Are brand name flashlights worth the price?
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there are brand name flashlights from 350 to infinite R$ on the br market, while the fake "tactical" ones, that produce about 800 lumens but frequently lie it to be millions of lumens (wtf?) are about 50
I'd like to know what you guys think. Nobody I know in my country buy name brand flashlights (except that weaker 100-300 lumens that are more reasonably priced)
I'm thinking about it to climb in my "unfinished attic" (unsure about translation here), that is an area without lamps and unpainted walls and no windows, really dark
(I'll probably go with a 100 lumen light and or just install a bulb in whatever wire is nearest there)
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I know nothing about lamps so just some general considerations:
How often/long do you plan to use it? If this is a one-off thing there's no point in spending a lot of money.
Do you need it to reliably work in an emergency after years of sitting on a shelf?
How rugged does it need to be? Are you prone to dropping things or using them as a hammer?Since you mentioned attic climbing, it's suggest buying the kind that fits on your forehead to leave your hands free.
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@homoBalkanus said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
Since you mentioned attic climbing, it's suggest buying the kind that fits on your forehead to leave your hands free.
Yeah, headlamps are often the best way to go, at least if you're not trying to illuminate the countryside or want something that can double as a club (seriously, I've heard it proposed as one reason cops tend to have those monster flashlights the size of a large person's forearm).
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@sockpuppet7 said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
I'm thinking about it to climb in my "unfinished attic" (unsure about translation here), that is an area without lamps and unpainted walls and no windows, really dark
"Loft" in British English.
And the small lights on a headband are great for that. Extra cheap from China.
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For camping I use the $1 flashlights from Walmart. They're LED, take 3 AAA batteries and are plenty bright for this sort of use. I use them around the house all the time, too.
If you're going to be doing much of anything in the attic with your hands, I'd recommend a headlamp, basically a flashlight in GoPro form with an elastic band, which leaves your hands free. My headlamp was a bit more expensive...probably $20? It's a Coleman, which is technically a brand, but not a super high end brand. Kind of normal camping gear brand. My tent and one of my sleeping bags are Coleman, too. I have a cheapo headlamp from Walmart but it seems to be defective, but I haven't played with it much to see what the issue is...just took it out for someone to borrow and the light wasn't staying on. Could even be a battery issue.
I've had some of the more expensive lights (gifts) and inevitably I lose them somehow, which sucks. When I lose a $1 flashlight I shrug and get another one out (because I don't buy them singly).
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Well if you just want something to use while in your attic, I don't think it really matters, I'd just go for whatever's cheapest. Bonus points if it has a Cree LED, those are basically the golden standard. You can find them even in cheapo lights on Aliexpress etc.
Personally I have good experience with Fenix headlamps, I once dropped one from a ~50m tall tower and it wasn't even scratched, but those aren't cheap.
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@sockpuppet7 I have a general goal of keeping at least one small flashlight per drawer near where people sit or are. (So one in the bathroom near the toilet, a couple in the kitchen, a couple in the living room, etc) I used to get like a 5 pack of "Kootek" mini led flashlights for that but they got a little expensive and I ended up spending more per unit for a two pack of Eveready tactical leds. I figured it would be an upgrade for not much more.
They are bigger and have more battery capacity and are brighter. Otherwise the build quality is approximately the same.
I know this probably isn't exactly what you mean by brand name, but unless you have some pretty specific needs I think a 2 for $8 pack of Eveready flashlights does a great job.
Also, depending on what you want them for, it might makes sense to get a few different form factors, like a "lantern" or two to "fill a room" with weak light (as opposed to having a spotlight in your hand).
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@sockpuppet7 said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
I'm thinking about it to climb in my "unfinished attic" (unsure about translation here), that is an area without lamps and unpainted walls and no windows, really dark
(I'll probably go with a 100 lumen light and or just install a bulb in whatever wire is nearest there)
No torch on your phone?
