Maratac AAA Q5 (Part 2)

[flatline]

Thank you. I fallowed the thread, so I knew that ;).

I find the Maratac cosmetically more attractive but I'll see how the iTP advance looks like when it comes out and I hope it will be low, medium, high instead of medium, low, high.

Are there people who actually prefer med-lo-hi to lo-med-hi?

I've certainly never met someone who did.

 

[KDOG3]

Well my black and 2cnd HA Nat came today. The black one did have this other reflector as has been discussed, the emitter is terribly off center and the beam sux compared to the others - it will go to my bride-to-be as a keychain, purse light, etc...

The new Nat is slightly brighter than the first one I got so I'm going to use that and my dad will get the other. Tint is a little better too, but barely noticeable. Beam profiles are the same and much better than the black one. Also, I think its obvious that the output claims are quite inflated, cuz if these are 62lumens on high, then the new silver E1B I just got is like 200. LOL. Just my 2 cents.

 

[gorn]

I ordered one of each color night before last. They arrived this morning. These are nice little lights. They both seem to put out about the same amount of light. The reflectors are different but without magnification and seeing earlier posts about it I would have never noticed.

My wife checked them out and said the black one was heavier than the natural one. I couldn't tell the difference in them and told her the only difference was the color. She still insists the black is heavier. I don't have any scales so I couldn't do a real check on that.

 

[Patriot]

Many HA color questions here so I just grabbed a few different colored small lights, tossed them on a white paper towel and clicked off a couple of pictures.




shaded sunlight

direct sunlight

As you can see, the Maratac falls between the silver LOD LuxIII and the HA Arc AAA. It's much darker than the Orb pictured.



Hope that helps some :)

 

[StandardBattery]

I just opened a Black one for myself tonight. My Black sample is a little Brighter and a Whiter/Cooler tint than my Natural. The beam is definetly slightly more focused on the Black one, and it has a noticeable increase in throw in very dark conditions.

I'd say the Black one, if it's typical of other black ones, is more suitable for outdoors where throw is useful, and the Natural is better suited to indoors.

Although I say the black one is slightly brighter I can't say foresure if it is just the change in beam and/or the battery voltage differences causing more lumens.

It looks to me like the light might not have flat regulation on High, as battery voltage does seem to affect the output. I don't think this would matter much on a keychain light, but now I'm even more interested in the runtime graphs.

 

[QtrHorse]

I ordered one of each color. You cannot appreciated the small size of these until you have them in hand. I was expecting a larger light but was surprised when I received them. It is much more keychain friendly than I originally thought they would be.

Yes, my shipping was 8.5% of my entire order ($106 total). Shipping just the lights through USPS would be much better but that is not always an option. The company I work for ships a ton of UPS every day. A lot of the items could go USPS but it's just not cost effective for us. We have UPS software, the UPS shipping area is in the back of the warehouse, all the orders transfer right into the UPS software and we don't have to worry about a second packaging and shipping option. You really have to make the commitment to use one or the other if you ship a lot of items.

Anyway, I really like these tiny little lights.

 

[StandardBattery]

I wanted to add that the weight of the light is roughly 11g without battery and 23g with eneloop. My two lights (Nat & Blk), vary only by a couple 100th of a gram, and the batteries I tested also varied in weight bay a very small amount.

 

[GrimCreaper]

i cant wait to get mine, it should be here tomorrow so long as UPS stays on time :D

cant go wrong with ordering on the 29th and (hopefully) getting it on the 31st.
although.. watching the tracking info, it hasnt moved from CA yet.. shipped to south san fran early in the morning and has been their since.. i live in southern AZ so we will see!!

half the fun of getting new lights is having the anticipation get you all excited.

 

[coolperl]

Many HA color questions here so I just grabbed a few different colored small lights, tossed them on a white paper towel and clicked off a couple of pictures.

As you can see, the Maratac falls between the silver LOD LuxIII and the HA Arc AAA. It's much darker than the Orb pictured.



Hope that helps some :)

Thanks for the photos ! :)
Indeed, your Maratac seems to be dark grey, as opposed to other pics on the forum.

