GearBest's Entry into Flashlights, the zanflare f1! First Light from this manufacturer!

That gives about $35…pretty high. I was thinking that it should be more in Nitenumen NE01 price range.

This is not ugly, it’s unique :+1: :beer:
Price could be a bit lower, ~30$ would be more attractive.

$35 is kinda high. But then again, I’m Indian and probably say that for all things.

:smiley:

I think the price is okay for the specs - very fair. They put a lot of work into making this a great light. But, it’s still ugly. :confounded:

Hi Guys,

it’s the coupon, wish you like it

zanflare F1 LED Flashlight

http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_466743.html
coupon: F1GB
price: $34.99

the coupon is only available during the presales ( please use it before Oct 28th )

for the price, beg all of your understanding, we have spent so much time to make the light and the cost is not cheaper too, as we want to bring you high quality product, so please support us, then we coud have bring more lights too, :smiley:

I think you kind of got it backwards. They couldn’t build a driver with low quiescent drain and so had to include an off/on tailswitch. It’s pretty inconvenient when you need one switch to turn the flashlight on and off and one to select the required mode since you have to always switch your grip to operate different switches. So two switches here is a forced solution and a usability drawback. Which is excusable in a 50$ Convoy L6 with its specs for that price, but not in a tube light with 4/5of its price.

it seems to be a nice flashlight with good components and a respectable microusb port with 2 o-rings

And the $90 Nitecore P12GT?

There are a lot of lights that use a tail switch as well as a side switch. Some people like the ability to signal with the tail switch, or simply lock out the electronic switch to make it safe for pocket or backpack carry. “Forced” is pretty strong accusation, just because they didn’t choose to build it Your way.

I don’t care for e-switch lights without a tail switch cut-off. They have constant cell drain and are too easily accidentally activated.

Firstly congrats to Gearbest for the first inhouse flashlight :+1:

Also thanks to DB Customs, for his awesome review of this light.

From my personal experience with this light, i can say few things.

First the pros.
_

1. I will be a bit shallow here, but what firstly surprised me, was the quality of the packing - the box prints/material/presentation where awesome. It screamed quality to me. I know its not such an important thing, but it was really a nice change from the other lights i have seen so far.

2. The build quality of the light, no lose feel, clicking things, or anything. starting from the matching, anodizing and the buttons-feedback, are all near perfect imho, when you hold the light, you got such a nice feel and it feels like the light is in the 100$ + category, not budget light (price-wise), the buttons are very clicky and are build from sturdy materials, the back button is very strong and the feedback is really awesome, something that often is totally off on the lights in this price range - the material used from the buttons are also very good. Compared to my Jaxman E2 for example this light destroys it in terms of build quality, anodizing, buttons feedback, machining, and most importantly hotspot artifacts/rings, its much better.

3. The led tint is very nice,no greenish or bluish, or yellowish tints, pure neutral white (at least from my sample) there are no dark wholes in the hotspot as well, which is another thing i often see with the lights from this price range.

4. I also like the modes, they are decently spaced and i especially like the flare mode, which is even connected to the brand-name, which is a great idea- attention to detail imho again. Having the ability to boost to around 1250 lumens from light of this size is not very common.

5. The driver is also quite decent, and decently build i really like it.

6. The light is able to tailstand which is important to me.

7. The light comes with charging port, which is huge bonus for first time users, since they cant be bothered with chargers or spend additional funds on them, its alot more convenient this way. Its big bonus for flashlight enthusiast as well, since one more less thing to think of .

The cons,

The only “con” i can think of its my OCD, much more then a con, namely the ring which cover the charging port, is not 100% in angle with the light tube - this is total nitpick, much more then a real or ANY problem. For now, i don’t see anything other as a negative thing.

