So as it stands now I have thrown away a couple of USB cables. I am not exaggerating at all when I say my phone omits such a strong horrible smell that I am unable to use it without feeling nauseous unless I put tape over the usbc port. I have spent a lot of time cleaning. I threw out everything that was edible in that room, and there is still a strong smell that made both my girlfriend and I pretty sick. Sofirn has not offered to do anything for me other than make the return process more complicated than Amazon makes it.
I’m honestly not surprised that some of the people here are attacking me. I understood that sofirn worked closely with members of this form before posting here, but I thought that would make it a good place to post. I wanted to get as much info as I could about my situation, and give people a heads up on what is possible with this light. I appreciate you guys encouraging me to take pictures of all of this. I honestly might not have touched this thing again otherwise. I will be sure to post them on Amazon with my reviews.
To the guy calling me biased you can think whatever you want. I’m not selling flashlights for a living. I’m honestly wasting my time on here at this point just trying to help other people. I don’t expect that anyone will be able to help me any further than they have so far.
I went into all of this having no biases whatsoever. I point out that the finish, the machining and the packaging of sofirn are the worst of any brand that I have bought simply because it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to internal build quality as well. I honestly don’t care about a box, but it seems to reflect the quality of the product when you look at the packaging of some of these top-shelf brands. I have been buying high-end flashlights for more than 20 years. This is the first time I’ve had a problem with any of them. That is not bias that is just the objective truth. I’m not saying that reliable brands like Fenix or acebeam are perfect. I personally don’t like the UI or the color temperature on most Fenix lights - heck I will go as far as to say that I strongly dislike the UI on most of the modern Fenix lights. I don’t like the fact that most Acebeams start flashing when the battery goes low and don’t have any good indication of battery status before that. Nothing is perfect, but those brands have been reliable for me. They work exactly the same way they did when I bought them, and they certainly haven’t poisoned me. The fact that I bought a cheap brand and it filled my house with fumes and gave me a massive headache is no coincidence in my mind. If you want to pretend like it’s a coincidence that’s your prerogative. Hopefully most people reading this have a little bit more common sense than that though.
All I said about the support is there’s no one I can call and it does not have a long warranty period. Both of those things seem to be true. With acebeam I can call a reputable dealer with fenix I can call a reputable dealer and back when I was buying novatech and surefire I could call reputable dealers as well. What north american based reputable dealer can I call about sofirn? The shortest warranty of any of these other brands is 5 years. How long is sofirns? I’m posting opinions based on objective facts not based on biases.
I honestly don’t particularly care what’s wrong with the light at this point. Poor quality control and R&D caused charging board or charging chip to burn up. That’s good enough for me. I’m not going to buy another one of these products. I’m not part of the R&D. Frankly the R&D should have been done before I bought this thing. I was buying a finished product. I was not signing up to be part of a forum project to develop a flashlight that doesn’t work properly yet which is I think what some of you expect me to be doing here.
I am going to stick the quality brands moving forward. If sofirn and wants to do something for me to actually compensate me for the damages and inconvenience I have incurred here then great I will figure out how to send them the light. Otherwise I’m going to do what’s easiest for me and send it back to Amazon and get my money back. I personally used to sell through FBA, so I can tell you that if sofirn wants the light back they can get it from Amazon. If they want it back from me they can compensate me at the very least for all of the things I had to throw out because of this incident.
You guys can call me biased, you can call me ridiculous, you can call me sensitive, you can say I am having psychosomatic issues. You can really tell me whatever you want. I don’t care. I’m not part of the flashlight online modding community. I’m simply a guy who owns some nice flashlights and wanted to give people a heads-up about this particular brand while hopefully getting some advice. This thing spewed toxic fumes all over my house. It made me sick, and it made my girlfriend sick. I still smell all of this stuff. I would say this particular flashlight is probably not a good one to give people for Christmas because if this happens to them they will remember it.
The charger is whatever charger is included with an LG v30. The cable is an anker cable. Both of these items still function fine. They have been used for over 2 years to charge multiple other lights and many other devices without any issues. To blame this on the charger is absurd. A fast charger will provide more current to devices that have that capability, but if a brand name top-shelf charger like this causes an incident like this and you want to blame it on the charger then what charger should I have been using? And how should I have known what charger to use when the instructions don’t say anything about this? This is a dangerous low quality product. If people on here who have an agenda want to pretend something else that’s totally fine with me. I’ve done my part. I can move forward with my life with a clear conscience knowing that I at least tried to warn people about this. I will do the same on Amazon.
Like I said before I would have gladly paid three times the price for a light like this that was built properly and safely. I have no problem paying $200 for a good light. I only bought a bottom shelf low quality brand because they made the triple cell high CRI that I wanted. I won’t make that mistake again.