pay for perfection??

Is it worth to pay the extra money and buy a surefire when you can get a lifetime warranty from fenix? I dont know much about flashlights but according to specs the l2d ce looks like the best value for money. Is the 135 lumens and battery life trustworthy and is it reliable and able to take a few hits? sorry everyone-english wasn't my best subject!:lolsign:

Welcome nitrolight!! Surefires are Extremly well built and can take a ton of punishment. They are a bit pricey, but are worth every penny in my opinion. They are very interchangable and the lifetime warrenty is awesome! I do not have any fenix lights but have heard a lot of good stuff about them.

Greetings!

I happily pay for Surefire perfection - I know that there are a LOT of cheaper lights out there with incredible warrantees... but Surefire is the only brand of light I own that I'm almost CERTAIN I'll never NEED a warranty for!

Best wishes,
Bawko

Hi there nitrolight,

Welcome to CPF, I was using maglights for some time since 94' and they are all incandescent. Then last year I went the surefire way and to me the premium justifies the product. If I were to start with other brands, maybe i'll try lots of other brands until SF...

Well, it depends on which Surefire? But I would definitely recommend the L2D, at least until Surefire comes out with some crees of their own. The performance of the L2D is just outstanding, as is it's price value. I know this might be a controversial statement on this forum, but I wouldnt say that the L2D is more or less reliable than a Surefire. The Fenix lifetime warranty is however not worth the paper it's written on, Surefire's is. Fenix just cover "manual labour", in other words, you pay for shipment and the parts that needs replacement, so in other words you pay for the whole deal. On the other hand, we have some excellent dealers that stand by their word and seems to believe that the customer is always right. I bought a L2p from www.lighthound.com, and when I had some issues with it, he just told me to send it back, no questions asked at all.
www.fenix-store.com also have some excellent service.

If you haven't, check out http://www.flashlightreviews.com/index1.html to compare the different lights you want. It's a excellent site to begin your flashoholism with!

If the only thing you're considering is the lumen output, you're missing a lot of features of lights in general..

Hi everybody,

I am new here. Among other flashlights I do have a couple of Surefires and four Fenixes. Currently I am of course in love with the Fenixes, they are new, bright, fun to talk about, etc. As to their reliability in the long run can we please wait for a few years? Surefires have been there forever and they keep working fine but what can we say for Fenixes?

ACMarina said:

If the only thing you're considering is the lumen output, you're missing a lot of features of lights in general..

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Well, if a light is brighter, has longer runtime, roughly equal reliability, runs on cheap easily available AAs and costs a a third, it's a no-brainer for me. If you on the other want a light that feels and looks better that is made in the US, then I can understand it, but those factors are not important for me when it comes to a light.
Feel free to enlighten (gotta love that pun! ) me what I miss otherwise.

i have both Fenix and Surefire lights. i like them both. but if had to choose between the two. i would keep my Surefires.

Brighter - sometimes important and sometimes not. I've got my Barbolight u-15 if I want bright, Infinity if I want dim, and I could grab a variety of lights for dual stage - A2 Aviator, 27LT-S, PD, Eternalight, and it goes on and on..

Longer runtime - subjective. I've got a 4D Maglite with a cheepie dropin with 4 3mm LEDs. It'll run for weeks. Realistically, how much runtime do you really need?? Longer is better, but it's at an expense.

Reliability - I don't expect failure from any of my lights, shy of having a battery go bad or something. What I DO expect is customer service, so that when my light dies I can get it fixed. Surefire does it at no cost, and I've never had problems with Inova for example.

AAs are good, don't get me wrong, but for my uses lithium cells are better. They're better in hot and cold, they're lighter, they have a longer shelf life, they put out more for their size, so on and so forth. I've got all kinds of light that take all kinds of batteries, AA, Li-ion, C, D, even 9V. I don't discriminate. But when I need to trust a light, it has a lithium battery.

Cost - important, don't get me wrong, but not the end-all be-all. Otherwise you'd see everyone in America driving a sub-$10000 kia and not a $400000 SUV..

Ergonomics are very important to me. I carry a flashlight at least 12 hours a day, and I want something that's pleasant. My wife has a Fenix in her purse, as I just couldn't get used to it and didn't care for the feeling. She likes it a lot, but I don't. Personal preference.

These are just my opinions, btw. And one of my favorite little pocketlights is my Nuwai QIII on a 3.7v rechargeable battery. Not my majority EDC light, but it finds its way out every now and then. I guess I just figure if I'm going to use something, why not get the best that I can??

Like anything else, if you are going to buy the "best" you generally must pay more. If your needs or desires do not require a "top of the line" light there are many good choices. Kind of depends on your level of seriousness about this hobby.

Geoff

one way or another you will always pay for perfection, if your cheap enough, you can do the perfection YOURSELF, whats your time worth?

