REAL WORLD REVIEWS – NEBO Cryket

REAL WORLD REVIEWS – NEBO Cryket




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A brief opening note about the "Real World Reviews"
At this point many fellow "flashaholics" have developed very sophisticated and detailed methods for measuring nearly every conceivable technical aspect of the illumination products on the market. The "Real World Reviews" acknowledge the existence of the detailed technical reviews (and I'll link to them below if I can) but will not re-hash all of that tech data. Instead the focus of the "Real World Reviews" is to take that "laboratory" information out into real world conditions to give the reader an idea of how the numbers translate into actual use.
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Technical Review (done by someone else):
None Available at time of review
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Intended Use: “Work” light, hand-held flashlight
Power Source: 4xAAA primary or NiMH batteries
Average Cost: $30.00 (USD)

What you get:

· I purchased this item, unboxed, from a retail store so I got the light and nothing else.

Initial Impression(s):
This light
The reason I picked this light up in the first place was that I thought it was an angle-head and I wanted one for my workshop. In fact I should make it very clear right now that the entire design philosophy of this light is very obviously focused around “workshop/garage” use. I didn’t realize until I actually had it at home that the head swivels so that felt like a bonus. The overall feel of the light is solid, but it just doesn’t give that hard to define feeling of “durability” that some of the lights I review have. It feels strong but in no way “tank like”. The lens is large and plastic, but somewhat recessed and therefore at least a little protected. The base has a decent magnet which is stronger than many I’ve seen and enough to hold the light pretty well.

If you do want to swivel the head, it has 8 Clicks to choose from. The swivel mechanism has very positive clicks as it ratchets around and won’t shift by itself and it also feels reasonably sturdy. However I am also sure if I put enough pressure on it I’d snap it in two and that makes me have doubts about its survivability in any larger drop scenario. I also don’t see any way the neck mechanism could possibly be watertight. Along the same lines, the bezel has an “O” ring between the bezel-to-glass, but there is no seal on the backside between the glass and the light. This light is “splashable” but absolutely NOT waterproof. Dunking in a glass for 1 minute produced mist internally and I had to open the light and use warm air to dry it out.

The pocket clip is pathetic. It has popped off the light almost every time I have tried to use it. There is no lanyard attachment point on the light.

The interface is a single decently large “E-Button” which means you get nice tactile feedback from the switch, but no signal or intermittent mode which isn’t surprising given the goal of this lights design. The light always comes on in Mode 1 at the brightest setting and there is no lockout function. Unscrewing the tail-cap does NOT lock this light out so if you take this traveling (In a suitcase or backpack) you are going to want to remove the battery carrier or put a bit of cardboard over the terminal to avoid accidental activation.

The UI cycles from the primary LED, to the circular LED set, to the circular RED LED set but if the light is off and you press-and-hold the button you will go into RED ONLY mode, more on that later.

In the primary LED and Flood LED modes the light will ramp up or down if you press-and-hold the switch.
Unfortunately it uses a fairly ugly PWM to accomplish this and as I’m very sensitive to that, anything below about the 3/4 stage started to bother my eyes.

The beam
This light has more than one beam. The “primary” LED is housed in a fairly narrow reflector that produces a strong hotspot that cuts off into side spill. Not my favorite type of beam for walking around, but the sort of thing that can be very useful for looking into the depths of an attic or engine bay.

Next we have the “area flood” beam. This is a pure flood from a ring of LED around the face It is yellow tinged but provides a decent area light.

Finally there is a RED Floodlight mode. A ring of red LED that provides a nice, even, red flood.

Output (Per manufacturer):
Mode 1 (250 Lumen/3.5hr): “Center Spot”
This is the center mounted “super bright” LED which can be ramped smoothly up and down. I have no way of testing what the lumen output is at the lowest setting.
Mode 2 (240 Lumens/2.5hr): “Ring flood”
This is the circular “flood” consisting of 16 paired LED emitters. Like mode 1, the brightness can be ramped up and down.
Mode 3 (15Lumens/6.5hr): “Red Flood”
This is a circular ring of 8 RED led emitters. This mode does not dim.
“Technical” Mode 4: DIRECT RED mode
If the light is off and you press and hold the switch, it turns on the red-lights directly to preserve night vision. Pressing the switch again turns the light off.

NOTE: Thermal regulation/heat dissipation in MODE 1 is NOT GOOD. My light got hot enough that I grew concerned about melting plastic parts inside including the reflector and aborted the runtime testing.

