Price/Performance value ratios in a flashlight

A quote here led me to ask this question of my fellow CPF'ers.

What determines price/performance value ratios in a flashlight?

Is it brightness? Longevity? Usefulness? The ability to be modified? Something else?

I know that this is highly subjective, but what criteria do you use to determine price/performance value in a flashlight.

-Steve

All of the above actually.
It is a magic mixture of this and that for a light to be kept for long by me.
Tough
long running
UPgradeable
similar size to 6P
brightness
very simple UI
recharge option

I consider several factors when I buy a light. I always consider brightness, longevity, usefullness and reliability.

Almost all of the lights I have purchased in the last 1 1/2 years I would expect to last 10 years or more. I purposely do not buy lights that I think will break or stop functioning within a year (no matter how cheap they are). I'd rather buy one "good" light that will last, than 10 cheap lights that may break when I need one to work.

Brightness is not that important to me. I prefer multi-mode lights but even for single-stage lights if they are in the range of 60-100 lumens I'm happy.

For EDC or for self-defense purposes, reliability is the prime factor that I consider. If I'm going to carry a light every day, or if I'm betting my life on a light working, then I'm going to be willing to spend much more to get something that is really reliable and tough.

For self-defense purposes I usually buy Surefire. For EDC I prefer HDS EDC's (or hopefully the new Ra Twisty). I also like Peak LED lights because you can get them in brass and stainless (and they're reall tough and reasonably priced). Other than Maglites, those 3 brands account for 90% of my flashlight purchases. All three of those companies offer superior price/performance ratios in my humble opinion.

Edit: I forgot about the ablility to use rechargeable batteries. Just about every light I have runs on rechargeables and any new light would have to offer something really special if it wasn't capable of running on rechargeable batteries.

As you say, highly subjective...

For me, the first metric is pass/fail. The light must be reliable. Absolutely (in normal or medium stressed use). If not built in, then at least installable by simple fixes like tightening a retaining ring or adding a conducting ring to ensure contact at the head or tail end. If it can't provide more or less perfect reliability, including dropping, banging, and dunking, then forget it.

Second is battery type. AA or AAAs preferred.

Third is battery efficiency - how much light (lumen-hours) do I get out of a battery or charge with this light. High efficiency = careful design in my book.

Fourth then are other features of interest, e.g. brightness, run time, (reliable) multi-levels, small size (size efficiency), and whatever.

Just for me, looks, anodizing, physical features (except as directly traceable to reliability) are OK but not important. Don't care about serrated bezels, forward or backward clickies, tail standing, or the like. Function is form...

All of this (except reliability) is then divided by cost to determine value.

If you try and work out this out for other things we use/consume such as cars, houses, bread, watches...................it's impossible. Both value and performance are percieved in different ways by different people when it come to both torches and bread.

The best you can do is hope to work out your own value performance ratio based on your own criteria. Stuff everyone else!

Me, I look for a good mix of brightness, quality and battery life. I like cheapie lights that work quite well much more than super-expensive lights that work flawlessly.

Since this thread was inspired by my post on SF lights, I should probably say that I don't consider surefires bad lights (though I would have much more sympathy for the company had they not made the Titan... but that's another story).

However, just as buying the fastest computer instead of one that's 85% as fast but half as expensive is not rational unless you actually need all the speed, I find buying SF lights is not rational unless you need all the toughness.

What I'm trying to say is that the price/performance ratio depends widely on what the light will be used for. A cheapie light that works well for general EDC but that's likely to fail if hit too hard or dunked probably has excellent price/performance value for the average Joe, but awful value for a special forces soldier.

That said, everyone's free to do what they want with their money.

I like things that work 100% of the time, including lights. In most purchases, the best value is certainly not the cheapest, and often not the most expensive, it seems to fall in that 75th percentile range.

Milwaukee's V28 LiIon tools are one example. Chris Reeves knives are another. Or most any Glock pistol. And Surefire, NovaTac, and a few other lights I have yet to purchase.

brightness? Longevity? Usefulness? The ability to be modified?

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Brightness of 50L or more, indestructible & versatile are my top three must haves.

Same take as Fallingwater, surefires dont exactly have the best price/performance ratio, but are great lights.

I find myself dividing the number of lumens by the price sometimes...thats if youre just looking atoutput...

using that method, my Arc-P does very badly...
paid rouhgly SGD$70 for it...thats...9.5/70....to small to bother caluclating further....

but still, i love it...many reasons...

