Hey, cool, please do let us know how the KD purchase turns out, in fact a full review might be nice for comparison. I also have the $13.99 5-mode Trustfire F20 on order, and I'm very interested to see how the quality and lowest mode level compares to the 3-mode programmable Akoray.
I ordered my programmable K-106 on 11/17/2009, and I received it about a month after that in the end of December, 2009. That was right about when they started to make the switch over to the 6-mode non-programmable version. But what happened was that I didn't realize that the 5-mode Nkoray K-106 (now Akoray K-106) wasn't programmable, and I had ordered it at first. Then I realized my mistake, and I sent a CSE request to upgrade it to sku.16607. I think I mentioned in my request that I wanted the 3-mode programmable version, and that's what they sent me. I agree that it's surprising that they haven't capitalized on the popularity of the programmable feature and made a million more versions. This light is so good that it was even generally recommended by many enthusiasts on CPF, who usually scorn the Chinese brands.
Hey there, well, I can try, but basically my beamshots will be proof that the flashlight produces light, and nothing else. It will look like an amber blotch on a sea of brown...
The shots actually make the beam look even better than it is. It does have a bit of a shadow around the hotspot, as I mentioned before, but nothing major.
No, this is the cheaper version of the K-106 with 5 fixed modes. Assuming it's the same as the Trustfire F20, which I own, it's actually a very nice light by its own rights though.
No no no Akoray K106 and TrustFire F20 are not the same flashlight.
Externally the body is exact the same, only changing the logo of the manufacturer.
The LED and the DRIVER are different. Specially the DRIVER. On the F20, PWM can not be seen. On Akoray 106 pwm CAN be seen, and the light output of the K106 is less than F20
Also the Akoray k106 has more failure rates than F20
Aside from the pinkness, there is one obvious design change in the pink Aurora that could be problematic. Notice how the rubber button boot is much bigger than the small, recessed one in the original K-106 and its clones. Unfortunately, these bigger buttons, which appear to be made to sit just a mm short of flush to the rim of the tailcap, are subject to loose tolerance variations and many of them end up protruding slightly, thus preventing the light from tailstanding. In fact the switch looks almost identical to the one on my Ultrafire C3 SS model. Most C3 SS samples tailstand according to most reviews, but mine suffers from this variation and doesn't tailstand well due to about 1mm of protrusion.
I just ordered one to give to my sister when I’ll go visiting her next month. I just hope it will arrive in time, otherwise I’ll be stuck with it for a few months.
Tido
The akoray is the light that proved to me that "serious budget lights" exist. Apart from the technical issues (an AA with programmable variable output is AWSOME) the light is very useful and the three I bought (two of them over a year old and all 3 running all the time on 14500) are working perfectly. There are several minor changes from light to light (tint, time it takes to change mode, time it takes to memorize mode, ramping speed) but all of them are very nice.
Word of advice - I ordered the fouth one at kaidomain (I have already given two as gifts) and the order was refunded 10 days ago. Has anyone received a "real" Akoray 106 recently?
Yep, it's still the programmable light! Looks exacting the same as in the reviews, square anodized threads and all. It took 25 days to me. I really like this light and its brighter than I was expecting on a nimh AA. The programming took a little to get use to but now I have it down pretty good. One thing I was doing was half clicking after setting the 3rd mode when you need to just completely turn it off after setting the 3rd mode.
