2) at 100m away the spot is bigger than a whole tree. Do the math yourself and you will see. I actually own it and have seen it myself.
The spill from a reflector flashlight is not even visible at 100m.
$100 is a lot
There is this little issue that pops up on forums often and can be seen in politics as well, I call it “political disease” since I saw it get to anybody who was spending public money for longer then a few years, in contrast to spending money from a company of oneself.
It boils down to “it is very easy to spend others people money” and on forums it goes something like this.
OP, I want something for around $X that does this and that.
A reaction, well if you spend $X plus $Y it is just a little more but gives you these advantages.
Often followed by another’s, well now that you look at $X+$Y you really ought to consider adding $Z for then…
And so on, you get my drift.
OP asks for $100 zoomie.
He can get two Jaxman Z1 lights in different tints, or 3-4 Brinytes
These are very very nice zoomies, all that have handled a Z1 agree the quality is superb, the rattle free zooming action works like a charm. It outperforms a heavy big Uniquefire UF1504 easy and can be called compact for sure.
If OP insists on spending $100 I’d say:
Jaxman Z1 ~$50 (50 left)
Liitokala lii500 $20 (30 left)
2x Liitokala 26650 5000mAh $12 (18 left)
Either a 26650 non zooming light or:
Convoy S2+ $12 (6 left)
Decent 18650 cell (1-2 left, yay within $100 
)
Seems a lot more versatile with an extra cell to feed the Z1 on long missions, a secondary light and a good charger to keep track of the cells health AND within $100
Please show me a better spending of $100 without surpassing it with just $0,01
If only for giggles, everyone should try a zoomie at least once. After reading all the negatives, I stayed away for a while. When I finally tried a zoomie, it became my favorite flashlight for most indoor use and close work.
For the OP: I like the Miller's suggestions. The Jaxman Z1 has earned a good reputation.
“Most high power (1000 lumen or more) units are not zoomable. Why is that?”
Max output of a single die XML-2 LED is about 1200 lumen @ 3A and zoomies waste a lot of lumens, especially with a small lens. What’s more on full zoom you only have about a third of the lumens you have on max wide beam although the beam is intense.
Zooming flashlights have several other disadvantages, such as not being so easy to waterproof as non-zoom designs
So if you want a thrower you are better off with a light with a reflector, and if you want flood you are better off with a light with an orange peel reflector which can either be very small and pocketable, like the Convoy S2 etc, or a bit bigger but still pocketable but with better heat management, so it doesn’t get hot so quickly.
But zooming flashlights are fun, especially when you first get one. However, I found I tended to set the zoom to a position I found generally useful and then didn’t use adjust it much.
My suggestion is you look at the Brinyte 158B
http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_572167.html
I’ve got the Brinyte B158 which has been reviewed on here. The B158 is really a specialised hunting flashlight with mountings to go on a rifle and it’s uncomfortable to hold in the hand. The B158B doesn’t have the extra metalwork for weapon mounting.
They have quite a bulky head which makes them not really pocketable. I think compact and high output don’t really fit together, especially with zooming lights.
Thank you all for the passionate and educational comments! I am learning a lot!
I will now also look at the Brinyte 158B and the Jaxman Z1.
As far as application is concerned: it is for no real “professional” use. More for the casual sometimes comping, sometimes in a smaller cave, sometimes checking something under the car etc. And having decent battery life is good - so my preference so far is a 18650 unit. Pocketable is good, but not a total must
Thank you again
There are plenty of inexpensive quality zoomies in the market which, with a few little modifications, become very nice all-around flashlights.
“Throw”, so much talk about raw throw… There's a missing important point in all of this stuff, usually overlooked: beam width. Heard people despising the usage of big emitters for throw, but this is their great advantage here. Put a big XHP on your torch combined with a short focal distance lens, and this will provide a wide track of light for sweeping in the distance. Like a decathlon athlete, who may not be able to score absolute records but crushes recordholders in everything else. 
Led Lenser? 
I wouldn't take one even if gifted with. Everytime you pay for patented sh1te you enslave yourself and others in a carcinogenic “intellectual property” system who needs to be crumbled down to its very foundations. @#$% it!
Cheers 
Just for that reason of variable beam width I find the Z1 so useful (don’t have the Brinyte but all decent zoomies have that)
When I want to check our mill stream, or behind trees the narrow beam gives me the light where I want it without things lighted I don’t want lighted or even making it harder to see behind it
Flood wide beam is very handy close by or walking around.
For the average user it doesn’t really matter if a light can be modded or how many patents are used (though patenting something is pricy so price is higher)
As Barkuti said there are a lot of inexpensive decent quality zoom flashlights on the market - and it must be said, also a lot of rubbish, sometimes at ridiculous prices.
I don’t know anything about the Thorfire TA13. There may be reviews on here or on Youtube, but generally, Thorfire have a name as selling good quality products for budget prices, so I’d guess it’s not rubbish. If someone better informed says it is rubbish, take their word for it over mine.
https://www.amazon.com/ThorFire-Flashlight-Zoomable-Adjustable-Camping/dp/B01ALJ1DG4
500 lumens or so max output. An accurately stated 500 lumens is enough for a lot of things and it’s only $11.
