The shop that sells the Palmblaze is part of a province wide chain with 14 outlets, so one would think that pricing would be more realistic.
As for the Palmblaze 1 Watt Luxeon, I could not resist purchasing it - then returned it. Nicely put together - but the beam was green
(and square, if that bothers you). A nice light otherwise. Plenty of light for general use. Not overly bright. If I could find another at a fair price with a beam tint to my liking, I would buy it (again).
Are you in Canada?
Cheers.
Boet
Ouch. Yeah, House of Knives is... expensive... I think all their stuff is overpriced. Might be due to the fact that they have to pay high rent in the for their shop in the malls. The other thing is, I don't think that light is giving 51 lumens out the front. Lights like that usually only have a R-bin Lux1 at the most, and the Lux1 R-bin is rated at 51 lumens max, at the emitter, not after loss from the reflector, lens, and bin variation. Good thing you were able to return it.
Anyway, if you're looking for a something a bit cheaper than $40+PST+GST, then you might want to try the LumaPower LM301. I'm actually thinking about getting one myself. It uses a SSC-P4 LED, which is noticeably brighter than a R-bin Lux1, has a high and low mode, runs on 1AA, and has decent runtime (65min on high/600 min on low on alkalines, longer on Ni-MH). BatteryJunction sells it for $31USD (-5% CPF discount code) + shipping. I don't know how much shipping is from them now. I ordered something from them before and asked for USPS GPM envelope shipping, but since USPS took away GPM, I don't know if they have cheap international shipping anymore. You could probably e-mail them and ask. The other option is to order from LumaPower directly in HK, $35USD including shipping. Here's a
link
to ernsanada's review, with links to buy it in post #18.
I have 2 Fenix L1Ps (1 original group buy version, 1 later shinier anodized version) that came with R-bin Lux1s. I modded 1 of them with a SSC P4 (USVOI bin) and wow. It's a much nicer light. The hotspot is a bit brighter, but the biggest gain was the sidespill which I'd say was about 30% brighter to my eyes. It's made it more useful to me because of the brigher spill/flood light. The only thing it doesn't have is a high-low mode, which the LM301 does have.
The other thing to note is the screw threading quality. Most of the guys who've posted their opinions of the light says the LM301 has really good threading on it. This is something that's important to me, right after brightness and runtime of course
. I even notice it on my Fenix L1Ps. The original matte HA version has much smoother threading the newer shinier HA version. It's like their QA slacked off after the initial production run. The L0P-SE that I bought about a year later also has rougher threading. It might be luck of the draw for me, but YMMV.
The only thing about ordering online is, if you really don't like the tint, you can't just drive to the store to return it. You'll have to mail it back (at your own expense) if they'll take it back because you don't like the tint.