The Walgreen Penlight

As I said earlier in the "Concealed Carry" thread, I went back to Walgreen's this morning to look again at the little penlight I spoke of.

Well, I got it and it appears to be a very nice little all the time carry!

Firstly, it's made out of aluminum save for the internal parts where insulation is necessary. The cl-icky is non-momentary but is smooth in operation. The unit is about as big overall as a regular fountain pen. The LED looks like a Nichia or a clone of same, very bright white with a slight blue tint. It don't have a lot of throw nor a pencil beam but it is more than adequate for what it is, a "pen light". It will set you back a whopping $5.98.oo:

The big surprise came when I unscrewed it to load up the supplied AAA batts. There inside the barrel was a sleeve and an accessory spring! I presume these are to facilitate the use of the new AAAA batts. There were NO instructions supplied.

Overall, I believe it's a good buy. It hearkens of the old style penlights the MD's used to look in your mouth with when you were a kid. (providing you were a kid in the 50's!):naughty:

Here are some pics along with the obligatory beam shot.

Thanks for the information and the pics, Skyeye. I really like the form factor of AAA penlights, and wish other manufacturers besides Streamlight (who makes a superb one) would make these, just so their would be more of a variety available. I might just go grab one of these.

It looks a lot like my Energizer penlight (can be found at Walmart and Target) only more robust. Flashlight Reviews and LED Modifications I will have to go check it out tomorrow.

Now I'm curious to see if my Walgreens has this light.

Saw a very similar Dorcy penlight at KMart today that was new to me. The major difference that I could see was that the LED was recessed. This is the main gripe I have about the Energizer, and I see the LED also sticks out of the Walgreen light. I will cost you a couple bucks more, too.

Geoff

FT, I will go look at the Dorcy tomorrow. I was worried that I would accidentally trash the protruding LED too. I would imagine if you dropped it and it hit LED first it would be cooked.:mecry:

Please let us know what you think about the Dorcy if you get one. I think it might be the best of these three options. To me the sidespill from the protruding LED in the Energizer is irritating.

Geoff

Geoff, I went to K-mart and looked at the Dorcy penlight. It does have the recessed LED but I noticed the clicker is made of plastic which for $7.99 should have been aluminum. BTW, the spill on the Walgreen light really isn't that noticeable. The beam throw at 12 ft. or so is about 3 feet in diameter. I used it on my night walk and it's decent to see where you are going. I think the forte of all these penlights is the ability to sleep in a shirt pocket and be able to be stuck in tight spaces. I also went to look at a Streamlight Stylus but you can't get the AAAA batts here in my area. I don't feel like peeling a Duracell 9v after paying $17.:shakehead

Thanks for checking on the Dorcy, Skyeye. I hadn't noticed the clicker being plastic. Maybe I'll be tempted enough eventually to try one. Like you I've nixed the Stylus because of the AAAA batteries. There is one more I'd forgotten about, the Gerber Foreman. It comes with different color interchangeable heads, but does cost somewhere around $25. The higher quality might make it almost worth the cost, at least to nuts like us.

Geoff