I think you forgot to consider the fact that nitecore sells multiple times more flashlights than those other brands.
Obviously if a company sells X percent more products, you can expect X percent more complaints.
My only Nightcore lights are a NU20CRI and NU30 and they are both going well, even with almost daily use.
I have a number of the P36 lights. and they (really still the first one, has been since they were released) has been great. when that one fails I have two more ready to step up.
When you find a light you like buy 3 fast before the quality goes down hill with cost cutting.
Still waiting on the 3x MT-G2 / 3x 18650 light that will run at 4,000 lumens until out of juice.
I have the
EC4S
EC4GT
EC11
SRT7
MH20
MT06
Tube
Awhile ago the Tube turned on and would not turn off (had to let the battery drain, guess that reset the electronic switch) and the switch is not always responsive. The MT06 had the led so off centered that at 6 inches the hot spot was more like a half moon. The led on the EC11 is also a little off but it doesn’t affect actual use. So for me that’s 3/7 (42%) that had some kind of flaw. If you ask me that’s too high a percentage for a main stream brand.
Funny, that was the light that convinced me not to buy Nitecore again.
It barely worked right out of the box. That was right after my EA4 turned out to be bad as well
That’s still just anecdotal evidence…
There are other people who have a dozen nitecore lights and 0 issues.
That’s just as anecdotal as your data.
Of course we all have anecdotal evidence, both pro and con, as to the companies and their quality control, but for me, with over 130 lights in the collection, Nitecore is the only company I have banned form consideration.
Take that for whatever it is worth.
That’s funny… 
This is false, products are designed in such a way as to decrease manufacturing costs while still producing a similar quality product.
Obviously for cheaper (typically chinese) manufacturers, they take more shortcuts to increase their profit margin on stuff that they already sell at small profit.
This is not purpousefully designing products to fail.
The product will always fail simply due to the way physics works in our universe, it’s just that cheaper products fail sooner due to cost saving measures.
Planned obsolescence is in almost every case a conspiracy theory made by people who do not understand engineering and product design.
” Since all matter is subject to entropy, it is impossible for any designed object to retain its full function forever; all products will ultimately break down, no matter what steps are taken. While it is known that products are optimized to match their required lifespan, such designs are often chosen for cost or weight saving reasons.”
If your logic is that saving cost by using cheaper materials is “planned obsolescence” then 99.999% of everything and all companies is planned obsolescence.
In that case a $600 extremely high quality flashlight is also “planned to be obsolete” because it is made out of aluminum instead of pure titanium and therefore will fail after a few hundred years.
There are very few things which are made with the highest possible quality regardless of cost, mainly things that go into space.
What you’re talking about sounds more like programmed obsolescence, which has nothing to do with the material or construction of the product.
Unless you would like to prove to me that there is some hidden code inside the firmware of your flashlight driver that will make it shut off permanently after some time?
Just got my tip 2017, flickers on medium only (infuriating for a new light).
Tm16gt button broke, had to open and rebuild. Heavily used/abused light.
MH27 red led became 70% of normal brightness after 1 or 2 days of using the light, yes I put a fresh battery in to confirm.
Tube stopped working after very little use, just being on key chain.
But for some reason I keep buying from Nitecore.
There were good old tube TVs that never failed where the manufactor changed design of the board after a few years to place the capacitors next to hot parts and reduced the temperature maximum of those
Suddenly they died after 4-5 years and came to repair shops and the electricians did :person_facepalming: afternthey compared the new to old design
1) If you had read that wikipedia link you had posted, you would have learned that programmed obsolescence is not the same as contrived durability.
You might want to search up the definition of “software programming”.
2) The “apple slows down devices” was a conspiracy theory made by people who do not understand how technology works.
No, there are no software updates to decrease performance on older devices.
3) You’ve been influenced by a lot of false information on the internet I see, maybe instead of following what everyone is saying try to research things for yourself, and look through all of the clickbait BS from the media.
ok it was my mistake, it was in daily mode, u have to press the 2 buttons at once until 2 flashes, then it can be on for constant mode, not sure why anyone would want a 30sec mode and then off? so annoying but either way its not broken as i first thought.
I think is a timer option, have some uses: like avoid a complete discharge if there are a accidental turn on inside your pocket. The good is that is only a option, you can engage or not as choice.
I have some failure in Olight, Nitecore, Fenix,…. the most common last 2 years is failure in the Sunwayman…. but in any case, as more flashlights you have……higher probality of failure in some of them.