StandardBattery, you've had a lot of these flashlights in your hands, could you toss a little light on this issue ? I like very much the Patriot's Maratac color but it not seems to be typical...

 

[aZhu]

A lot of the 'variations' in the color of the finish really depends on the lighting conditions and white balance of the camera. I think a good way to resolve this issue is to shoot a picture of the lights at noon outside in the sun with no flash. That'll give everyone a general idea of what color it actually is, assuming the exposure time is correct and is not over or under exposed.

 

[SpinDrift]

All in all, it is a nice light, but as others have complained about, the shipping cost is certainly over the top. I probably wouldn't have bought it had I realized that shipping was almost half the cost of the light.

It is a bit much isn't it?

I agree, if Nick raised the price of the light to $29.95 and offered free UPS shipping, he might sell a lot more of these.:twothumbs

Or less!

His way makes it a little more tempting to buy two.

Or none!

So tired of reading about shipping:tired: Great light!

So don't read about it! Some of us don't like to throw away money unnecessarily.

Got one coming next week. Had to buy some other stuff to make the shipping charge less painful. Shipping was still 8% of total purchase.

Yikes! Well you can look at it like paying the sales tax at a store, except that a great thing about buying online is you don't usually have to pay sales tax!

 

[SpinDrift]

My wife checked them out and said the black one was heavier than the natural one. I couldn't tell the difference in them and told her the only difference was the color. She still insists the black is heavier. I don't have any scales so I couldn't do a real check on that.

This could be a purely psychological matter of perception, or misperception; people tend to think that darker objects weigh more than lighter colored objects of the same weight.

I have a friend who has the same model bike as I (cycling type, not motorcycle type). His is black, mine is a burnt orange color and he swears his is heavier and that's why he takes more time to go uphills than I. :D No, the bikes weigh the same, he just doesn't train like I do is all!

Or, maybe the lights really are different weights. But I'd be surprised if someone could tell the difference between a couple of ounces--or less--in weight!

Yes, my shipping was 8.5% of my entire order ($106 total). Shipping just the lights through USPS would be much better but that is not always an option. The company I work for ships a ton of UPS every day. A lot of the items could go USPS but it's just not cost effective for us. We have UPS software, the UPS shipping area is in the back of the warehouse, all the orders transfer right into the UPS software and we don't have to worry about a second packaging and shipping option. You really have to make the commitment to use one or the other if you ship a lot of items.

Thank you for that info, that makes the costly UPS shipping make more sense now if they have done the same thing.

However, :D if they are a company that largely ships small items that don't weigh much and will fit into mailboxes, then I don't see why they committed themselves to UPS in the first place over USPS. :shrug:

Well, whatever, I expect to get a good fairly priced light today, my first real LED! I'm sure I'll like it, and I love the color of the natural I ordered as it looks like a brushed sliver color. (That's what it looks like to me in the pics). :twothumbs

 

[StandardBattery]

I may have had a lot of lights go through here, but not a lot of time to admire them. In their cellophane packages it's harder to tell.

I would describe the Natural and a pretty light colored Natural, but not silver per say; it has a silverish tint. Much more natural color than the recent LF2-XT for example, and they are not grey like say the LF5-XT.

I'm most impressed with the quality of the annodizing, it's tough! This appears to be is the real thing (HA).

While the matching of the anno is very good, it does appear in general the head is a little darker, so the silver tint is sometimes more noticeable on the body. Of course some samples are a little darker over all, but I would not call the light colored ones silver, they are just a light natural.

I like the Natural annodizing! For some reason it seems to really suit this little light, and the black is good as well I just started playing with one.

If they want to do the next batch a little darker I would be happy to have one of those too, but really I think it's perfect and non-flashaholics seems to really like it. The lighter color seems to be prefered by people who know nothing about annodizing or even that it is annodizing. So I think CC scored with the color. The engraving on both colors is flawless.

