Maybe because most of these reviews are objective and honest. The majority of the flashlight community is not yet infected with the influencer “everything is beautiful” mentality. We can measure things, list features and also say when there is room for improvement.
Sorry, but spending more than the time of a workday to review a 20€ flashlight (taking photos, uploading them to a image host, writting a review and placing each image in the spot + recording a video, compressing, uploading), in my opinion cannot/should not be considered as a payment or sponsoring.
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A 2021 study published in the Harvard Business Reviewfound participants who were told they would receive $0.20 for writing a product review, and were instructed to give their honest objective opinion and that they would receive the $0.20 regardless of the content of their review, gave reviews containing 40% greater positive connotations than those offered $0, as determined by a linguistic AI.
In another test reviewers were offered a $1 amazon gift card, were given the same instructions, and wrote reviews that were 55% more positive than the control, as determined by the linguistic AI, and when humans were asked to judge the reviews they rated those written by the $1 gift card group as 70% more positive than the control group.
If a $1 gift card gets you a 70% better review, you better believe $20 has an impact. Especially when you consider the possible implications of leaving a negative review.
That’s not even getting into the possibility that reviewers are likely sent items that have gone through an extra QA step and in some cases may not even be reviewing the item that regular buyers will be getting. We’ve seen this many times.
You could argue ‘sponsored’ isn’t the right word. I’m with you there. There’s probably a better one. I’ll figure one out. But you can’t just pretend it doesn’t influence a review.
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The majority of those reviewing flashlights on BLF run thorough tests on runtime, lumens, current etc and we always note any issues, if any. I’ve never given a review where it’s all positive, you’d just need to watch a review to know this. I’m a dealer for Convoy, Sofirn, Cyansky, Brinyte, and I’ve given some fairly harsh reviews where I recommend to never purchase the flashlight lol. This goes for most here. We aren’t those who’ll give a positive review just because it’s free.
When you spend hours on writing, filming, and editing, we’re talking 20-40 hours then we better be getting something for the effort, I don’t want to buy the flashlight and then spend all that time and get nothing at all.
What you’ve said will apply to some websites and YouTube channels out there, but for those of us here, I’m yet to see one.
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In general, the flashlight community is very honest in their reviews of lights compared to other communities. One of the reasons I like the community so much.
Most “influencer” style flashlight reviews (e.g.various top 10 sites, sites that only seem to review lights from Amazon) are external to what I would call the flashlight community.
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I can only speak for myself, but the amount of time spent making reviews gives me a negative view towards lights since I am not getting paid for the review, and the free flashlight is absolutely not worth the amount of effort it takes to put a video together. This seems to be a pretty comment sentiment amoung the more established reviewers, but nontheless bias will still exist, and there are reviewers who put in the minimum amount of effort and let the free samples pile up.
More importantly, reviewers who provide real tests and data are incredibly valuable and effectively remove concerns about bias, since the data can be interpreted independant of anybody’s opinion. It’s really awesome that so many member of this community are willing to take the time to do tests and provide the results
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skepticism is healthy. i have plenty myself.
you joined blf two months ago, and maybe haven’t gotten to know folks in the community. (possibly you were a longtime reader before joining?) i joined about 18 months ago, and still consider myself new here.
but i’ve learned through reading his reviews and other posts that—to take just one example among many—if @MascaratumB publishes a review, it will be written by someone knowledgeable, experienced and honest, with humor and enthusiasm, and with patience and generosity in responding to comments and questions. it will include objective facts, opinion based on subjective taste noted as such, and a trustworthy assessment.
it’s a benefit to the community to get more flashlights into his hands, and into the hands of other member reviewers like him. that’s the goal here.
in the past, it was proposed to donate money and start a fund to purchase samples for blf reviewers. a good idea that hasn’t been followed through.
soliciting samples from manufacturers is another approach to the achieve the same purpose.
(if you have an alternative proposal for getting samples to reviewers, please share. keeping in mind that “buy with their own money” is already happening, but is a limiting factor for amateur hobbyists.)
is it possible that manufactures will send the best quality control samples? sure. but trusted blf reviewer will account for that. and in fact, sometimes reviewers do get dud samples, giving them an opportunity to test, and write about, customer service.
is it possible that the psychological bias in the studies you cited will occur? sure. maybe for the first few minutes of the several hours it takes to complete a review. again, just look at the evidence of the reviews on blf: can you recall reading one that smelled of shill?
an earlier conversation about this topic gets into the ethics of reviews. one interesting observations among many: @dave1010 writes about his positive review of a light that many considered a lemon. unable to get his sample to fail, he contemplated the impact to his credibility. well worth reading.
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A Reviewer List that reviewers can point to or manufacturers can find may help with finding technical reviews.
When interacting with a manufacturer on social media, I find myself talking to a marketing team or a sales team. Sales teams want to find dealers or make an individual sale on AMZ/AE etc. Marketing teams might consider review samples if you’re an influencer with tens of thousands or millions of viewers etc.
I enjoy doing reviews. Taking product photos, editing, doing runtime tests, measuring throw, measuring current, taking beamshots etc . It’s cathartic.
Different flashlights can present interesting challenges. It can easily take 20+ hours per review.
I’m trying to be picky with what I review due to time. It’s frustrating when a flashlight is defective (buggy UI, high parasitic drain, poorly reflowed LED). Some of those issues can be easily fixed thanks to a wealth of knowledge on BLF, reddit, YT. But I digress…
The list might help convince marketing teams that it’s worth sending a flashlight for review.
That older thread tercet shared is a good one to read.