Crenshaw

You want to talk value for money... look no farther than Lightwave.
My Lightwave 4000,which I got on Dec.5,2007.. is still running on its orginal 3 D cell Duracell batteries which I installed the first day I got it.(It's now Feb.14,2008.Over 2 months later,and I think I'll be able to go another 2 to 3 weeks before I finally need to install new batteries.)

I don't think the price performance concept in flashlights makes any sense from an enthusiast point of view. Performance has something to do with utility. If I have no flashlight and buy one, that lets me see in the dark, very useful. A second flashlight adds some additional utility (could use it in different situations) but not as much. By the time we're up to owning 20 or 50 or 100 flashlights, as a lot of us on CPF do, there is no utility at all, we buy them because we like them; not everyone is that into flashlights but those who are have a gathering place on the internet, and CPF is that place.

In other news, Valentine's day is here and I just spent 35 bucks on a half pound box of semi-exotic chocolates for a certain special someone. If all I cared about was the cocoa content or number of calories or something like that, I could have bought a 1-pound bag of M&M's with twice the "performance" for 1/10th of the price. It's the same way with watts and lumens. I'm not here for that. I'm looking for design purity, creativity, and an intangible that I like to call "flashaholic spirit" which is partly a matter of why the light was made in the first place (there is a lot of it attached to lights made by modders for reasons of pure coolness).

All these lights are terrible deals for the money by most sane utilitarian standards, but on the other hand, money (above the subsistence level) is just bits in a computer, while a good flashlight is something that brings real enjoyment. I can think of worse things to be blowing slices of one's discretionary income on.

paulr said:

In other news, Valentine's day is here and I just spent 35 bucks on a half pound box of semi-exotic chocolates for a certain special someone. If all I cared about was the cocoa content or number of calories or something like that, I could have bought a 1-pound bag of M&M's with twice the "performance" for 1/10th of the price.

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Actually, you probably want standard flat chocolate bars.
I know I'm in the minority, but I actually appreciate substance even in things like these. If someone is going to spend €10 in chocolate for me, I'd much rather they spent it in chunky chocolate bars than in silly-shaped chocolates packaged in nice colours that cost twice as much for the same weight.
Much more choco-goodness for the same expense.

As has been clearly seen by comments so far, the price vs. performance ratio (I call it "value") is more subjective than definitive.

All I can do is give my personal example. I've got a pretty good spectrum of lights from Fenix to Tiablo to Lumapower to Surefire to Deree... the point is, I've got enough lights to compare them according to my personal (subjective) standards of value.

Without going into the particulars, after all the lights I've ended up with, I keep coming back to the one single light that performs the bestest and mostest in every way (compact size, throw, runtime, UI... all that stuff) is my CL1H.

If it cost more than it did, or if it performed less well, it wouldn't have "naturally" become my "standard of value" that I continue to compare other lights to.

Since the original question was trying to find a ratio of cost vs. performance (and I add "quality" into that mix as well), the CL1H at it's price level still out does anything I've seen yet... especially since I've seen other manufacturers push their prices into higher and higher levels.

My .02 lumens...

All these lights are terrible deals for the money by most sane utilitarian standards,

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If everything in life involved a logical decision, none of us would ever choose to have children...

precisionworks said:

If everything in life involved a logical decision, none of us would ever choose to have children...

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No children in this household....

Live long & prosper.......

Performance is my only consideration, price is insignificant. If I want a light, I will buy it regardless of price ... unless ... the price is so high that I can't pay it or won't survive paying it (wife).

My experience is that one should either buy the best for one's needs or nothing at all, anything in between one will regret somehow and someday.

Which is why I do not have a Beast II (can't afford) and why I regret the Microfire Warrior 24W.

bernie

Beastmaster said:

A quote here led me to ask this question of my fellow CPF'ers.

What determines price/performance value ratios in a flashlight?

Is it brightness? Longevity? Usefulness? The ability to be modified? Something else?

I know that this is highly subjective, but what criteria do you use to determine price/performance value in a flashlight.

-Steve

Click to expand...

For me, just 3 items:

Size (I prefer compact and smaller ones)
Power (Screw runtime... I want throw!!)
Construction (As solid as possible)

Greetings from Brasil, Steve!