Im hearing such conspiraring theories a lot (in Russia), but you :question:
1. “Quality” mentioned in OP and brokes/repaires/failtures are not same things. Manufacture can use cheapest technologies and make product that never need repair, this doesnt meen good quality. S-class has more electronic problems than lada niva, does it mean that last is better quality ? No, it means that we cant compare carburator car and 1km wires with 12-15 ECUs car and 100km wires.
I think flashlights quality is just overall components quality. Materials, machining, coating, electronics. I have dissasembled just one nitecore light (EC4) and I can defenetly say that is developers didnt have target “make it as cheap as possible”.
2. Most of you want to have modern product. You are ready to pay for most new leds, new drivers and etc. This forces manufactures shorten pre-sale stages, mostly extra tests that require long time and big selection to make results represental and usefull. This means two things:
- first buyers are not only buyers, they are also free testers that are taking this risks on their own (remember astrolux :person_facepalming: ) and should be ready that product they purchased is not finished yet
- if manufacture company is ready to fix all problems in next batches, number of failtures mostly depends from first group feedbacks. I dont mean that you have to leave 0/5 feedbacks everywhere. You need to provide all you have found out to company, more information they have -> less mistakes they will make in future.
Back to car assosiacions. Modern VAG models have non-stop parts impovement. Some electro-mechanical parts have 10 or near variations (i.e. you buy car with part XXXXXXXXXA, then this part admits defective and changed to XXXXXXXXXB, C, D, E, F, G, H etc.) (buyers from US may dont know this feature and probably never met sush problems because US models have very restricted electronics in comparation with EU models). I dont know worldwide statictis, but even in Russia more than 50% of buyers use oficial distributor as service for first 3 years. This gives tons of important information to manufacture. I suppose that if 50% of all broken flashlights went back to manufacture service for diagnostics, next models had never had same problems anymore.
3. Little offtopic
If you think that modern products have special involved low-quality parts that will broke before overall product, and you think that this is big problem for end user - you just never repaired old “high quality” products.
You suppose that you have payed for whole product with some work time (lets say 4 years), and in your suppose part that have broken after 2 years makes it useless and you have payed twice more than should.
But you could never think that old product, that worked well 4 years, has lots parts inside that will never broke (with lifetime 20 or 30 years). You have payed several times more for resources that you will never use (and nobody would).
Most home tools (electric tools, kitchen tools, music players etc.) made 30 or 40 years ago took more time (man-hours) for first assemble than modern cars.
They have tons of useless resources (expensive materials like non-ferous metalls and etc.). Take any 30-year dc power supply (with classic ac-ac trahsformer) and compare it (power/weight ratio) with your ipad charger - can you say that last one is garbage? I can say that its self-cost is times lower.
If you live in Germany, you can drive 20-years old Golf mk4. Which have thick body metall, thick paint layer, removable wings, big cc engine and lots of cast iron in suspension.Which you could bought 20 years ago for same money, than you can get new MK7 today. Does reasons mentioned above plays more difference than new level of safety, comfort, ecology? Why you dont mention that you can get more (options) for less (same in fixed value but much less in real money due inflation) money?
This is your problem (not Apple).
I know many people that save one old PC for several special operations - with Win XP OS, without any updates, internet connection and etc.
And yes - they work as good as in early 2000th.
If you want to fill your device with lots of apps, you need other (not stock) applications, you want to be able to download them and you like when different developers can make apps and you can choose from various of them - all this are your problems.
You could probably had very fast device without app store - but no, you like when you have wide assortiment. You like same apps on different devices, full settings backup somewhere in cloud and etc. This is your choise.
There is a lot of truth to what kiriba wrote ;).
Concercing Apple:
I own an old ipad (gen2, 6 years old tech). Between the last three updates I didn’t install any new apps, but all the apps already installed were updated many times. With each new iOS version the device felt more sluggish. The last update, which subjectively was rather useless because all the new features can’t be used on the old iPad, made it so slow that it is unuseable now. The transitions between the tabs in the app menu take seconds! Opening an app takes multiple seconds! The Facebook App is by far the worst. Starting it when it was closed takes >10s. It has always been my slowest app, but it still became much slower. Web Browsing is also very slow now, even with other browsers. I know of course that web sites are more complicated now than six years ago, but it shouldn’t be this dramatic.
Yup, I agree with this! Once it lacks the electronic lock-out, when I have the TIP in the pocket (even with the pocket clip blocking the buttons), I always use it with the “Daily” mode settled, so if it turns ON for any reason, after 30 seconds it will power-off! :+1:
The question is:
Have thread starter checked if the problem lies on the daily mode or not?
- Clemence