As you may have gathered, opinions on zoom flashlights are divided. For $11 or so, you can find out if you are a zoom person or not, which has to be better than spending a lot more and discovering you are not. If you are not, well an extra flashlight is always handy even if you don’t use it much.
1) this “1/3 the lumens” only applies to regular lens zoomies (for example the jaxman Z1)
With a TIR you still get 95%+ light efficiency when fully zoomed in.
This is why led lenser (and now also coast) have the best optics of any zoomie.
2) as I said before, if you want throw then a reflector light is much worse than a zoomie.
Not only do you need a bigger head diameter, but you also waste a ton of power into the spill, which reduces runtime and also makes your night vision worse.
3) if you want flood, again you are better off with a zoomie because you don’t get a super bright hotspot, you get 100% uniform spill. Again, no wasted light into the hotspot = more runtime.
Seriously, this “reflector is better” argument is ridiculous, it is far from ideal for either case.
$11 will get you a crappy ultrafize lens zoomie with bad efficiency when zoomed in, ugly beam, and artifact rings.
This is probably why everyone on this forum seems to hate zoomies.
If people actually spent money on a good quality zoomie (which I guess is too much to expect from people on a “budget” forum) then they wouldn’t be spreading so much misinformation.
If you want a thrower without spill, Go for laser
I bet there is no thrower throws further than a 100mw laser
Pro:
Low power
No spill
Cool
Run time much longer
Cheap(you can buy 3 color and mix for white light, the throw reaches 5km easily)
The most rediculous is 110$ and ipx4 waterproff, LOL
Haha, I would never recommend anyone to ever buy a Led Lenser. My first flashlight I ever bought was the Led Lenser p7.2 and I can tell you that it was so disappointing that I gave it away to my mother the next day. Then I ordered a real flashlight, the fenix pd35 and it blew the crappy Led Lenser out of the water in every way.
So OP, save your money and buy something else.
The Warsun X65/X50 (26650 cell format version) seems to be decent. Don't even look at the 18650 X50, it's an ignominy.
The main problem with inexpensive zoom flashlights is that there's not much to spend on lenses, which is the reason these usually underperform.
Also, while I've not looked much into it, it shouldn't be hard to build a dual-lens TIR + plano-convex zoom flashlight. That way about full light output could be collected at the plano-convex lens at full zoom distance. Is this what those Led Lenser torches achieve by any chance?
Just to pour a bit more petrol on the reflector fire Enderman created, I'll add that these are unusable for filming and/or photography because of the aforementioned abrupt spill/hotspot light distribution. Our eyes/brains are amazingly good at discerning huge light throughput contrasts, but that's not the case with cameras my dears. Take a look here:
Reflectors are cheap and… well that's about it. 
Cheers ^:)
Well some people seem to like zoomies and other people don’t for a host of reasons which seem valid to them. Largely it seems to be personal preference. I was just positing that the O/P might turn out not to like them.
I have both zoomies (one with TIR but not very superior optics) and non-zoomies and use them all. Oddly enough I can’t too excited over the benefits of zoomies vs non-zoomies vs zoomies with superior optics and certainly have no intention of being drawn into a debate to the death on the matter.
You think that IPX rating is what determines how good a flashlight is?
I feel sorry for the $10 IPX8 flashlights you probably own.
Idk about you, but personally I don’t live underwater.
So “blew it out of the water” with less throw, less runtime, and less uniform flood? Ok then.
Yes, the center part is a regular aspheric lens, while the outer part is the TIR part which collects all the light from around the LED and focuses it forwards.
This also helps give the beam a rounder spot unlike regular zoomies that have a square die projection.
When in “flood” mode the TIR part is inactive and LED is in the center aspheric lens, giving the uniform flood that pretty much all zoomies can do.
In both cases 100% of LED light is being collected into the optic. The only light loss comes from the transmission of the optic, which is about 90-99%.
Yup. Horrible build quality, fells like a cheap toy. Flood mode was basically useless. To dim for anything. The pd35 does everything better except being a bit short in the throw part.
You sure it was a 7.2?
Because the P5r.2 is made out of aluminum and feels great, very good build quality.
The 7.2 looks like it’s made from the same aluminum.
Personally I would not get a 7.2 because it doesn’t use rechargeable batteries.
It’s also heavy and large.
The p5r.2 is lighter and smaller than any other flashlight that has that much throw.
320 lumens flood is definitely enough, most people are fine with 300-400 lumens, which most luxury flashlights such as the titanium and other exotic lights do.
You should compare them side by side.
You can see in the image I posted how 270 lumens with no hotspot is the same as 1000 lumens with a hotspot.
Ipx8 doesn’t mean it’s a good light
But ipx4 light(imo) definitely not a good light
Well, i dont want to show off
But there is no 10$ light in my collection, just some ” cheap” brand like olight, nitecore, jetbeam, and there is no ipx4 light in my collection, too