 

[Dan FO]

If they were giving the lights away but charged $8 for shipping some people would still complain. ;)

 

[Tixx]

If they were giving the lights away but charged $8 for shipping some people would still complain. ;)

Tru dat


I have 3 naturals and have one as my current EDC. Seems one has a darker head and lighter body. They seem to be centered fairly well and have the usual natural reflector, not the op reflector as seen on most black ones. Gave one to my dad as well. He uses it almost on a daily basis. I'm glad I could give him something useful like this as he has every tool in the world and is in need of no more.

 

[SpinDrift]

If they were giving the lights away but charged $8 for shipping some people would still complain. ;)

Actually no. $8 for this light would be a great deal. $30 is not. It is so-so/fair.

Don't jump to logical extremes: "If this, then that", they often are merely absurd.

Tru dat

Actually no, not at all.

I'm happy you all have money to throw away (so do I, maybe because I don't throw it away often when possible) on excessive shipping costs and your 37th flashlight, perhaps you should (if you don't already, I'm not saying you don't), give some of the money you would have spent on flashlight shipping to charities? That's what I would of done with the extra $8, instead I selfishly (I'm not claiming to be morally superior here) bought this flashlight instead. But it is the first and last that I will spend the ridiculous amount of $8 shipping on for a item that is measured in ounces, at least a tiny EDC one. Sure $8 is not much to us, but to many millions right now it is the difference between eating today or not. And that makes a world of difference to those individuals, so thus $8 is actually a very big amount to some.

Just some context to put this discussion in by a crazy guy like me who hates to see money wasted on nonsense when there is so much need. Excuse my unreasonableness. :shakehead

 

[Tixx]

Actually no. $8 for this light would be a great deal. $30 is not. It is so-so/fair.

Don't jump to logical extremes: "If this, then that", they often are merely absurd.



Actually no, not at all.

I'm happy you all have money to throw away (so do I, maybe because I don't throw it away often when possible) on excessive shipping costs and your 37th flashlight, perhaps you should (if you don't already, I'm not saying you don't), give some of the money you would have spent on flashlight shipping to charities? That's what I would of done with the extra $8, instead I selfishly (I'm not claiming to be morally superior here) bought this flashlight instead. But it is the first and last that I will spend the ridiculous amount of $8 shipping on for a item that is measured in ounces, at least a tiny EDC one. Sure $8 is not much to us, but to many millions right now it is the difference between eating today or not. And that makes a world of difference to those individuals, so thus $8 is actually a very big amount to some.

Just some context to put this discussion in by a crazy guy like me who hates to see money wasted on nonsense when there is so much need. Excuse my unreasonableness. :shakehead

But you waste your time and everyone else's posting off topic here. Maybe we do give, and lots more than just flashlight shipping, to charity. Don't jump to logical extremes yourself as it is absurd, no? :) Mods, can we get this back on topic please. Thanks!

 

[SpinDrift]

But you waste your time and everyone else's posting off topic here. Maybe we do give, and lots more than just flashlight shipping, to charity. Don't jump to logical extremes yourself as it is absurd, no? :) Mods, can we get this back on topic please. Thanks!

Shipping IS on topic. Personal attacks, like the one in your post to me, are not.

But anyway, your wrong on a few accounts, 2 of which you should have known:

1. I never said others here didn't give. I actually stated this.

2. Thus I did not jump to any assumptions

Besides this, you jump to a BIG assumption: that I only give "flashlight shipping amounts to charity". On what do you base this? The truth is that every time I save some money by not wasting it I put it into a fund. At the end of the year I take that money and add more money to it and then give it to the charities of my choice. I'm not saying how much because that isn't what matters of course (I guess you fail to comprehend this too). But it isn't "just" $8 lol.

Be quiet, you embarrass yourself. :shakehead

I will say no more as it is a waste of my time to argue with the unintelligent and unreasonable.

 

[f22shift]

Mods, can we get this back on topic please. Thanks!

:thumbsup:

 

[StandardBattery]

Post 1 for Part 2 should maybe include a few important links.

Maratac AAA - Part 1 - it discusses lots including 'shipping charges'

Moderator's Comment on Shipping Discussions

Reflectors in the Black vs. Natural versions

The Keyring Attachment is pretty strong.