Semilar/CREE P4 vs. Streamlight ProPoly Lux

I received my "Semilar"/CREE P4 from kaidomain.com today. I was struck by how small the light is even compared to my Civictor. It's quite tiny... The fit and finish look quite decent. It came with the lanyard attached. The lanyard is too small to get my hand through, but no big deal. There were a couple of very small nicks in the anodizing. Once again, no big deal.

I charged the 3.6v 1000mah LIR123As I received with the order and waited for darkness to try it out. I tested the Semilar indoors first and found it very bright and it blows the Civictor out of the water, which I expected. I then grabbed my Streamlight ProPoly 4aa Lux to go outside and shine it at our cabin approx. 300' away. It's very dark outside as we live in the country and the cabin has a trailer next to it with a reflector that helps gauge the brightness of the lights.

The Semilar has a larger diameter hotspot than the ProPoly (though less intense) and a slightly brighter spillbeam. It is noticeably brighter overall (though not overly so) at close ranges than the ProPoly. The ProPoly pulled ahead though in the throw test at the cabin and trailer. It lit the cabin up noticeably better than the Semilar did.

So which light won? I'd give the nod to the ProPoly for dark outdoors use as it's close range spillbeam is plenty to see where you're going and it's intense hotspot lights distant objects better than the Semilar. For EDC it's no contest. Have you ever tried to fit a Streamlight ProPoly in your pants? Ahem... The Semilar is a very bright, small light that fits in a pocket nicely. It's runtime is not great as a thread on this site indicates. Also, it does start to get warm pretty quickly with the 3.6v R123A.

That's my 2 cents. Oh, for $14.99 it's a steal!

Cool, thanks for the review!

Is there a spring in this light? Or does the battery sit directly on raised metal "buttons"?

The battery sits on a button.

If this is the same one that DX sells, I have one as well.

I don't like the following things:

1) The battery rattles (using Battery Station CR123s) I put a piece of electrical tape on one half of the battery, and that quieted it down a bit, thought not all the way.

2) The threads are too small. It takes many turns to turn it on and leave it on without flicker, and just as many to suffieciently turn it off.

3) The tint/hotspot didn't impress me as much as I thought it would. Nowhere near my Fenix L1D. In fact, to my untrained eyeball, it looks more like a Lux LED to me.

That being said, it's still good for the price. It was never intended to be a frontline EDC light. I took the split ring and threaded it directly to the light, and tied a paracord neck lanyard for it, Like I use on my X1. It makes a good back-up neck light for camping or other nightime activities.

Goes to show, you get what you pay for, right?

I agree the quality of these cheap lights is inconsistent. To be honest I'm getting a little weary of it. I've been waiting a week to hear from kaidomain about returning a dead Ultrafire C3, haven't heard a thing from them, don't know what's going on.

I have one of these $15 lights. The finish on mine is really nice, and threads worked smoothly without needing clean and lube like my Jetbeam. And it's pretty bright, definitely brighter than a 3 watt Luxeon.

Mine did have some symptoms like yours--flaky contact with too many turns to power up. On mine, this was caused by the PCB being loose, not held tight to the head. I slightly glued it to the head and added a small foam donut to eliminate battery rattle and it works great now.