Sucks to be the Consumer

[spencer]

So I'm walking down the isles at my local "have it all" store (London Drugs) and I get to the flashlights. They have a decent selection considering it isn't an outdoors store that specializes in this kind of thing. So I start looking closely at some of the flashlights. I see a Dorcy and it looks pretty solid, so I pick it up and read the package. "State of the art performance with a Luxeon K2. Offers 120 lumen on only six watts." I cringe horribly because this is probably what your average Joe is going to go out and buy for about $40. I can't believe that they use such inefficient LEDs when for maybe five bucks more they could put in a Cree and get maybe 200 lumen on half the power. In this case it REALLY pays to know a little bit about current LEDs.

 

[LED_Thrift]

They should be required to ALWAYS give a date after the phrase "state of the art performance" as in "state of the art performance as of November 2006". It would help a lot of consumers. State of the art for flashlight LEDs these days is changing fast.

 

[Frankiarmz]

They should be required to ALWAYS give a date after the phrase "state of the art performance" as in "state of the art performance as of November 2006". It would help a lot of consumers. State of the art for flashlight LEDs these days is changing fast.

This would be a great idea and give the average consumer a heads up that something better may be available. I find as a consumer this kind of thing happens with many products and that's why I usually try to do some research prior to making a purchase. I have to thank Matt at Batteryjunction.com for helping me make a better purchase when I was getting more interested in quality, state of the art LED flashlights. This Forum and the willingness to give good advice to newbies is certainly a great way to help at least some consumers.

 

[TorchBoy]

"State of the art performance with a Luxeon K2. Offers 120 lumen on only six watts."

oo: That might even qualify in this country for a charge of false advertising.

 

[spencer]

It might not have said "state of the art" but something close. I'm in Canada.

EDIT: Nevermind, it did say "state of the art". Link to it here.

 

[LEDninja]

The London drugs link show the Dorcy 41-6295 2xCR123A (6V) version.
More details here:
http://dorcy.com/products.aspx?p=414295

unknownVT has a review of the Dorcy 41-6297 3xAAA (4.5V) version.
Details:
http://dorcy.com/products.aspx?p=414297
Review:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=191845
Not bad at all for a 4.5V light. I do expect the 6V version to be brighter.
London Drugs will make a fortune selling replacement batteries. 6W will eat up batteries twice as fast as the 3 or 4 watt Crees we buy.

Price is not bad for Canada.
I bought a Dorcy 2AA 1 watt for CAD$40. Still on the new Dorcy website.
http://dorcy.com/products.aspx?p=414265
Also paid CAD$40 for a Nexxtech 3AAA 1W on sale at Radio Shack. Regular $69.95! A year later they were selling as the Sams Club Element - 2 for US$26 or US$13 each.

Go down to WalMart or Zellers and you will see 1 LED (5mm) flashlights. A 2X brighter (Nichia CS) seem to be a big deal. Walmart is bringing in some 9 LED 3AAA Garrity torches though. One Walmart has a 4AA 1 watt spotlight style Garrity flashlight for $37! For $3 more you are getting a 6 watter.

$40 seem to be the 'standard price' for a high powered flashlights (1 watt) though Canadian tire do seem to sell their own Noma brand for a bit less.

A local store tried to carry Fenix flashlights last July. They just gave up and sent the stock back to J2LEDflashlights. Hamiltonians are just too frugal to pay $70 for a flashlight. (actually they did better than I expected - all the L0D CE and L1T v2 were gone by January. Only 1 L2T v2 left. Lots of L1D Q5 around which means they sold all the original stock of L1D CE. The E0 and older model L1T/knife combo did not move and neither did the Nuwais QIII, Aurora, TM310H).
Scott@seriouslights of Saskatoon also closed down shop a while back.
RayOvac was going to bring in their good lights (even signing up that loudmouth from Hockey Night in Canada who did such a good job promoting Cold FX). Nothing came out of that effort.

 

[M@elstrom]

Luxeon K2 LEDs from Lumileds offer state of the art performance. With the highest output available and most robust construction the K2 outperforms all other solid state lighting devices currently in full scale production.

That's your qualifier there... "currently in full scale production" think about it for a moment, even Maglite is only offering Luxeon III drop in as their high tech LED offering, and FWIW the Dorcy 3xAAA Tactical I purchased last year in a large Dept. Store only has a Luxeon i driving it (good host for a XR-E mod though :devil

 

[jzmtl]

Speaking of consumer lights, I saw a rayovac light with cree led in Rona a while ago, I think it's around $40.