Fallingwater
Flashlight Enthusiast
I want a light for household use. It'll maybe see some outdoor use, but it'll mainly be indoor. So I have no use for a super-bright light with a tight hot spot; rather, I need a decent amount of spill.
It has to be 18650 because I have some old but still functional 18650 cells out of a laptop battery pack that I'd hate to leave unused.
So I checked DX, and came up with this one and this one.
The first is the so-called "U2-style", it's apparently brighter on high output (driving the LED at 1200mah instead of 900 like the other one does) and well built.
The second one is a bit smaller, costs less and seems to have better regulation (according to the graphs).
Since I foresee the light will spend most of its life in low-power mode the slightly higher brightness of the U2-style isn't a decisive advantage. Along with the lower price I'd be inclined to choose the other one... if it wasn't for the never-hated-enough SOS and Strobe modes, which I find completely useless and which always get in the way.
So: a slightly better light with a useless feature I'll always bump against, or a slightly lower-quality two-mode one?
It has to be 18650 because I have some old but still functional 18650 cells out of a laptop battery pack that I'd hate to leave unused.
So I checked DX, and came up with this one and this one.
The first is the so-called "U2-style", it's apparently brighter on high output (driving the LED at 1200mah instead of 900 like the other one does) and well built.
The second one is a bit smaller, costs less and seems to have better regulation (according to the graphs).
Since I foresee the light will spend most of its life in low-power mode the slightly higher brightness of the U2-style isn't a decisive advantage. Along with the lower price I'd be inclined to choose the other one... if it wasn't for the never-hated-enough SOS and Strobe modes, which I find completely useless and which always get in the way.
So: a slightly better light with a useless feature I'll always bump against, or a slightly lower-quality two-mode one?
