The truth behind testing lights?

I hope this doesn't get out of hand or rub anyone the wrong way. I have a legitimate question about light testers..especially the ones that get the light from manufacturers.

Are there incentives for testing the light and placing the reviews here? Free light to keep? Over 50% off the light at the end of the review? I've yet to read a 100% bad review on a light except for a few things that are disliked. Other than that, they are mainly positive, as expected.

I don't know any testers personally so I had to ask.

I'm not naming any particular testers. This is just a general question. I didn't know where else to put this post.

I reviewed a product. It was not a light. I had called the company to suggest a different material and explained why. They wrote back and wanted to talk to me. They suggested something else from their product line that I believed at the time would not fill the need.

They sent me two free items. Now I made rules for myself so to prevent bias. I truly believed the product would fail and I like the companies main product a lot, so bias in both directions was strong. In the end the product worked for their expected purpose, but failed in situations where other companies with similar products failed.

The reply I got from the company to my posted review was exactly, "Thank you for your honest response." Obviously, they weren't thrilled with my review.

In the end I did recommend them. Just that I would never use them because my use would put them in previously mentioned situation.

I admit that I did think that if I gave a great review, I might get more free stuff. I am still hoping they send me a free improved item as per my original E-Mail.

021411 said:

I didn't know where else to put this post.

Click to expand...

With it being about lights, the General Flashlight Discussion forum seems more proper than the Cafe.

I've moved it there for you. However, considering the nature of the topic, the Underground's "Flashlight Industry" forum may have been a better selection. Here, should the discussion become uncivil, the thread may not survive.

021411 said:

I've yet to read a 100% bad review on a light except for a few things that are disliked. Other than that, they are mainly positive, as expected.

Click to expand...

Maybe manufacturers realized bad lights don't sell very well, and are only making good lights these days?... :thinking:

Most lights from reputable manufacturers are going to function properly. Mainly it's just complaining about the switch or the high mode not being bright enough and the low mode being to bright.

It goes for almost every review out there in magasins , internet etc.
And for almost any kind of items , bicycles , televisions etc.
Almost every review is a positiv one , ending with a recommendation.
You are certainly not the only one wondering.

If you get to keep a bad light, why would that be an incentive to give it a good review?

Just throwing some ideas around...

Consumer Reports doesn't recommend the newest Iphone....so there are still some that don't always give glowing reports.

I really think that, for the most part, companies tend to send out products that pretty decent. Think about it. If you were peddling junk, you wouldn't be passing out samples to people......they would warn everyone else. However, if you have a good product, you will want to get the word out about it.

I think the corporate incentive is a bit of "we've worked with enthusiasts to create this light!" mentality. I know for a fact that Nitecore links to selfbuilt's reviews on most of their lights, even the ones that aren't super-positive. It allows them to say that they've engaged the community.

That said, I know a number of people received LD15's from Fenix recently and their feedback was "make it come on low->high, then drop the smooth reflector for an OP one". When the light shipped, it comes on high->low and has a smooth reflector. This bothered me - why send out a light for testing/feedback and then not act on it? They were successful in getting the word out (I wouldn't have known of the LD15 if not for the pre-reviews here) but then the suggestions were made loud and clear, only to be disregarded. Maybe I misunderstood what Fenix was trying to do with that.

Overall though, I think most reviews will be positive. Flashlights only do one thing - turn batteries into photons. If they didn't do that, they wouldn't hit the market. Things like runtimes, beamshots and UI are all secondary to that purpose (and more subjective, varying by personal preference), so it's hard to give a flashlight a negative review based solely on the fact that you don't like it's UI. If it generates light, it's doing its job.

In my country we have an independent magasin , which only purpose is to test different consumerproducts.
They are notable more negative than the reviewers , though they also has a lot of positive tests/reports as well.
Of course , they also buy and pay for all the products them self , and has no ties to the industry.

Well I've done a few reviews and it's always different.
Sometimes you get to keep the light sometimes you get a discount and other times you have to send it back to them.
Its not cut and dry or hard and fast. Motivation for me is just the fun of seeing it first and pointing out any issues I have with the light.

I gave a bad review once. The light was sent to me to teat with a broken tapeswitch and recoil made it flash. The company isn't around now.

You have to take the reviews for what they are. The pictures and graphs are very informative. But most do not deal in long term quality or in how good the CS is. I lot of guys do get free lights and IMO will lean to a better review so they keep getting free lights. Also if they have an issue the CS will be great as they are reviewing the light.