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I'll probably use a cheap headlight, and get a cheap stronger light to take some pictures of the roof so I can look at it after I'm out of it, it's not a comfortable place
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Before the Age of LED (
), I felt there was a real difference between good quality and cheapo flashlights. Basically, cheap ones produced a tiny ray of anaemic light that lasted for a minute or so and then you had to change a kg of batteries, whereas good ones managed to get some actual light and lifespan out of that kg of batteries.But since the Advent of LED (alleluia!), I don't give a shit about brands. They all produce a reasonable amount of light for a reasonable amount of time with very light batteries. So I pick either the cheapest one, or one that has the form-factor that I'm needing for an application (wearable, lantern, flashing etc.) but I never care about the brand.
(ETA: but note that I never use flashlights in "critical" applications where I would be more than passingly annoyed if they break down)
Also, for 99% of cases nowadays I just use my phone. I sometimes put in back in my pocket forgetting that the lamp is on and only remember half an hour later, and it has barely eaten a couple of percent of battery, so who cares?
Also also, for small flashlights that are only used once in a while, I have a couple of no-batteries, manually winded ones (again, cheap ones). They're not very bright but at least the batteries never run out.
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These guys:
https://www.youtube.com/@TorqueTestChannel/videoshave several videos where they look at flashlights and are pretty thorough in their reviews.
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@boomzilla said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
It's a Coleman,
A friend gave me one of those. I got annoyed with it enough I just got a Petzl (from REI). Thing I like about the P over the C, after you select the light you want, when you're done, the next click turns it off. The Coleman always had to do a full cycle - so if I picked the 2nd selection, I still had to cycle thru the rest to turn it off.
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@dcon yeah, the cycling is kind of annoying.
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I have one that managed to find a solution worse than the cycling issue.
There are two settings, continuous and flashing, and there is a single sliding switch that has three positions (so off, continuous and flashing). To avoid the cycling through all settings issue, they put "off" as the middle position. The idea isn't bad except that you have to remember which direction is continuous/flashing (you can of course look at the tiny picture on the switch but chances are that when you turn on the light you aren't in the best of lighting conditions!). So it's bad.
Even worse is that the sliding switch does not have a very well marked middle point (for "off") so when you want to turn it off, in all likelihood you're going to overshoot and keep the lamp on, but in the other mode.
Worser, the switch is some sort of rubber that barely sticks out of the body of the lamp and is part of a continuous band of rubber all around the lamp (to make it easy to grip), so when you grab the lamp you have to remember on which side of the body the switch is, or blindly play the USB A game (try to push one side and when it doesn't move try the other side only to realise that this side really doesn't move and come back to the first one and finally move the switch -- in the wrong direction, of course, so move it again in the other direction).
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@remi said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
The idea isn't bad except that you have to remember which direction is continuous/flashing (you can of course look at the tiny picture on the switch but chances are that when you turn on the light you aren't in the best of lighting conditions!). So it's bad.
If only there were some way to see which setting the light was on.
Maybe they should add a light to indicate the position.
O, wait...
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@sockpuppet7 said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
there are brand name flashlights from 350 to infinite R$ on the br market, while the fake "tactical" ones, that produce about 800 lumens but frequently lie it to be millions of lumens (wtf?) are about 50
I'd like to know what you guys think.Producing light is cheap. If you are only worried about the practical side, then get the cheapest one that meets your needs.
Marketing, branding, image, fancy metal construction, advanced features, and lifetime warranties make up most of the cost of the more expensive products. Sometimes things are expensive just so other people can see you have the expensive one (see: fashion and iPhones).
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@cvi said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
@sockpuppet7 said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
I'm thinking about it to climb in my "unfinished attic" (unsure about translation here), that is an area without lamps and unpainted walls and no windows, really dark
(I'll probably go with a 100 lumen light and or just install a bulb in whatever wire is nearest there)
No torch on your phone?
It's for the people found lacking.
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What keeps my annoyed with flashlights is that all the > 500 lumen flashlights that I can buy here have lies in their description like being "108000lm"
I have tested one, and it really looks like about 800lm, but the scammy description makes me think this thing can have a blowing litium battery and set my house on fire
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Apparently the imalent MS18 can hit the 100k lumens it claims to have.
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@Dragoon said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
Apparently the imalent MS18 can hit the 100k lumens it claims to have.
How about NOPE!
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@Dragoon said in Are brand name flashlights worth the price?:
Apparently the imalent MS18 can hit the 100k lumens it claims to have.
But I don't want to dazzle a whole race of aliens on their homeworld near Betelgeuse.
