AAA flashlights vs the world

I started collecting and learning about flashlights and cells with AAA/10440 lights. Eventually, I think I graduated myself to larger lights. Armed with the knowledge gained by browsing CPF and experience with AAA lights and cells, I felt I was now equiped with the ability to choose some nice lights at the next level: the AA flashlight! But really any cell size other than AAA would be an advancement.

Or so I thought.

My experience searching for desireable AA flashlights helped lead me to conclude that the trend I was made aware after first joining CPF (by I forget who) is more or less true, that smaller lights generally are not as bright, tend to cost more by weight, yet they have more of the most desired qualities, such as more often having constant current drivers or warmer tinted, and/or higher CRI emitters. Usually, the hosts are also more attractive, more "flashlight-looking," than their non-AAA competitors, where designers seemed to have abandoned all ordinary designs that look like a flashlight, and instead the hosts tend to look like odd and knarly Hollywood props from a bad low budget sci fi movie.

Usually when I have seen OPs similar to this, it is with an attitude "my AAA light is the best, taking all comers for the Pepsi Challenge to see if your AAA light or non-AAA light can compete!" I am sort of saying the same thing, except without the positive enthusiasm. I am rather annoyed to discover the best lights made, all top quality emitter and driver and top material choices considered, are these cute little overpriced AAA flashlights.

Please argue with me and prove to me I am wrong. Thank you.

I would argue with you... if I had any idea what your argument is?

Are you trying to say that there aren't any good lights outside of the AAA format? Because if so, well, that's just crazy...

holygeez03 said:

I would argue with you... if I had any idea what your argument is?

Are you trying to say that there aren't any good lights outside of the AAA format? Because if so, well, that's just crazy...

Click to expand...

I'm saying, and please realize it's still going to be vague, that as the size of the light goes up, the best qualities become less common. I think obviously because the weight is going to go up in larger lights, some heavier host materials become less attractive, but the host material is really beyond the scope of my adopted claim.

And that is, again to be perfectly vague, that the larger the light, the less design attention is given to the combination of emitter and driver, to produce anything more than maximum lumens and/or maximum runtime. Those are 2 qualities that all designers of manufactured lights should strive to perfect, but any one posting here can list a few more qualities of scope that really are important and sometimes are ignored or overlooked... and this effect increases, is more popular, as the light gets larger.

It seems more attention is given to original host designs, and shaving manufacturing costs than to the quality of the lighting. There are only so many parts to even a larger flashlight. Wherever money can be saved by adjusting the design in a larger flashlight, it seems it nearly always is. There is less of the "spared no expense and passed the cost onto the customer"-mentality, for which the consumers beg. Larger flashlights are brighter, and max lumens of whatever is sometimes a shockingly wonderful quality, but often in the lower modes for longer runtime the designers missed that the runtime needs to be able to be used for hours on end, and not merely tolerated as an imperfect temporary lighting solution. The quality of those lower modes should not be at the expense of having a light with a serious cutting-edge and maximum amount of lumens, but more often than not, color temperature and circuit design are the first casualties of the max-lumen crusade.

I'm probably just rambling unless someone else can interpret any point in this, but it seems it's easier to find nicer circuits and nicer tints in smaller lights but less easy to find crazy lumens, and easier to find crazy lumens in larger lights yet more difficult to find them with nicer tints and circuits.

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I honestly forgot to include the show-stopping monumental importance of interface, the quality of which seems to be a metric based on how unlike it is to H-L-STROBE but wish to include it as part of this hypothesis, rule, or observation that I'm having trouble defining and I cannot take credit for it whether it bears scrutiny or not. Someone mentioned this trend to me, I don't remember, maybe mentioned it to everyone. What I remember is what they meant, which is what I think I understand now after draining every ocean and searching every nook and cranny for the very best flashlights that Earth has to offer. Obviously, that isn't true, nor should be the claim "smaller flashlights are better."

I am disappointed and upset to think that what I have learned after all this flashlighting is that small flashlights tend to be better, if somehow we can ignore brightness. They are not better because they are small, but they make the smaller ones better than they make the bigger ones.

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And I apologize for my strawman descriptions of things no one wants as characteristic of what's available from all manufacturers. Also, forget about batteries.

So if it were possible to, ridiculously enough, ignore the brightness, runtime, and batteries, then I'm saying, it's generally true decreasing the size of a flashlight increases it's refinement. Maybe it's possible to argue this about any product.

This is just Silly,and your opinion so it just does not matter what anyone else thinks.

I still can not understand how you can argue without any solid demonstrative arguments?

As an example,I prefer a tail switch with forward clicky and there are almost none available in your claimed feature and design rich aaa size yet as you go bigger in battery cell size the switch features that I prefer become much more common.

I also like a light that I can get a good hold on and again for me the bigger they are the more practical they get.

This all depends on your needs for a light and your own point of view which by definition is just you own.

Somehow editing this post created an edited duplicate...
Ok then..

To me triple A lights are a different breed of flashlight. Kinda like comparing a Dachsund to a Doberman...

OP... please find me a AAA light that supports 10440, has a nice clicky switch and a neutral tint emitter... that puts out several hundred lumens, along with a sub-lumen mode and a nice medium, with a good UI... for under $100.

I have many AA/14500 lights with these features... and some 18650 format lights.

holygeez03 said:

OP... please find me a AAA light that supports 10440, has a nice clicky switch and a neutral tint emitter... that puts out several hundred lumens, along with a sub-lumen mode and a nice medium, with a good UI... for under $100.

I have many AA/14500 lights with these features... and some 18650 format lights.

Click to expand...

Nice Chess move. I think heard "check" whispered.

Totally depends on the feature priorities

for example my priorities are
1. 90+ CRI
2. Constant Current (no pulsed circuits, and no PWM)

Examples that meet those criteria
AAA = Lumintop tool, L08
AA = L11c, L10

I do find I avoid a lot of expense by requiring those two Features. They saved me from buying a Maratac AA, Eagletac, Zebralight, HDS, Malkoff, Tip, Pineapple, Olight, Jaxman, Convoy, and lights with DriverVN…


otoh, for someone whose priorities are:
1. Hundreds of Lumens
2. Low CRI is OK
3. PWM and pulsed circuits are OK (no Constant Current)
4. Unprotected lights running LiIon are OK

AAA = Maratac, Tool, many others
AA = SC5, Klarus Mi7 or any lights using a LiIon
CR123 = many many choices (these dominate the edc market)
LiIon = many many choices (hundreds of lumens pretty much requires the use of LiIon)

Hmm... you all have some fair points.

holygeez03 said:

OP... please find me a AAA light that supports 10440, has a nice clicky switch and a neutral tint emitter... that puts out several hundred lumens, along with a sub-lumen mode and a nice medium, with a good UI... for under $100.

I have many AA/14500 lights with these features... and some 18650 format lights.

Click to expand...

Several hundred lumens is not impossible, but it is an unrealistic goal, setting the bar unreasonably high. I think you really just usually mean a few hundred lumens, not several hundred, except in a few rare instances, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Clickies are rarer in AAA format, sub-lumen modes are reasonably rare in all formats, but I think Thrunite has a model that meets all your listed criteria, other than the absurd lumen requirement. That's the only one I know of that might, but I'd bet there is at least one more. Still, even if two models exist, two is not any useful sample of all small lights. That's a tough find, point taken.

Please list some of your many AA/14500 models with these features...
especially any forward clickies in non-Aluminum, with High CRI, yet without PWM.

holygeez03 said:

OP... please find me a AAA light that supports 10440, has a nice clicky switch and a neutral tint emitter... that puts out several hundred lumens, along with a sub-lumen mode and a nice medium, with a good UI... for under $100.

I have many AA/14500 lights with these features... and some 18650 format lights.

Click to expand...

I am not aware of any lights or drivers that support this in that size, you can do all you like with a Lumintop tool copper plus a fet driver from mountain electronics with an emitter swap. Although you do lose AAA support in the process rendering it 10440 only.

The very little size difference of an 1*AA/1*14500 light - plus the additional power of the cell - vs. AAA light, simply renders the triple useless ...

Next step then is 1*18650
(which again is "better" than 2*AA or 2*cr.)

All imho

yellow said:

The very little size difference of an 1*AA/1*14500 light - plus the additional power of the cell - vs. AAA light, simply renders the triple useless ...

Next step then is 1*18650
(which again is "better" than 2*AA or 2*cr.)

All imho

Click to expand...

It's all subjective. I find that when my most used 18650 light is too big, then so are my AA lights. I generally use a 2xAAA or an 18650.

The difference between the AAA to AA is similar to the difference between AA and 18650
It's all just personal preference and how we use them individually .

eraursls1984 said:

It's all subjective. I find that when my most used 18650 light is too big, then so are my AA lights. I generally use a 2xAAA or an 18650.

The difference between the AAA to AA is similar to the difference between AA and 18650
It's all just personal preference and how we use them individually .

Click to expand...

Agree we each tolerate these size differences on our own and there is no right or wrong about it at all.

I also think that for me the smaller the light gets the larger I feel the effect of even small size differences.

SO I find most aaa lights just too small while there is a huge difference in the size of aa lights and more feature options too.

I agree with you (I think) on one point, larger flashlights are marketed more and more by maximum lumen output. I love my lumens, don't get me wrong, but the lights above AA size seem to be reaching for the absolute highest lumen rating more often than most of the smaller lights. It does not seem to matter that doing so often results in a light that steps down in a matter of seconds, gets overly hot and has a blindingly white tint. This a generalization of course, but I think it holds up.


The one thing that is always true is that not everyone is going to like every light out there. It is unlikely that any one torch will meet all of your needs perfectly, but the sheer numbers of quality lights out there with different specs means that your needs can be met.