I believe the reviewer has to disclose where they got the light from. If they bought the light themselves, then that is fine, but if it was provided for review, they have to say so. They don't have to say what their incentive was, but at least this way, you can see if it is a good review for increasing sales of a product (against forum rules), or a good review because it is a good product.

Most products we want to hear about are good products to begin with, there are always negatives, like pre-flash, too unfocussed, build quality etc... Products that we don't want to hear about or don't care about normally don't get a formal review. It wouldn't be worth the time. If you want an idea about a certain light, there will be threads about it, or you could ask, but don't expect a review about a dx light that sells for $12 that is good or bad.

I've tested many lights,
The latest ones are 95% CRI 4730 kelvin from Optodrive.

I worte a detailed analysis for them...Including the math.
I also made suggestions about extra heatsinking and better packaging.

And finally, the lights are free to keep.... Simple as it should be.

Why is it that Surefire products seem to escape review for the most part?

I was a tech-industry blogger. I created an account (didn't want to mix business and pleasure at the time) to link to a remotely hosted review of a CPF-loved flashlight from one of our very own manufacturers, as we were big on gadgets at the time. The account was banned immediately.

I have written reviews panning products, and had them published as glowing recommendations as the last paragraph was changed by editors. I have also given a lot of awards to a lot of good products.

Nobody goes out of the way to review crap. Nobody wants to be sent crap to review, that will get you few hits, that will sit in your closet until you give it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, that will take just as much time to write up as something awesome that you'd love to keep.

Double post....

Long term durability and reliability is one of most important aspects of flashlight ownership IMHO.

Most reviewers open the box, take some photos and some beam shots and then pull the light apart and take more photos. They then type of review and put the light on the shelf.

A newbie then reads this glowing review, buys the said item and gets a DOA turd or has a new light fail after only a few hours of use or after a couple of drops.

No 'quicky' review is going to provide any meaningful long term usage data.

How many times have you seen a newbie with their first post at CPF complain about a new light that arrived faulty - they complain that everybody here said how great it is and then when they buy one, it's a dud?

I personally get very little out of these endless graphs outlining regulation in all levels, PWM data etc - I am not saying to loose all of that info, just let us know what happens if you drop the light from waist height onto concrete - does it still work? How durable is the HA - is it HDS quality or Quark quality?

How about a list of parts costs and their availability. If asked after 3 months of usage, would you personally buy this model again? - that sort of stuff!!

If some reviewers get these light for nothing, then how about sacrificing a few for drop tests etc - it seems most lights are going to have to contend with this sort of treatment in the real world anyway!!

James....:thumbsup:

red02 said:

Why is it that Surefire products seem to escape review for the most part?

Click to expand...

Surefire generally don't send lights to reviewers, and mainly those Surefires that are reviewed are personal purchases that we felt like putting information up on for fellow Flashaholics.

just found this thread...
can't answer some of your questions, but I can answer some!

I don't know about the others, but I will usually carry the light for a week or so, putting it through it's daily toils (which includes the occasional drop as I am very clumsy.. especially with large prototypes.. :sick2:)
I am pretty sure if they are good lights, then they will be used and carried... thus I would assume the majority of reviewers would actually use the lights!

parts costs and availability? as in? tailcaps, battery tubes, heads, emitters, drivers, switches, tailcap boots? a review doesn't have to cover every single ground.. I would expect the general consumer to research their product a little bit, too!

HA durability.. how do I test this? specifying HA thickness? I can't test this.
trying to scratch with a knife? also, I cannot always the same pressure. sandpaper? same problem. general use? also always different. :shrug:

drop tests? same problem! it wont always be the same height, same angle, exact same surface, so.... :shrug:

usually if a light is going to fail, it fails pretty early.

check out my thrunite TIkey and MrLite I5 review for less than stellar ratings.. :thinking:

Also, to address some other comments, most of us do note where the review unit came from..

red02, kingofwylietx, chrontius all make excellent points with basically saying, crap usually isn't sent out in the first place!

Some "review" are in fact a way for the OP to share how awesome he find the light. He likes it a lot, even if he can note a few area where it falls short, but he loves the light none the less.

Many "review" are in fact a presentation of a product the OP likes. They are called "review" because they are written in a certain form but many really aren't product reviews.