Here is a review about the “XLN-703 Emergency Multifunctional Flashlight Torch Car Survival Tool with Escape Hammer and Radio” I won in the gearbest worldcup giveaway.
Due to some circumstances I didn’t have the time to start with it until now.
This will be my first flashlight review, I don’t have the proper equipment, and no good space to test beamshots so it probably won’t be as good as some of the others around here, but I hope I can give somewhat of an idea about the functions and quality.
Gearbests official product link: http://www.gearbest.com/survival-emergency-gear/pp_27914.html
Salesprice at this moment: 25.42$
Official specifications on the box (click for larger version)
The body of this device is all plastic. It feels pretty cheap and I don’t expect it to withhold a lot of force when dropped. I assume it will crack very easy.
On the front of the light you will find:
A belt cutter,
A windows breaker
4 magnets
3 LED’s
The belt cutter is sharp, I tested it on a lanyard and it cut right through it. When you look closely at it you can see it’s a piece of knife you will find in a breakaway knife.
I assume the window breaker will do his work when needed. It comes with a rubber protection cap so you won’t scratch yourself or damage something by accident.
The magnets are there so you can attach this light to your car when using as an emergency beacon. They are strong enough to hold the flashlight when attaching it horizontally to a metal service, although not much force is needed to push it loose. When attached standing, it takes a decent amount of force until it comes off. I assume you will even be able to drive around with it while it’s on the roof.
The 3 LED’s don’t give a superb amount of light, but, in darkness and an emergency situation will be more than enough. Ceilingbounced and measured with my luxmeter, my Thrunite ti2 is a bit brighter on high mode, my thrunite t10 on low mode is a lot less bright. I don’t have proper equipment to test but my guess is this is around 50 lumen on a full charge.
Up close you can see 3 rings from the leds, but from a distance of 25cm it starts to blend.
It has a pretty tight hotspot with a bit of spill. Brightness of the spill is very low. I don’t have the space to test it’s maximum beam distance, but I guess maximum useful distance it 10-15 meter. In a pitch black environment this will probably be more, but I wasn’t able to get a good look on my car in the parking lot from the 3th floor, and that is probably around 25 meter. At this point the hotspot was totally not visible anymore and I couldn’t have identified anything if it was there.
If you use this as a car emergency light this is no problem as most of the task would be up close.
In the middle section, you will find the buttons to turn on the flashlight and the emergency beacon. If you hold the button for the emergency button it will flash and also sound an alarm. There is also a display here that shows the radio frequency or volume level. It also has an indicator light showing that you are charging the light, either cranking or with usb connector. I have charged the light a couple of hours with a 1A usb source and the light never turned off. I assume it does not show if it´s full or not.
Turn the light 90 degrees and you will find a microusb connector to charge this device, and an usb output. The output only works when cranking. This means you won’t be able to charge anything from the internal battery. Manufacturer claims 350mA output, max I´ve seen on my charger doctor is 320mA with an average of 270mA. Not much for a modern smartphone, but my Samsung galaxy s4 does detect it as a charger, and so does my asus tablet, so in an emergency and a totally flat battery you might get a couple minutes of calltime after cranking it like a madmen. I don´t know how an apple product would react as I´ve heard these are a lot more pickier when it comes to powersource. But I have no apple product to test it with.
Next to the usb slots are the buttons for radio control. It has AM and FM band, and you can adjust the volume.
First button turns the radio on, second button is to change am or fm and when you hold the button it changes to volume adjustment. It has 30 levels, but on the highest levels sound starts to crack pretty bad. At level 20 sound is hard enough and acceptable. Wouldn’t want to listen to a rock concert on it, but if you ask me, you would mostly use this function to listen to emergency broadcasts.
3th and 4th button are to change volume or radio frequency.
Radio reception is decent, antenna is connected with the lanyard.
Turn the light 90 degrees again and you will find the crank. It´s a plastic crank, but with normal use I won´t think it will come off soon. Not much to say about this. It works, it makes a lot of noise when cranking, but that´s normal for these kind of devices.
At the end of the light is the emergency beacon light, the lanyard with radio antenna and compass.
The beacon is bright and will be easily visible in the dark.
Lanyard is a bit stiff, but does what it has to do.
Compass seems to be a total waste of space. The light won´t tailstand due to the compass, and you can´t trust it. One moment north is pointing one direction, you shake it a bit and it could point to another direction and if you turn the device slowely, the compass turns with it.
Right now I have this device on radio, emergency beacon and flashlight, and will update this review with data how long it runs on a couple of minutes of cranking. I will also try to catch how long it will run now, since the battery is full or almost full since I charged it with microusb.
If there are anymore question or want to know more, feel free to ask and I will try to answer it.
Below are some additional pictures.
All pictures are taken with my Samsung galaxy s4 on auto setting.
http://nl.tinypic.com/r/25sy6oz/8 <-Beacon and alarm video.
