shipwreck
Enlightened
I ordered a light from Deal Extreme about 3.5 weeks ago, and it finally came in today. I ordered the:
Flood-to-Throw Zooming Glass Optics Cree P4-WC 100-Lumen LED Flashlight with Strap (3*AAA)
I am NOT a cheapy flashlight guy - but I browsed their website, and the reviews of this model seemed pretty decent. I figured for $9.52 with shipping, how could I go wrong...
Well, the light came in today, and I am impressed. Here are a couple of pics of the flashlight:
I got it to see how it would compare with my Coleman Max Flood to Spot 110 Lumen light. I like having a flood flashlight for when I am in my car, and I drop something dark on the floormats. I have black carpet, and dark tinted windows. Whenever I drop something while driving, I am always reaching around for it and can't find the item I dropped.
I like my Coleman Max light, but it was $26 + tax, and this was $9.52.
I will say that I am hugely impressed. Just playing around with it inside, I thought it was not too bad, but not fantastic. The flood on the light is really cool. It gives the entire light cone the exact same output. There really isn't any hotspot, because the entire light cone becomes the hot spot. The flood on the lightcone is also much brighter than the flood on my Coleman.
I posted a pic of it on the floor, but this was only at about 2.5-3 feet. I used it outside just now, and it worked great.
Now the Throw mode is kind of weird - you get a strange shape, not a round hotspot at all. It's a square shape with 2 corners unlit, because of the wires on the LED. Below is a photo of of what this looks like - taken inside at a just a few feet (this is in my wife's bathroom):
However, the "square" light cone is almost hard to look at indoors at just a few feet - it's very, VERY bright. Today, I decided it would most likely be my "inside the car" flashlight (it will replace my Coleman Max), as the flood is really nice, and I didn't see myself really using this strangely shaped throw feature with the square hotspot .
But... And a BIG, BIG but... I went outside and played with the light just now in the dark. I compared it to my Eagletac P20C2 Mk 2 and my new Solarforce L2 light.
When you shine this little C30 at a distance in throw mode, that weird square shape really gets pretty big. It's like the bat signal or something. It throws VERY far away. All the light is somehow put into this square shaped hotspot, and there isn't really any flood coming out of it when you use this mode. It throws at least 2x as far as my Eagletac and the Solarforce.
I was really shocked. This actually makes it a fantastic car light - because if you break down at night somewhere, you can use the flood for up close stuff, and really light something up at a distance if you needed to as well.
This kind of gives me an idea of what these $100+ dedicated throwers must look light at long distances... All from a sub $10 flashlight too.
Admittedly, the tail switch feels cheap - compared to the nicer lights I have. But once again, I'm back to this being a sub $10 light.
After playing with it outside, I just ordered a 2nd one from Deal Extreme. I have no idea how long it will last, but this would actually make a decent EDC light - it's pretty short too. And, with rechargable AAA batteries (which is what I have inside - I already had some), the operating costs are great.
Flood-to-Throw Zooming Glass Optics Cree P4-WC 100-Lumen LED Flashlight with Strap (3*AAA)
I am NOT a cheapy flashlight guy - but I browsed their website, and the reviews of this model seemed pretty decent. I figured for $9.52 with shipping, how could I go wrong...
Well, the light came in today, and I am impressed. Here are a couple of pics of the flashlight:
I got it to see how it would compare with my Coleman Max Flood to Spot 110 Lumen light. I like having a flood flashlight for when I am in my car, and I drop something dark on the floormats. I have black carpet, and dark tinted windows. Whenever I drop something while driving, I am always reaching around for it and can't find the item I dropped.
I like my Coleman Max light, but it was $26 + tax, and this was $9.52.
I will say that I am hugely impressed. Just playing around with it inside, I thought it was not too bad, but not fantastic. The flood on the light is really cool. It gives the entire light cone the exact same output. There really isn't any hotspot, because the entire light cone becomes the hot spot. The flood on the lightcone is also much brighter than the flood on my Coleman.
I posted a pic of it on the floor, but this was only at about 2.5-3 feet. I used it outside just now, and it worked great.
Now the Throw mode is kind of weird - you get a strange shape, not a round hotspot at all. It's a square shape with 2 corners unlit, because of the wires on the LED. Below is a photo of of what this looks like - taken inside at a just a few feet (this is in my wife's bathroom):
However, the "square" light cone is almost hard to look at indoors at just a few feet - it's very, VERY bright. Today, I decided it would most likely be my "inside the car" flashlight (it will replace my Coleman Max), as the flood is really nice, and I didn't see myself really using this strangely shaped throw feature with the square hotspot .
But... And a BIG, BIG but... I went outside and played with the light just now in the dark. I compared it to my Eagletac P20C2 Mk 2 and my new Solarforce L2 light.
When you shine this little C30 at a distance in throw mode, that weird square shape really gets pretty big. It's like the bat signal or something. It throws VERY far away. All the light is somehow put into this square shaped hotspot, and there isn't really any flood coming out of it when you use this mode. It throws at least 2x as far as my Eagletac and the Solarforce.
I was really shocked. This actually makes it a fantastic car light - because if you break down at night somewhere, you can use the flood for up close stuff, and really light something up at a distance if you needed to as well.
This kind of gives me an idea of what these $100+ dedicated throwers must look light at long distances... All from a sub $10 flashlight too.
Admittedly, the tail switch feels cheap - compared to the nicer lights I have. But once again, I'm back to this being a sub $10 light.
After playing with it outside, I just ordered a 2nd one from Deal Extreme. I have no idea how long it will last, but this would actually make a decent EDC light - it's pretty short too. And, with rechargable AAA batteries (which is what I have inside - I already had some), the operating costs are great.
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