Nuwai AT-100...Finally.

Well, I've been *going* to get one for the last 2 months - at least - so on my way past Maplin today, when I spotted 1 (yes only one), on the shelf, I bought it. First thing that struck me when I got it home was the quality of the finish. The knurling is perfect, no burr or anything, as are the threads, and there's tiny little ridges milled into the entire aluminium body, giving an almost satin like texture, you can actually hear a tone if you run a fingernail over these ridges. I don't reckon they'd do much for grip - but that's what the knurling and rubber grip are there for - but they sure do make it look smart.
Barrel diameter is roughly what I'd expect of an everyday 2C cell light, because there are 4 AA's in a carriage inside the light in a 2+2 configuration (Ala PT Attitude if I remember correctly). It feels very nice in the hand, the rubbed rubber grip and knurling making sure that it ain't going nowhere without your permission.

Only things that let the light down I can see are firstly, the pretty high price - but that's just the curse of living in the UK I guess. The Lanyard is totally inadequite...it'd be fine on a plastic bodied 2AA light, but won;t last five seconds on a 4AA alu light. The lens feels like quite cheap plastic (relative to the very professional finish of everything else), and might become scratched. Again, we'll see. Finally, when closeup, the beam from the low setting has a funky cloverleaf pattern, though it doesn't detract from the usefulness in the slightest, but there are some out there who might find it irritaiting.

This is a light that exceeded what I expected in terms of quality by a long, long way.

I haven't actually written the review itself yet, but most of the pics and the beamshots are up on my reviews page here.
Nuwai AT-100 Review at LOZ.

Enjoy.

PS. Who's gonna be the first to stick an LS in there then?

thanks for the review and beam shots, it's nice to get an idea just how much light this puts out. How much did it cost you and how far does the beam actually throw?
thanks again,

Well, I'll take a comparison beamshot with a PALight shortly, the beam from the PAL is much tighter, so it's not the best of tests, but at least it's a brightness level that folks know. I'm going to have to get a 2AA MiniMag to do the comparison shot with, as that's one that everyone knows.

Just took it outside, and it casts a visible but not very bright light on a shed that's ~25 feet (guesstimate on the distance), it's a great ligth for walking around with though as it's a pretty broad flood really which is why the throw isn't that great. Fairly typical beam that I'd expect from a light using 5mm LEDs really. The reflector just seems to direct some of the spill light in the right direction, and when in the 3LED mode makes that wierd artefact in the beam.

I don't yet have any comparable lights really, and the PAL is the only other well known one I have full stop. As I said, will be buying a 2AA MiniMag for comparitive purposes shortly, having a camera with automatic exposure control is a pain for trying to get an idea of brightness in beamshots!

OK, here's the pics. As predicted, the autoexposure control stepped in and made the pics hard to interpret, but it's the best I can do with a <£100 camera.
Light cost me £24.99, but might be available cheaper if you shop around, inevitably so in the states I imagine.

Firstly, AT100 on Low setting (3LED's) Vs a PALight on High from 1 metre.


Secondly, the same shot, but with the AT100 on High (all 10 LED's running).


Note, test target was not used here because I was comparing beam intensity, not type.

Thanks to the exposure control, the relative brightness of the two beams must be more carefully noted, rather than the overall apparent illumination.
(I.e. the background light in the room 1 10W compact flourescent on the far side of the room is unchanged between the two - despite the apparent difference)

Nice review.

One note: Americans read 12.05.2003 as December 05, 2003!! Please, if you use day.month.year, please use something like 12 May 2003. (This is general note to all who use different dating systems (notation). Americans could use May 12, 2003. This way it would be clear to everyone. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Ok, that means fiddling around with the site template...will deal with that later...

Just as a sidenote, if you now go to http://zelandeth.artamir.org and click on the flashlight reviews link in the navigation frame, the full list of reviews can now be accessed, even though as yet I haven't had time to finish many of them. That's the full list of the collection as well.