There are very few things in my life that I'm willing (or able) to get the best of. Flashlights are one of those things. I understand why a lot of people (especially non-flashaholics) don't want or need expensive lights. I personally don't need an expensive car, stereo, gun, house etc. but I really love my high-quality lights. Just handling an HDS, Surefire or McGizmo brings a very large smile to my face. The feel of quality in my hands and the reliability of the lights make it worthwhile to me.

ACMarina said:

Realistically, how much runtime do you really need?? Longer is better, but it's at an expense.

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Long runtime is very important (at least to me) in an emergency light. I've been without power (in an urban area) for over 8 hours. Of course, if you have lots and lots of lights, you're covered, but I like to have one light that will stay on for at least 24 hours.

For a short period, the Fenixes might have a newer generation LED than the SureFires, but that will change soon enough. What won't change is that the build quality on a SureFire compared to a Fenix is like the build quality on a Maglite compared to an old plastic slide switch 2C Eveready. Just look at the threads. The difference in beam quality is similar. It's often true that you get what you pay for. There's a lot more to usability and a pleasing user experience than lumens.

alanagnostic said:

There are very few things in my life that I'm willing (or able) to get the best of. Flashlights are one of those things. I understand why a lot of people (especially non-flashaholics) don't want or need expensive lights. I personally don't need an expensive car, stereo, gun, house etc. but I really love my high-quality lights. Just handling an HDS, Surefire or McGizmo brings a very large smile to my face. The feel of quality in my hands and the reliability of the lights make it worthwhile to me.

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That pretty much sums it up for me, well said.

Sometimes it pays to have both a perfect light as your own and a cheaper
light for the odd jobs where if it gets damaged ore lost its not so bad

Surefire and ARC's set the standards for others to follow.

Fenix was first production light out of china with half way decent quality. but is no where near Surefire and ARC.

as with any new light mfg, fenix had all sorts of teething pains with flaky switchs and failing lights. in all fairness, same could be said of Surefire and ARC for flaky switches.

Surefire's R&D program is probably the best in the world, but is still nothing compared to cpf's dynamic hotbed of ideas.

to Fenix's credit they have been one of the quickest to take feedback and bring fort new designs to market. lots of failures on the way, but that's to be expected for rapid pace to market.

bottom line is what lights do you trust? for me it's Surefire, ARC's and McGizmo lights. And I've got a drawer full of Fenix lights including Lo ti.

if you trust fenix lights, then absolutely nothing wrong with going with that.

nitrolight said:

Is it worth to pay the extra money and buy a surefire when you can get a lifetime warranty from fenix?

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Surefire makes some of the most expensive lights. With the exception of problematic switches on some models, Surefire lights have a great reputation for durability and reliability. Surefire's lifetime warranty can be trusted years down the road if you have a problem.

Fenix lights offer great features and performance for their prices. Build quality may be hit or miss on some models. Long term reliability is unknown. Lifetime warranty is problematic.

Why limit your selection to Surefire or Fenix?

Between the high and low price extremes of Surefire and Fenix, there are other manufactures that offer high quality lights backed up with reliable lifetime warrantees. Some would argue that these manufacturers offer better value for your money than Surefire or Fenix.

Inova, Streamlight, Pelican, Underwater Kinetics, Princeton Tec come to mind immediately. There are undoubtedly others. Check them out before buying.


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Some folks here have the means to purchase anything that's new and that's fine. They also are the ones that have many, many dozens of lights they never use. They are also the 'experts" here. They may be talented modders and highly intelligent but what's good for them may not be good for you. They not only have drawers full of Fenix lights, they also have drawers full of SF, ARC and McGizmo lights!

Surefire is truly the leader here on CPF as they have been around since the mid eighties and their lights were the true industry leaders. They produce a wonderful product but just because it's a SF now doesn't mean it's the best value for your dollar. They've had as many problems with their lights as any of the newer overseas producers. I would list them as the ones who started all this flashlight craziness and they deserve to be! They've also had flickering and contact problems.

ARC was the first production company that put 5mm, LD, ( low dome), and HD, (high dome), LEDs into production lights. They should be considered industry innovators because of that though I was never impressed with the blue and purple beams that their AAA and AA lights still produce then and now. They were however the smallest lights to produce an okay amount of light with a great runtime. They also had flickering and contact problems.

Their 123 celled lights however were a true breakthrough and I salute them for that. They also had blue and purple beams, (albeit BRIGHT!), but the 1X123 breakthrough that became the ARC-LS was a marvel in miniaturization. They also had flickering and contact problems.

McGizmo lights are very well built and also a GIANT leader in innovation but you'll pay the price BIG TIME for this privlege but Don is a true innovator to the highest degree. The couple I've owned also had flickering and contact problems.

I own a Fenix and it's a great light that I paid next to nothing for. It has no flickering or contact problems but I'm not saying that other Fenix' do not.

If you want to be one of the "in crowd" here on CPF, buy tons of SF and McGizmo lights. If you like Fenix lights, buy a ton of them also. They'll all end up inside some drawers except those that you truly like!