Unpopular Flashlight Opinion Thread

Bravo!

Agreed. Some fantastic unpopular opinion have been posted, though there may be a fine line between a unpopular opinion and a complaint that we should observe.

To add to the theme of the thread; I believe the Manker have the best UIs in the business.

Tint > CRI and Armytek > Zebralight

The ‘always starts on lowest’ ramping UI from the first Emisar D4 prototypes (vers. 1) sent to RMM is a valuable model to avoid burned pockets, holsters, and damage to the retinas of unsuspecting innocents.
A short single press is not the only way to access turbo flamethrower or memory modes.

1-click to turn on, click again to change mode and hold to turn off isn't that bad as long as you only have to hold less than 1 second.

Flashlights in pure white look absolutely beautiful, something like Led Lenser F1 White Edition's white not Haikelite or Emisar's white.

Flashlights with optic look more expensive than flashlights with reflector.

Best UI I have ever seen is on the Nitecore MT10A/MT10C. A tail switch to turn on, 2 side switch to change mode higher or lower with shortcut to lowest mode and highest mode right from off without having parasitic drain from the e-switch working.

And finally, too floody flashlight is kind of useless. If you want a flood light, all you need is a diffuser or some tapes on the lens.

Andy Xie is an unsung hero.
Photons are not a Panacea.
(Understated lumens versus innovation and art.)

The market pressures eliminating Sunwayman from the available stock of the most popular flashaholic suppliers in the USA represent a step backwards in many regards.
Design and innovation, art and ‘understated’ conservative output claims have not had long legs.
Andy Xie is a production engineer and businessman with rare goals and talents.
Fortunately, from the beginning, the security of military purchases has provided income for artistic expression, keeping Andy’s Sunwayman in business.

I don’t get the hype about copper. Especially when I see green patina rot that looks like the light has been in a sunken greek tradeship for 2000 years. If I want my nice EDC light be a bit heavy, I will take Stainless Steel every time.

That being said, I proclaim the Thrunite T10S the best EDC light of all time.

copper [and brass] makes your fingers smell funny
not funny ha- ha, either

wle

I have yet to use fire fly or moon light mode.

I love Olight hosts and UIs, but their emitters make me want to ‘emit’.

I hate smooth hosts. My Thrunite T10ti would be a great EDC, but it’s like trying to hang into a fish. (P.S. Major scientific discovery - hockey tape won’t stick to titanium!)

Looking at that UI reminds me of another unpopular opinion of mine:

  • Mode memory is the tool of the devil that makes a light come on in the most useless mode for your current situation and should not exist. Because I usually don’t remember in which mode I turned it off. Want to read a note? HERE, HAVE HIGH MODE TO BURN YOUR EYES. Outside or in a bigger room? LUL HERE HAVE MOON MODE. And I am not a maniac who, every time he uses the light, sets it to a particular mode before turning it off. That’s just too time consuming. I simply don’t buy lights where there is no way around the mode memory. Okay, I am lying. I have an Olight M2R. And moon light in mode memory drives me crazy. Have to work around it every time. Same with D4. I ramp it up every time because i don’t want to get accidentially blinded. Please let me just turn it off and select a mode in which the light CONSISTENTLY turns on. Every time.

Depends what you need. Any light that has shortcuts to highest/lowest is useful, and memory can be used repeatedly for on/off use without having to ramp/step each’n’every time.

Eg, the way I use my MH20 is to be able to shortcut to lowest with a halfpress’n’hold, brightest with fullpress’n’hold, simple click to anywhere in-between.

One of the SP10s has press’n’hold to lowest, and N-click to brightest. Same dealy.

Other lights, I reset them to lowest if there’s no shortcut to lowest, then cycle through. Force of habit, not much effort to do it once it gets ingrained into you.

Seems like I did it right and it is an unpopular opinion. :smiley:

That’s what I mean by working around. Single click is by far the easiest and most natural action on a flashlight. I don’t use single click on the Olight. I don’t use single click on the D4 either. Because it is just output lottery. So I use double click for turbo/high. And I am forced to press and hold the switch for moonlight on the Olight (for ages, it appears) and then have to press it again for ages just to enter low mode. Holding it for too long enters lockout mode btw. It’s kinda frustrating. If I could, I would just set it to always turn on in low mode. Press and hold would than be moon, single click low, double click high/turbo. Still love the M2R for everything else. But yeah. Unpopular opinion is unpopular. At least make it a configurable option. Which it is not in the vast majority of lights.

P.S.: I really like this thread. Many otherwise unvoiced opinions, ideas and flashlights.

:laughing:

Yeah, but I was saying that if you’re, say, looking under the hood of your car and only need the light every now and then, do you really have to choose between keeping it on all the time to stay at the same setting, or every time you use it, have to ramp-up to the brightness you want?

Unless I’m using a 1-mode light (like I have for ages, my trusty ’502), I’d prefer the flexibility.

For my Cometa, though, yeah, memory’s off, because most times I use it late at night when I only want moonlight.

NiMH is good enough for most flashlight needs.

Any light bigger than 1xAA/1xCR123 is too big for EDC.

Muyshondt lights are perhaps the most overrated flashlights in history and the cult of personality on non-budget flashlight forums around them is insane and approaches a level of fanboyism usually reserved for Star Wars and Apple products. They’re very good lights (Aeon owner speaking from experience) but they aren’t perfect, or even great, and they’re barely worth 1/3 of what they sell for.

The Nichia 219C has rendered the Cree XP series of emitters obsolete for EDC purposes.

1xAAA lights are too big to be keychain lights.

Friction fit clips are fine.

Buying primary lithium batteries is a waste of money when rechargeables are readily available.

People only use 10440s/14500s in their lights because they want to look like cool hotrodders, not because it’s any more useful than 1.5v or 1.2v cells.

If I can jump to the lowest and the highest setting from off, mode memory is a complete waste of time and battery life.

I love the designs of hanko's flashlights....

I still keep my unmodded NovaTac 120P by my bedside and put it to use periodically. I was tempted to mod it, but decided against it — it’s actually quite fine as stock. Doesn’t need to be super bright, or super efficient.

- Suppose you admit owning too much flashlights - which one(s) would you get rid of.

- Why be a color fanatic if you only once had a light that really was too fugly to turn on.

- You dearly wanted a BLF GT, but not for any practical reason.

- And are absolutely not in the market for the GT conversion kit from XHP35 to XHP 70.2

- But if it came in a complete “lightmachine”, you might be schlepping both of them around on every trip.

- AAA-lights are nice if you don’t have a smartphone. Like me. And cargo pants are not appropriate.

- A light feels nice if it protrudes just a bit on both sides of the fist, so a big 14500 or a small 18650.

- A strike bezel ads nothing if the rest of the light is smooth and slippery or made of paper-maché.

  • If you really wanna start a fire, don’t do it in the pocket of your pants.

I don’t mind short turbo modes that last a few seconds, I think they are a nice option to have.

I would like flashlight makers to design “smoother” flashlights, just a simple cylinder without different radii or indentations, and with rounded corners, at least for smaller flashlights that are stored in pockets and are used mostly without gloves.

I think it would be very cool if piston drive flashlights returned.