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The “Standard evening walk” begins with illuminating 3” circular reflectors and then seeing if I can make out the trees to which they are attached (neutral brown bark). Part Two then takes place over either a 1.5 or a 2.5 mile loop on an unlit and mostly open grassy area with a few trees, and then ends going through a short, steep, uphill/downhill gravel trail surrounded by trees and heavy undergrowth which I call the "confidence course".

Target Test
Target 1: 30ft [10yd/09M].......... Illuminated in mode 1/Full Brightness
Target 2: 60ft [20yd/18M].......... Illuminated in mode 1/Full Brightness
Target 3: 120ft [40yd/36M]......... Illuminated in mode 1/Full Brightness
Target 4: 180ft [60yd/54M]......... Illuminated in mode 1/Full Brightness
Target 5: 300ft [100yd/91M]........ Beyond design capabilities
Target 6: 450ft [150yd/137M]...... Beyond design capabilities
Target 7: 600ft [200yd/182M]...... Beyond design capabilities
Target 8: 750ft [250yd/228M]...... Beyond design capabilities

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The Walk
The night was moderately dark with a lot of overcast. Temperatures were very moderate (48 degrees F) with a gentle breeze.

Right at the start I’m going to repeat my earlier observation. This light is designed for a workshop, not as a walk-around light. The primary beam has an intense hotspot and gave severe “follow-the-bouncing-ball” effect which makes it tough to properly see your footing. Ramping the intensity down to try and reduce that effect brought the PWM flicker into play and I couldn’t take that either. I switched to the flood mode which provided better walking light than I expected, but also gave me no real throw and would have been unpleasant and blinding to anyone walking with me as there was absolutely no beam control. In short, I aborted the walk pretty quickly.

Since I still wanted to test other aspects of this light, I took it out to the garage, popped the hood on my Jeep and started looking around. Ah HA! Yes, now this is what this light is good for. The flood mode was good for taking a general look around even though the tint was not helpful and the spot mode provides enough light and contrast to see into crud and muck encrusted parts of the engine bay. When you stick it on the underside of the hood with the magnet, the ability to rotate the head lets you aim the light where you want it for hands free use, very VERY nice!

And then I dropped the light…

It was a small 8” drop from my hand to the exhaust manifold, bounced to the wheel well, then something lower down (track bar maybe) and down to the paved surface of the garage. VERY typical of the sort of thing that happens in a garage but the end result was that the light went out and there were several dings right through the anodizing. I was actually quite surprised at how scarred up it got from such a wimpy drop. At first I couldn’t get the light to turn back on again and I thought I had truly busted it but when I removed the batteries/carrier and re-inserted it the light started working normally again. Still I don’t think it should have had a problem, this was NOT a severe drop.

CONS:
· NOT waterproof! Maybe “splash” resistant. Wouldn’t use this in the rain!
· TERRIBLE PWM for dimming the light
· Wimpy pocket clip and no lanyard point
· Weak anodizing
· Angle head swivel is most likely a structural weak point
· REALLY BAD THERMAL CONTROL

PROS:
· Looks cool
· Rotating angle head is nice for aiming the light
· Decent magnet in the base
· Easy/intuitive interface with some clever UI design.

Summary:
So it is very apparent that this light was never intended for “outdoors” use. It simply isn’t designed to withstand the rigors of hiking, backpacking, and so forth. Unfortunately, it is also surprisingly fragile and vulnerable for something that is intended to be in a “workshop/garage” environment. Although I think there are some neat features and some good user interface design decisions, and I do like the way the light looks, ultimately it comes down to durability and reliability and this light just doesn’t make the cut.

Final conclusion:
0 of 5 Photons (DO NOT BUY).

Thanks for the review :+1:

I was interested in this light - I like my Nebo Big Larry - but I’ll be taking your advice and avoiding the Cryket.

Wow!

0 out of 5.

In general, I have seen some people on Amazon say they would give zero stars on a product if they could.

Thanks for the review!

Hi Zespectre,
Thank you very much for your review. This flashlight looks very similar with the one I bought months ago from Banggood:

Some different functions are:

  • 4th mode: Flashing red LED.
  • Magnetic tail: Which is my favorite function.

It has fake Cree XM-L T6 LED in center but bright enough for most of my short distance jobs. I did treat all LEDs with silicon thermal joint compound and it works over an hour with no problem of overheat.

So … It not a great flashlight to me but with swivels head and magnetic tail in this price, it’s a good choice.

thanks for posting this… I was looking at these on Amazon. too bad, I wanted to like it.

I really wanted to like this light too. The aesthetics and UI appealed to me a lot.
Unfortunately my sample was not up-to-par.

thanks for the review. I liked the looks but not the facts. will avoid for my next garage light…