Very quick review of the "Favour Light 3 in 1 Handtorch".
I received my light today via USPS from
http://www.gadgetbabe.com . Ordering was trouble free and I had nice email confirmation of item ordered and shipping method along with tracking info. I would definately order from Gadgetbabe again.
The light is packaged in a retail clear plastic blister pack, with the edges all fused together to create an almost hermetically sealed package. I won't go into the details in how much scissor-cutting I had to do to open the package...
But! Once I had it out of its packaging, I was impressed. It is quite well made, actually. Feels solid, not cheap. No thin plastic feel, even though the whole thing is plastic and rubber-coated plastic. Squeezing the light in my hand, I don't feel it bending or straining. It just feels solid. Even the CCFL cover on the top of the handle portion of the light is solidly mounted to the handle and doesn't creak or strain when pressed or squeezed. The bottom part of the hand grip is rubberized as is the front bezel. The switch is a rubber push-button type and the feel is pretty good when using it.
It comes with 4 Panasonic R6-AA Industrial duty AA batteries, though I decided to use 4 new Duracell AA's that I had already opened from an 8-pack.
Opening the back end for battery insertion was interesting. The back cover is an oval shaped piece of plastic with a spot in the middle for the lanyard (already installed) to go through. To open the back cover, twist the cover counterclockwise about 20 degrees or so until it stops. Then pull the cover off straight. There is an o-ring in the cover which offers quite a bit of resistance when there aren't any batteries installed. I had to look at the instructions twice before just yanking pretty hard to open the cover. I thought I wasn't doing it right and would break it. Once the cover gives way, it will not completely come off, however. There is a flexible plastic sliding retainer that is attached to the cover that prevents the cover from being lost. You can pull the cover about 2 inches before the retainer stops you from going further. To install the batteries, just bend the cover to the side and drop them in. There is a label inside the battery compartment that shows the direction of polarity. Push the cover back in all the way, then, while pushing, turn the cover clockwise until it locks closed.
Now for the fun part!! The instructions say there are 4 modes: Xenon bulb mode, CCFL mode, 3 LED mode, and 6 LED mode. There is only one push button, so it works by cycling through the modes like so: OFF - Xenon - CCFL - OFF - 3 LED - 6 LED - (repeat)
I'm not sure why there are 2 OFF modes, but that's how it works.
Xenon mode: The amount of light produced is reasonable (sorry, no beam shots unless you guys really pressure me into taking some) for a 4 AA light. Nothing exceptional, but it's probably not the reason to buy this light anyway. The bulb is a 4.7V 0.4A PR-based type. The front bezel is rubber and is designed to be rotated in order to narrow or widen the beam as desired. In my opinion, this feature isn't very useful at all due to the design of the front reflector. Since the 6 LEDs and xenon bulb all poke through the reflector, the reflector (which is made of chrome coated plastic) does not rotate with the rubber bezel when the bezel is twisted. As you unscrew the bezel, the reflector moves outward with the help of a spring that pushes the reflector against the bezel. It's not a perfect design and the reflector moves fairly easily. Also, once the bezel is out a turn or two, it becomes very easy to turn and feels loose, like it's about to fall off. Even at its widest beam, it's not very wide at all in comparison to the narrowest setting. I'm guessing narrowest is about a 1 foot beam at 10 feet from a wall and a 3 foot wide beam at the widest setting at 10 feet from the wall. Somewhere around there anyway. The packaging says the xenon bulb mode will last 3 hours on a set of batteries.
CCFL mode: This was one of the main reasons I bought this light and I wasn't disappointed. This is cool! It produces a nice blueish white light with a 4 inch Cold Cathode Tube. I believe this tube is very similar to the types you can now buy for modding your computer to light up the inside when you have a computer case that has a side window. It has a nice area effect light that isn't too bright but plenty bright if your eyes are adjusted to the darkness a little bit already. It's not as bright as the Radio Shack Osram Fluorescent lights that were $2.97 a couple months ago. The CCFL tube will instantly light up when switched on, unlike a normal fluorescent tube that has a short warmup period. The packaging says the CCFL mode will last 7 hours on a set of batteries.
3 LED and 6 LED modes: The LEDs are somewhat blueish white in color, and produce a good amount of light. I can't tell (and didn't test) if they are being overdriven or anything, but I can see diodes and resistors on the circuit board when I remove the front bezel and remove the reflector. The LEDs are aimed pretty well and produce a 2 to 2 1/2 foot beam of blueish-white light at 10 feet from a wall. Good area lighting, but not as white as you'd see with an ARC AAA LE. The difference in the amount of light between the 3 and 6 LED modes was less noticable than I thought it would be, but it's probably just my eyes tricking me because all of the LEDs are aimed at similar points. The packaging says the 3 LED mode will last 80 hours on a set of batteries, and the 6 LED mode will last 50 hours.
Due to it's design with o-rings, I would not hesitate to use this light in the rain. I don't think I would try to dunk it underwater or let it fall into a puddle, but I doubt rain would hurt it at all. Also, I'm not too sure how the light would fair if it were dropped onto a hard surface. I think the casing would be fine, but I'd worry about the CCFL tube and the electronics inside. If the light were to be dropped just right so that the lanyard hole-mount hit the ground first, I think the lanyard would break off since the mount sticks out.
So that's about it. I really like the light so far and I'm really glad I decided to buy one. Hope this helps you, Tree.
- Brian
