Nah, I'm good. This one is plenty bright for my needs. Disappointing, sure, but once you start upgrading to the latest model, there's no going back.

Guess I was exaggerating slightly...

Check out the Fenix L2D Premium. It provides regulated 180 lumens for 2.4 hours on 2AAs. But it does give 12 lumens for 55 hours!

But the days of unregulated, 20 minute runtimes are over for me! Surefire, RIP!

+1 on Fenix. I've retired my Surefire to backup status. I bought the premium Fenix 1xAAA, the 1xAA and the 2xAA body which uses the same head. Around $100, IRRC, for a very versatile and reliable set of lights that meet all of my on-duty and off-duty needs very well.

Jeff

Sounds like a great light (and this isn't the first time I hear about it, either), but it's just a wee bit too pricey for my undergraduate budget. Besides, like I said: there's no going back...

Thanks. I have not seen a Fenix before. I will give them a look. I tend to go moderate to cheap on my preparedness stuff because I use it hard testing it out. I buy bic's over torches. I have a zippo from 20 years ago.

I recycled a maglite with a Nitize LED. Thank God LED's last so long.

I remember my starving undergraduate days. I was working full time, going to school full time, and pinching every penny to pay my and my wife's tuition. Still, I remember those as happy days . . .

Fenix does have a nice single level output 2xAA model on sale for around 35 bucks, if that helps, at Lighthound.com

Jeff

Ah, I have done this.

I have taken at least 10 different flashlights on many occasions to test them out, not withstanding the fact that doing so makes the wife question my sanity. Without question, they perform differently.

It's just like your car's highbeams are useless in fog, that's exactly how a white LED performs. This is why I still carry a yellowish Xenon light with me. I have some red LED lights which preserve night vision and are perfect for looking at star charts (the Proton is my favorite). And I have lights with a lot of throw and other lights with a lot of spill that illuminate fields but aren't very useful for navigating. Some are too heavy to be practical and are some are too light to have any real battery capacity. I like wide lights with spill for dog walking (which I do for half an hour every night), so I can find her if she runs off to sniff something without my yelling for her. Highly focused beams aren't very helpful for that.

So, I always test my flashlights, as I do all my gear. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the "bang the light on concrete" test that so many people seem to love, but I do like knowing how well everything works.

1 lumen is enough to light up my bedroom, for me to walk from my bed to bathroom without stepping on my son's lego blocks.

However, if you are walking in the forest trails or even cycling. Then I would say if more light is needed the faster you travel. For cycling, you may need 120 lumens, enough light to cover 30~50 metres of the ground in front the bike.

Tactical lights are designed to give maximum brightness for a short duration maybe 20minutes. Their intended users are law enforcements, etc.

Survival lights are designed to give a long duration of light (not maximum brightness)

Hi Firefly,



It can also be extremely useful to allow the flashlight to give the maximum brightness in certain conditions. For example if you are stranded in the wilderness at dusk/nightime and you can hear the sound of a search aircraft in the distance, then an SSC P7 type flashlight flashing an SOS at over 600 Lumen for 2-3 hours would be preferred over a Maglite AAA Solitaire.

Agreed, maximum brightness may be useful in certain conditions.


if a search aircraft is actively looking for you and you can hear it, it is unlikely you have flash for 2~3 hours

A multi mode flashlight may not flash the SOS signal at maximum brightness.

The recent flooding in NO, there was 1 guy who had several bright tactical flashlights and 40~50 CR123A. His experience was that high power flashlight was too bright for indoor use and it takes only a few days before his stock of CR123A was used up. His low brightness light was more useable and it serve him throughout the floods.