@klrman
Yes, I got the feeling too that it is not a fake product but an original one. And because of this I am writing this kind of report to avoid others getting same troubles as I am going thru.
I ordered a lot of small cheap flashlights, started with UltraFire low cost flashlights, and after investigation still don’t know for sure which website is the official one, hahaha. Since I am an audiophile and bought a lot of electronic components and devices in China the past 20 years or so, I am some sort of experienced buying in Asia, and know that there are a lot of manufacturers making and selling the same stuff under the same brand. Many brands are non existing and just used to sell goods under a name, not to provide for backup if something goes wrong.
For us, western orientated people, this is kind of strange. If we see a brand, we KNOW there is a company behind it, a company at which we can apply for warranty or help when something goes wrong, that doesn’t count for many Chinese products……
Not forgetting there are many diy people selling products made by themselves, badged with a brandname…. Sometimes a manufacturer is producing pcb’s, printed circuits, selling the boards in badges to whoever wants to buy them. This can result, or better saying, this RESULTS in completely different products, using different brands of components on pcb’s, using completely wrong values etc….
This makes it very difficult to buy those goods.
A very good example is a Chinese integrated amplifier I bought in Germany at a small company. The amplifier was a Korsun V8i, nowadays called Dussun V8i. It was a very heavy amplifier, weighing about 40kg, reviews were very good. A friend of mine bought one at the same time from another seller since my seller didn’t had any left at stock. My amp sounded horrible, uncontrolled bass, very harsh sounding mid and high. My friends one sounded very musical, good controlled bass etc. I never got mine sounding right and had to sell it with loss.
This amplifier btw was the one the Affirmation amplifier from the Red Rose (Mark Levinson) company was based on….
I am an electronics guy, I investigated the inside of this amp, and couldn’t find any differences between my friends one and mine.
A few years later I came to the conclusion that mine probably had FAKE Sanken power transistors in it, since I read an article about those used by many Chinese manufacturers, and that they sounded awful.
Back to flashlights, the UltraFire flashlights I own, they are all very cheap made, quality is not very high. But, I DO have one UltraFire
flashlight which is a real beauty, the UF-T50 which is an XML-T6 U2 flashlight, stepless dimmable, with a magnetic tailcap. This is one of the best quality flashlights I’ve encountered, ever, it’s a beauty. Probably all the other UltraFire flashlights were from different manufacturers, fake ones. The UF-T50 was rather expensive, paid €40 for it.