Gift Lights?

What is a good, cheap light that would make a good gift for someone not into flashlights? I'm leaning toward power LEDs and common battery types (123a is kinda pushing it... they won't be able to find them cheap) for ease of ownership.

So far, I've got Inova X1s as not really bright enough, and X5s as really only cheap enough if you find them on clearance, and Surefire G2s okay, but battery hogs.

The Jetbeam C-LE v2 is a bit on the expensive side for this thing, but... again, this is something to impress the hell out of someone who doesn't know flashlights.

Your thoughts?

There's a problem here. You're limited if your non-flashaholic friends don't use nimh batteries, as the impressive lights need either nihms or lithiums to really "shine". If they can support using nimh AAs, then the stainless C3 at $20 or so is pretty impressive. For even better utility (weights less and has better battery efficiency), I like the $13 XJC-B8.

What price range are you looking for? I would suggest you look through Kaidomain and/or Deal Extreme, and find a good 1AA or 2AA LED light. The Romisen RC-G2 is quite popular on CPF. THere are many other good options described in this thread:

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=188590&highlight=budget

optodoofus

optodoofus said:

Romisen RC-G2

Click to expand...

This.

Personally, for me, the light to give is a romisen RC-I3 in a 2xAA config. Draws about 400ma at the tail, so won't eat alkalines, but still impressively bright.

All single cell lights really need nimh or lithiums due to the current draw, so they're simply not an option to give to non-flashaholics.

Something good from DX.

Romisen and Ultrafire are two good makers.

2 AA or 1 AA? Multimode?

The Streamlight Stylus Pros that I gave this past holiday season were well received.

My concerns, like yours, were about the usability of a high tech flashlight by non-flashaholics...mostly about the batteries though.

The Stylus Pro, while not "Cree bright", is rated at a useful 24 lumens, and will run for a reviewed 7 hours on 2xAAA alkalines. It's a nice flashlight!

73
dim