So I had ordered and received (from Banggood) a couple of Ft03’s the last few months. So lately I’ve been getting ads pop up from BG for multiple other flashlights on various feeds. Multiple ads show the MF02s on sale for $175 but when I click the link to BG the price shows $239. Is this a common practice by BG to lure you in to their website?
yes common by them to show prices like that…
Interesting. Considering I used to see the normal MF02 as low as $75, I don’t think the SBT90.2 justifies a $100 price increase. I could see like $50, since the LED itself is often ~$40 (at least for us end users). I would also think a linear driver would be slightly cheaper than the boost driver from the MF02.
Well I’m new to flashlights but have purchased some nice ones. After posting this I looked at some Mateminco lights. One of them has the same identical specs as the aforementioned Astrolux but is much cheaper. It even almost looks identical except for a few external changes. As a long time GM truck owner of Silverado’s and Sierra’s, is this a similar case of identical internals with subtle external differences?
So Astrolux is the Banggood brand. Maeminco makes some of their lights - I believe Sofirn makes some others, and beyond that I don’t know. It does look like this is the listing for the Mateminco version of the MF02 SBT90.2
Yes that’s the one. So I take it that the quality is similar between Astrolux, Mateminco and Sofirn? I currently own lights from Nitecore, Streamlight, Olight and Astrolux. Pretty impressed with the quality of the Astrolux lights especially given their prices.
I wouldn’t really say that. Astrolux wants things as cheap as possible. To my knowledge, both Mateminco- and Sofirn-made Astrolux lights are often missing some of the finer details. I would say Sofirn’s name-brand lights are a bit better, though not always perfect.
Ok thanks for the info. I’ll look into the Sofirn lights as well. This has been an interesting journey as I had no idea there were so many different brands and led choices for various models.
I purchased the Astrolux MF02S V2 from banggood today for $175 plus shipping-$182 total to U.S. FYI.
Well I ended up buying a Mateminco MT90 SBT 90.2 from Aliexpress for $169. This light has the same specs as the Astrolux and appears to be the same light.