Unpopular Flashlight Opinion Thread

Any light bigger than 1xAA/1xCR123 is too big for EDC.

Muyshondt lights are perhaps the most overrated flashlights in history and the cult of personality on non-budget flashlight forums around them is insane and approaches a level of fanboyism usually reserved for Star Wars and Apple products. They’re very good lights (Aeon owner speaking from experience) but they aren’t perfect, or even great, and they’re barely worth 1/3 of what they sell for.

The Nichia 219C has rendered the Cree XP series of emitters obsolete for EDC purposes.

1xAAA lights are too big to be keychain lights.

Friction fit clips are fine.

Buying primary lithium batteries is a waste of money when rechargeables are readily available.

People only use 10440s/14500s in their lights because they want to look like cool hotrodders, not because it’s any more useful than 1.5v or 1.2v cells.

If I can jump to the lowest and the highest setting from off, mode memory is a complete waste of time and battery life.

I love the designs of hanko's flashlights....

I still keep my unmodded NovaTac 120P by my bedside and put it to use periodically. I was tempted to mod it, but decided against it — it’s actually quite fine as stock. Doesn’t need to be super bright, or super efficient.

- Suppose you admit owning too much flashlights - which one(s) would you get rid of.

- Why be a color fanatic if you only once had a light that really was too fugly to turn on.

- You dearly wanted a BLF GT, but not for any practical reason.

- And are absolutely not in the market for the GT conversion kit from XHP35 to XHP 70.2

- But if it came in a complete “lightmachine”, you might be schlepping both of them around on every trip.

- AAA-lights are nice if you don’t have a smartphone. Like me. And cargo pants are not appropriate.

- A light feels nice if it protrudes just a bit on both sides of the fist, so a big 14500 or a small 18650.

- A strike bezel ads nothing if the rest of the light is smooth and slippery or made of paper-maché.

  • If you really wanna start a fire, don’t do it in the pocket of your pants.

I don’t mind short turbo modes that last a few seconds, I think they are a nice option to have.

I would like flashlight makers to design “smoother” flashlights, just a simple cylinder without different radii or indentations, and with rounded corners, at least for smaller flashlights that are stored in pockets and are used mostly without gloves.

I think it would be very cool if piston drive flashlights returned.

seems like would love the wowtac UI

ZebraLights new UI does just that. I have one of my mode sets setup like that. It is very enjoyable to use like that.

Hockey tape sticks to itself, you need to make a couple layers that overlap and keep it tight.

Source: Am from MN lol

- Throwers are largely pointless. I have a C8 and I enjoy fiddling with it, and it’s fun to use and show off with, but it was cheap, and I wanted a thrower among my repertoire of torches. To me, the expensive ones (BLF GT, Astrolux MF04S etc) are a complete waste of money. They have very, very few practical uses beyond the initial ‘wow’ factor.

- I really like my 6D Maglite

- The build quality of Astrolux torches is way below par

D4 vs. PT16.

The MecArmy PT-16 triple, along with its interchangeable head, efficient, protected charging port siblings, represents an underappreciated and inspired design.
Ahead of its time, poorly marketed, it was initially priced out of line. Purchased via the ‘inside information coupon code’ provided to BLFers by IS, almost continually since its introduction, the price has been barely more than the D4.
Had the Emisar debutante included the far superior, larger than Carclo optics, protected self charging, circuitry, safety and heat dissipation, the flashaholic world could have different icons.
Had MecArmy asked for UI assistance from the Green Semi-Diety, instead of the team of young military equipment jewelry/outdoor sports enthusiasts taking over their design team, MecArmy would be more than a footnote in North America.
If IS had not straightened out their Military-tactical weapon UI for sales in North America, the PT 10,14,16 and 18 would have been burdened with the same sad sorry UI corporate parent company Altun has insisted on for their CooYoo and Blackwater quasi-clones of the PT-16.
To further demonstrate their lack of marketing acumen, the triple reflector version has only been made available in the exorbitant titanium, brass, and ‘rare’ copper, (not-for-carry) shelf queen editions.

