The emitter (SBT-90.2) is pricey , yes, but not so much as the price hikes indicate. At a per-each cost of $36 it’s only a maximum of $30 more than say an XPL HI, with costs of other emitters also being fairly pricey the upgrade isn’t really all that much, or shouldn’t be.
Maybe a lot of potential buyers are put off because, 1,it’s lumintop who’s QC can be a bit sloppy & ,2, the seller is not known to look after customers very well in customer service if there are problems,as pointed out by post #37.
Not in my opinion. Neal does his best to correct any issues that people have. His one pitfall is communication. He’s a single person running his shop so he has to do everything himself. Bigger stores might have a small staff where one person can handle emails all day long. He does not. I think g_sintornillos problem with Neal was also communication related. Being in Argentina he has to know the tracking info precisely to fill out paperwork. Neal’s not good at that. The vast majority of customers don’t have to worry about that. They just order and their items arrive.
Another option is to order directly from Lumintop. I dont think they had a store until recently. I dont know how good or bad their stores communication is, but maybe it’s faster than Neals?
I guess I can mention Lumintop, also. I don’t think their QC is any worse than any other company. Even “high end” companies like Acebeam, Olight and Thrunite have their QC issues. I think all these companies try to find that right ratio of precision to speed when making these products. It needs to be made precise, but also quickly because they have lots of customers waiting and a slow assembly line costs them money. So there is always a certain compromise.
If you do get into flashlights, it’s always smart to learn to take them apart and fix them just in case you get one with a problem.
Just my opinion.
I respect your opinion but mine is different.
I ordered 2 batteries and a light from Neals 4 months ago. A month later I got the package and there was only 1 battery. No big deal, I email him about the issue, wondering if battery#2’s just in another package. 2 weeks passed, no word from Neal, no additional packages either. 3 weeks passed, I raise a Paypal dispute just for the battery and left it alone, since it’s not a big deal. Neal never responded to the Paypal dispute or any of my emails. The dispute automatically went to escalation after 21 days. 4 days later and only then did Neal respond to my initial email like 6 weeks earlier, saying he can’t ship 2 batteries with 1 light or some BS like that, and asked me to cancel the dispute. However, it looks like Paypal also refunded me at the same time. Who knows if he is actually gonna come through the refund if I did what he asked. I think HIGHLY unlikely, under the pretense of “busy”.
So, I don’t care if you think Neal ‘does his best’ to correct any issues or not. You’re not the one having problems w/ him. In the world of commerce, going dark and not communicating for months at a time with serious problems such as missing items from order is the worst thing you can do. No matter how you defend him, this is what happens. I didn’t even have an issue with my light that required shipping it back, I just needed a refund on what wasn’t shipped to me, a simple click on the computer for 8$, but nope, he had to drag this out months later only because Paypal is going to refund anyway.
Just hire another person. Cheap labor in China is extremely cheap. Just hire someone that answers emails and can do simple things like filtering out the important emails from the spam emails.
This is not to mention my previous purchase from him, a PL47, which took two months to ship w/o a single word from him. It was ridiculous. Then when I got the light, it was the lowest of the low QC’ed light possible, the lens array wasn’t straight and centered, and the rubber-ring was all mushed out onto the middle of the light, obscuring the optics. All of this unfixable w/o significant efforts to remove the pressed-in bezel. Jack from FF fixed my problems no problems and he’s responsive to my emails.
This too, has been an issue with my decision of not ordering from Nealsgadgets. I’m not ordering a GT90 at this time because of this.
Sometimes I just find the ignorance astounding. The average annual salary in Shenzhen, which Neal is located in, is roughly $50k USD. Considering this person needs to be proficient with both English and computers, this person should cost at least this amount, which IMO is NOT CHEAP LABOR.
I buy more flashlights than the majority of the people here. I bought probably over 300-400 flashlights already and I am familiar with all of the flashlight online shops. The many flashlights I’ve bought from Neal always arrive no problem. Also the two times I had issues, Neal sent me replacements.
