelming for me, too. For their more premium cost, they're still clearly Chinesium, albeit nicer Chinesium (I'd lump Lumens Factory into this category, too). Meanwhile, a $70 SS Peak Eiger or $100 Malkoff MDC AA just "wows" the moment you get it in your hand. You're clearly paying more for better materials and machining.
LEPs at this point seem like the cost is mostly for the emitters (I think the cheaper, smaller ones are still about $60 bare), and then they just kind of slap them into a more standard body, so you end up paying a plus price for a typical quality item.
That seems like another take-away; if you're not someone who generally pays the "early adopter" premium to try something early in development, I think LEPs are still in the "wait" category.
I think my intention with this thread was to just provide some deeper context to anyone who was like me, and had been reading a lot of opinions. I think, due to the cost, there's a bit of a opinion reporting bias in that you tend to MOSTLY hear from people who love theirs, but I have an inkling there are people out there like me; we bought one, and weren't really impressed. I just imagine most people aren't going to start a topic of, "So, I totally wasted some money." In many corners of the internet, such a statement is almost a guarantee of harassment and angry messages, but I think CPF is generally a more mature and chill crowd. We haven't had anyone flipping their stuff, yet, so I think that's a good sign, haha.
Then again, I don't spend a lot of time just staring at beams, so maybe that's the issue. I know many people simply enjoy seeing a beam of light, and if that's your cup of tea, I think the LEP is, by far, the most visible stream of light you can get. That's maybe the neatest part for me (and that it does still kind of work in the middle of the day, hahaha).