Among the first to recognize, review, value, exalt, modify and carry the PT16, Dale (DB Custom) tricked his into using an 18500, and squeezed D4 level lumens from it. If he, the asteroid resident, and Illumination Supply had been calling the shots, Emisar could be playing catch-up.
Fireflies, Sorfirn, Lumintop (et. al.) learned to read English language flashlight forums that did not diss lights for supposedly copying pineapple/diamond patterns on flashlight tubes, as if proprietary

I do not like 14500 lanterns, which are big and heavy like some 18650 lamps.

The $ 15 light bulbs are WiFi, but the flashlight with a complicated UI for $ 100 is controlled by one switch.

I hate lights that can be accidentally switched on in my pocket. The electronic lock in FW does not cost any money, so why is not it there?

I hate yellow tint in flashlights. It reminds me of an old incandescent flashlight that’s in its final stages of dimming because its batteries are about to go dead, so I feel an impulse to turn it off so as to conserve battery power. Years of going on backpacking trips as a kid with incandescent flashlights and headlamps kind of traumatized me. Seeing any flashlight today that has a yellow beam is like being in the same room as an unflushed toilet. It just makes me uneasy.

Copper patina looks gross to me, like a penny that has been touched by thousands of people whose hands have been God knows where before they touched the penny, or like an alkaline battery leaked on it. Brass patina is fine.

Complicated UI’s are great for an EDC light because we’re all unique in our everyday needs, but an outdoor light should only ever have an intuitive, simple UI that can be operated with cold hands, gloved hands or adrenaline-shaking hands. Stop with the double freaking clicks!

Reversible pocket clips are needlessly bulky, and most people who whine to manufacturers to put them on their lights probably don’t even wear brimmed hats regularly. And the ones that do wear baseball caps around probably don’t wear them at night that often. Tail cap magnets are also terrible. Some people just need to learn how to use a headlamp.

I quite like my cyan D4.

I’m not a fan of the chalky texture, but on the other hand it does provide much better grip than the smooth D4, and the cyan D4 is much less chalky than the white D4.

Yeah, but if they have a magnetic head, the tailcap magnet is so much easier than those bulky sweaty elastic bands.

Ouch, this is recognizeable.
I don’t know what lights to get rid of
The GT is a fun to have, but it is barely used, almost a shelf queen, more a showoff.
I seriously doubted (actually still am) on the XHP70.2 conversion kit ( i even bought a strapwrench…) but never ended finishing pressing the paypal button.
My L6 on the other hand is much more practicalfor a XHP70 light

For my general purposes, tint rarely makes a difference. If I want a specific tint that’s not currently offered in a light I have or want, I make do with trying out different tints from my Lee Filters Swatch Book. Works well enough for me, but I haven’t tried using them in wet conditions yet.

Relevant thread: Correcting tint with LEE Filters

Even as a bit of a tint snob I can agree with this. It seems very easy for my eyes to adapt to almost any color temp or hue and still tell colors apart fairly well.

The problem is when there is tint shift IMO, that is not only super irritating but can make it hard to distinguish colors when different parts of the beam make them look so different.

Now here’s someone who really understood the thread title well :smiley:

NarsilM is just better than Anduril.

The 219B R9080 SW45 is overrated, too rosy, extremely inefficient, and makes everybody wanting the perfect rosy emitter, while something like the E21 is about perfect.

The XHP70.2/XHP 50.2 are not worth it. Cree should just introduce factory dedomed emitters. since these look crap with a dome.

The SST-40 is a POS LED that should be introduced in 5000k CCT.

Convoy/Jaxman lithium-ion lights are the only lights which have been reliable in every way. They have no glaring flaw.

I prefer using credit cards over Paypal. Less fees for the guy/gal working behind.

The 219b sw45, especially in its 9080 form, is more of a High Color Contrast emitter than Hi Cri neutral daylight emitter.
It’s my preferred LED for this reason.

Like copper tinted eyeglasses, it makes things unnatural, but easier for to me to see.
Aging eyeballs need help sometimes, and the magenta-pink (rose) enhancement increases apparent contrast.