Keep in mind that no one has to buy from Neal of they don’t want to. You can buy from other sources. The price might be a little higher or the wait time might be a little longer, but it’s still a valid option. If this light goes into production, it should be available from Lumintop. 
well problem is many sales will be missed because the group price will only be from nealsgadgets, i could perhaps buy the gt90 but throwing out hundreds dollars not knowing there will be problems maybe i feel better off holding those money for something else sadly… He has maybe too big store to handle being single guy that does all, that just doesnt seem to work reading all negative posts here last months… Its never an excuse to not respond your customers that are waiting for missing items or sent a wrong item, how can someone accept that?
I can think of one reason. There is a chance he did not get the person’s email.
oh come on… stop defending the guy gez… ive read people sent multiple mails and on facebook and total radio silence on his end… :person_facepalming:
Your number is based on 245 self-selected respondents. This 2017 article reports
A median mid sector salary works out to about $8300 per year. I’d consider that Cheap Labor.
Regardless, we don’t know the finances of Neal’s shop. As a rule of thumb, an employee needs to bring in at least 1.5 times his salary to pull his weight (in the US anyway, not sure how taxes and benefits work in China).
2720m throw so 4 would be 5440m I think it would be a good project
I will tell you a story. Not about Neil, just about online stores in general.
Believe it or not, I’ve heard of people sending a company a single email then waiting a month for a reply. When it never comes they assume the worst, that the recipient got it and chose not to reply. Then they start thinking the person is mocking them and saying “Ha ha, we got your money. There’s nothing you can do”. Then the person gets angry and says that company is a low down piece of $#^% and I’m never gonna buy anything from them again. Then they send a second email to complain and they get back a quick response saying “Sorry Sir, we’ve had email server problems and this is the first email from you we have. We’ll fix your order and get it right out to you, Sir.”
Then they realize this is actually a good company who takes care of their customers. The Customer gets all ashamed that they assumed the worst and regret what they said.
This situation happens all the time. It’s happened to me. Assuming the worst seems to be some kind of basic human nature. Nowadays I dont get all worked up or try to assume things. I’m a lot more chill. I try to give benefit of the doubt. It’s hard, but I try.
As to Neil not responding, I dont know. You have to ask him. (Assuming he responds! Waka waka! Lol)
I know Facebook is banned in China along with a lot of social media sites including YouTube. I think some people use VPN’s to try and circumvent the firewall, even then certain VPN’s get blocked. China’s a weird place.
Yeah, 5440m sounds about right. You want to strap 4 of them together in a rig?
Looks like astrolux is coming out with their own version. I wonder how it will compare
I truly support the testimony of JasonWW, this is not a make up story but this is a real situation who also happens to me where in I have already bought 10 different lights from him, some are very fast but some are already taking a month due to the fact the lights I've ordered still at the manufacturers warehouse.
Neal Z, is a very nice person, we placed orders, He sourcing it because he believes how we badly wanted the lights. This is how I truly appreciate this person, he will say no unless it runs out stock then he will offer a refund.
The only negative issue with him is really " he is a one man army, too busy " not to mention his price is better off than the outlet (with freebies).
He needs now to hire a person with the same passion like him to support his back log , he needs back up so much our support and understanding, all buyers like me with past transactions can testify that this person can be trusted and earned the respect. This is how we compensate him....
Lol he doesn’t have to hire a skilled-labor person from within that area where costs are high. He could hire an online assistant with basic degrees that are dying for a job that just manages his email inbox and other forms of communications and maybe web-site maintenance. Don’t know if you’ve done online business but finding someone remote to help with computer stuff is easy and he’d probably can afford a part time person that does all this. Labor is cheap in China is a fact.
All in all it’s called ‘running a business’. If you can’t do everything yourself, hire someone to help. There’s no ifs or buts. Helps to minimize Paypal disputes. I’m sure Paypal doesn’t like all the disputes he’s getting.
Those are self-reported and fairly skilled labor in the tech-heavy sector like software engineers and production-managers. And that’s within the local region of Shenzhen which is like Silicon-valley here in the United States. Cost of living is much higher than other regions. To get an administrative assistant for his shop he could just get an online person that works from remote that manages emails, communications, and the website. Doesn’t cost much at all, and certainly no where near 50k USD. That’s just delusional to the teeth. I’ve relatives in China and I laughed at the $50k median salary. Also the fact that he correlated the median-salary in Shenzhen to the type of assistant that Neal can hire over the internet as being equivalent.
He must be doing well, he gets paid in US dollars but lives in the Chinese economy.
Big quad I have the 4 reflectors leds have left china