Overall im impressed for a first try, this is a very good showing! grats one more time Gearbest! :beer:

1.I definitely don’t consider Nitecore to be some kind of ultimate authority in flashlight design. And they do have pure e-switch designs, like HC30 (the one Nitecore I actually handled, the body is excellent, the light itself is poor due to cold white LED and bright hotspot, and definitely doesn’t worth its list price of $50).
2.I doubt that any significant number of flashlight users know and use Morse and besides this almost every flashlight designer thinks that at least two blinky modes are necessary and includes them in the driver. Also nothing prevents you from using a e-switch to turn the flashlight on and off to perform whatever signal you wish.
3.If the tail switch just turns your flashlight on, than how can it prevent an accidental activation? If it gets accidentally pressed - it activates the flashlight.
Just unscrew the flashlight a bit to make it 100%-activation-proof.
4. Constant cell drain happens when you can’t design a driver properly. And a second switch doesn’t provide significatly against accidental activation. Just unscrewing the head/tail for a quarter turn is far more accident-proof way.
Though in the small EDC light like this one or the aforementioned Nitecore it impacts usability less than in large light like Convoy L6 (but for this price I’m willing to tolerate this drawback in Convoy) since you don’t have to re-grip flashlight to go from turning off to selecting appropriate mode.
I see that in the end we just have to agree to disagree.

Dale, sorry if I missed it but how good does it actually charge? (Cut of voltage for example)

What is the point to buy it?
This is not small. The design is not brilliant. Built-in charging … Who needs it?
There are brands for the same money or even less.
zanflare F1 $39.99
Eagle Eye X2R $14.5
Convoy BD06 $25
Skilhunt DS20 $35
Sunwayman P25C $44

Haven’t gotten there yet Miller, will try to run a charge cycle today and let you know. So far I’m seeing that it’s not picking up an only slightly discharged cell for recharging, trying to figure out at what point it kicks in…(been testing bigger things, lot of set-up in getting beamshots on a mile thrower.)

Xoden, I very seldom agree to disagree with theories that are wrong. A copper light? A stainless steel light? Titanium? Bare aluminum? Can’t simply loosen threads for cut-off. Even an anodized aluminum light doesn’t necessarily have anodized threads, and if it does the anodization won’t necessarily hold up through many cell changes. If you are able to make such statements that someone “can’t design a driver” you need to supply the driver you say is right. I’ve yet to see an e-switch design that does not have parasitic drain. Nor have I yet to see, with my experience in hundreds of flashlights, a tail switch with reverse clicky get accidentally activated when properly inset/recessed. The only light I have ever seen accidentally activated through a tail switch was a protruding forward clicky Solarforce, one time and one time only. (this in my inexperienced-with-flashlights-wife’s hands, actually not in her hands but when she crammed her bag into a very small locker at work.) If 100% reliability is required to prevent accidental activation in ANY light, remove the cell.

“Nothing prevents an e-switch from turning a light on/off…” ? Nothing but the UI that is.

So it’s obvious that some people have perverse personal opinions on what makes for a perfect light… perfect for them. But this is seldom going to hold true across the board for a wide variety of users. This out-of-the-box way of thinking, your preference, is why we modify lights to our liking. You are always free to build the perfect driver and incorporate it into your lights to have your light work just as you like it. You are also free to knock the designs of others, whether they are successful or not, but it is of course considered to be poor form to do so. Especially when you haven’t even seen the light in question.

Making notes on what may or may not be improvements is of course a good way to help a new designer find their way to the ideal light. GearBest has entered the manufacturing circle with this 1st entry, as a 1st entry production flashlight there are a lot of things done right on this light. Someone cares enough to try, and try pretty hard, so it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Perhaps more gentle persuasion would be most effective in this kind of situation. :wink:

Thank you Serp, for your wonderful inclusion of negativity to a babies first steps.

Not.

Welcome to the real world. We are waiting for a sale at $14.99 :+1:

That’s not the real world. The real world supports a business so it will thrive and continue to offer goods to it’s people. Otherwise, there would no deals at all with small businesses shut down and the monopoly businesses charging exorbitant prices. Get a $14.99 Surefire and let us know the link… :wink:

Surefire is an expensive brand. I do not think that such a discount is possible :smiley:

I really like that we have a new player in the game, with already pretty decent product.
As it’s the first light that they produced - of course there are some mistakes, and it should be forgiven.

However they also should receive constructive criticism, to make even better product.
That’s why I agree with Serp that it’s not competing with price. It’s also not ‘sexy’ light for me…hope they will fix both things in future to make even more competing flashlight, that all of us will buy.

PS. I think that built-in charging is very nice thing! Can be given to a muggle, or just taken without any charger to a trip.

I think that the PCB is too complicated. T-boards often fail (skilhunt, olight). And here we have three PCB boards. Which increases the length and prevent reliability IMHO

I hear ya Serp. I too feel like Tires are responsible for car wrecks and should be done away with. :stuck_out_tongue: