I bought 5 of these guys as stocking stuffers for my camping/hunting buddies. And we're FLOORED.

We have the assorted Surefires including the LED versions. We have ARC and Fenix lights - no complaints. But for the price, and coice of 1 or 2AA, and AWESOME illumination (beat the SUREFIRE regular bulb and their LED's) I'm sold on these. Run time on 2 AA hasn't been exactly determined: 5 of us used them every night for days...perhaps 20 hrs of use (though not constant) and no one has changed batteries yet. Haven't used them in the one battery configuration in the field except to note that illumination seems identical to 2 battery configuration. But I'm sure run-time is significantly less. I'll use the one battery tube just for EDC.

We beat them up, and I find them just as durable as the other brands. YMMV, but WTF... look at the price. As I said... we're not easily impressed, but we were FLOORED.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10727

This company is a little strange. No shipping charges, but they send via Hong Kong post: don't be in a hurry.

Dealextreme has a good reputation. I've bought two lights from them thus far and they were both top notch. I did my homework on the lights before buying and knew these would be good quality. A lot of the lights on there suck though, so do searches at candlepowerforums.com before buying.

The above mentioned flashlight gets good reviews.

The only caveat to dealextreme is that it takes 15-20 days to receive your package. Be prepared for that.

The Surefire flashlights are excellent. I personally have several but the one that I carry with me outdoors is the G3 Nitrolon. They are durable, very bright and compact. Definitely a good tool to have in a PSK.

Looks like a good website.... they have some good deals.

DealExtreme (DX) is a retailer in China - you're the importer when you order there. KaiDomain (KD) is another just like it.

DX and KD are reputable as to their part of things, but the products they sell are mostly Chinese junk, stuff that couldn't even make it into Wal-Mart in the US. Some items such as many lasers are hazardous, not legal for you to import, and don't meet claims anyway. Nothing has to perform as advertised since they're overseas, but DX and KD will often mark a product page as having suspect claims when people complain (the false claims remain).

UltraFire is a second-tier flashlight manufacturer in China (Fenix is the best of the Chinese makers). Most UltraFire lights are junk, worth no more than the DX/KD price, but a couple in the past have been good deals. It sounds like this one may be too. However, I would avoid putting the water seals to the test by dropping it in a puddle, etc.

SureFire lights are quite a bit more expensive but more reliable in bad environments or under rough handling. That's also the case for other USA makers like NovaTac, HDS, First-Light, etc. These guys also are fully American-made (a lot of buyers care about point-of-origin).

Most American makers focus on durability and bad environment qualities since those are hard to do and bring a premium price. The low-end Chinese makers usually focus on output/brightness since that's easy to do (it's easy to break into the market that way).

PS. A quick note that SureFire's 2008 catalog has been posted and it's clear they have been quite busy in product development.

for good flashlights and good deals on LED's, go here....


http://www.batteryjunction.com/

i use dxextreme alot for flashlights and ion rechargable batteries i will point out for safty that you should only use protected cells and chargers.

i live in the uk and orders take about 2 weeks to arrive.

i have several of the older c3's and 2 of the q5 version both versions are good with long runtimes and appear to be well built.

i would recommend the multimode q5 as it is bright.

i have a nasty habit of dropping flashlights and none of the c3's has failed yet.

The Ultrafire C3 is my current favorite for EDC. DX has it priced just right. But in dealing with DX, my trick is to order more than one and, like NAro said--don't be in hurry. I try to get 5 at a time because it's very likely that a couple of them will be DOA; have crappy soldering or mangled threading. Of the one's that do work, I'll keep the brightest and best tint for myself, and the rest for gifting to friends or for backup. The DOA ones get RMA'd back to DX. And a month or so later, their replacements might show up. Then repeat, send back the DOA and keep the good ones.

I don't have the Q5 version yet, but that will change. I have yet to use the C3 in harsh environments. It never dawned on me that is what all the extra $$ goes towards when you buy a Fenix.
I had a couple of Fenix L2T's a few years ago. The finicky tail switches and easily fouled contacts really left me with a dislike for them. I'm going to have to give Fenix another try someday but I just hate the thought of spending over $50 for a Fenix when I can have an Ultrafire C3 and a few backups for less.