Jeff, I think - generally - that our flashlight crowd is pretty trustworthy with reviews. Some better than others, some more transparent than others, but generally good. We’ve seen a lot come and go over the years and there are a LOT of unfortunate stories with these vendor-freebie relationships. In fact, it can get extremely ugly at times and there have been a handful of really good reviewers that just up and quit totally because of the behind the scenes experiences (mostly with the vendors but also some of the typical bs that people dish out in comments/opinions/etc). We lost some good guys due to this and I wish I hadn’t learned some of the details regarding a few of them.
I think more people are “affected” by these freebie deals than may let on, but inasmuch as flashlights are still tools of sorts, that lends itself to people being a little more striaghtforward (or honest) when there are legitimate issues or just points worth mentioning. Unless someone is really new to the game, it’s pretty easy to tell whether reviewers know their stuff and are giving a solid thorough review, or if they’re simply doing a product demonstration akin to marketing slicks.
All that said, I hope the quality and thoroughness of reviews will improve further. As the Opple device has become so ubiquitous (which is not necessarily a good thing) tons of people want to “turn pro” and get into tech aspects, but unfortunately many of them don’t understand that stuff well and end up sharing junk data or even incorrect info, which is no good for consumers or manufacturers sometimes. And a lot of basics continue to get missed (I harp on the presence and behavior of low voltage protection, acceptance of various types of cells, and some other basic features because people seem to not care/not look for that anymore, after years of enthusiasts pressuring manufacturers to start including them as standard, and now we’re seeing manufacturers care less or even omit these things in their lights). Although reviews have become more prolific in the last several years (youtube mostly), it’s not easy to find the really good content still, and even less easy to find the excellent details that people who are modders will provide (like MascaratumB and Lumeniac usually give in their reviews…others too…don’t mean to leave names out but those two are standouts in my memory and with their consistency).
That said, even good run of the mill reviews are helpful, if not pleasant to read/watch. If these people are getting free lights, that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. It’s certainly not “real” compensation for their efforts in most cases and it does serve to get the word out and potentially get more experienced/critical eyes on products. The days of manufacturers sharing prototypes and asking for input before releasing ligths seem to be pretty much over, even with collabs here at times, so the free product shotgunning for reviews is I guess a second best choice. It does put our hobby at risk of being more directed by the manufacturers rather then guided by the consumers’ desires and I think we’re seeing more of that now (or again…going way way back) but that depends on the company. So there’s purpose here…can be mutually beneficial. But like anything, people can muck it up. Some get caught in cultural differences, too, with their comments/attitudes and reception of that by manufacturers, or fail to see when a freebie provider is more motivated by greed that goes beyond smart marketing with good will…and that’s when the big problems start, and when we see a reviewer’s character/decisions.
Rambling post, but it’s a many-headed hydra here. Regardless of review content or quality or sponsorship (real or just freebies), I think all of the reviewers should get a pat on the back and not be judged too quickly, because it really is a lot of time spent for little actual compensation and varying levels of satisfation. Mostly a labor of love although folks like Bridgetec will make you wonder about that. 
I missed this when you posted…away from the news all week and just saw what was happening. My gosh. I hope you’re doing ok and services and repairs don’t take too long to restore life to something like normal.
Jacinda skipped out just in time, eh.
Because I enjoy reviewing flashlights, and providing data - like @TimMc mentioned, it’s just fun, and that whole process is a major part of the hobby for many.
A lot of hobbyists would like to be able to do this as well, but even cheap flashlights get very expensive if you are reviewing everything people have questions about. Free lights from manufacturers are unfortunately not a perfect solution for the reasons you mentioned, and we can’t just assume everybody is 100% honest, but it’s proven to be a very effective method in this commnuity full of passionate enthusiasts. People here are pretty quick to sniff out a disingenuous review/advertising pitch.
This sums it up perfectly, there are so many awesome members of the community that are better able to provide reviews for us becaue companies are willing to send them free products - which is pretty amazing, considering how detailed and honest people here tend to be!
Yeah, sadly it can get quite unpleasant behind-the-scenes, a lot of companies treat reviewers as free advertisements and can be very pushy and aggressive (there are some companies that I just don’t accept products from because I don’t want to deal with them). Then once the review is made, there are plenty of opinionated people that are quick to call you a shill or go out of their way to make personal attacks, which alltogether can turn the reviewing process into an unpleasant chore that you may feel obligated to complete because you’ve been sent expensive products.
I’m super grateful for the reviewers that are willing to deal with these kinds fo things to provide useful information because it really is invaluable as a consumer.
Perhaps though one way to make this whole process better would be to require companies who send items to BLF members on this list to disclose who they contacted, what they sent, and the nature of their agreements. I think that kind of transparency could go a long way towards improving views of some companies and reviewers here and to prevent abuse of the system from either end
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I tend to give pretty positive reviews.
OTOH, there’s a lot of selection bias in that. I turn down a lot of review requests because I don’t want to review something I don’t like. In addition to not wanting to waste time on items I don’t think are worthwhile, I also don’t want to give bad items publicity.
There have even been times when lights just showed up, lights I never agreed to do anything with, and … they usually just stay in the box. Like, Neal sent me a FW21 without even mentioning it first, so I told him it was an interesting prototype but had some major issues to fix before production. Then he told me it was a production unit, they were already on sale, and he wanted me to write a review. But … no.
OTOOH, it has been ages since I did a review at all, because it’s a lot of work! If I have the energy to do a review, I could probably be spending that time on code instead, which is a higher priority.
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I generally appreciate the effort of anybody attempting to review lights. Some should more accurately be called “first impressions” rather than reviews. And some people do point out that they "just"received it. When there are multiple options available such as cool, neutral,or warm LEDs I often wonder if these people requested what they got or if that’s just what the manufacturer sent them. I’m not usually going to complain or criticize unless they make outrageous statements such as a 21700 light is “the best EDC”. In the end, I and everybody here is not going to agree with everything that any “reviewer” has to say. If they are providing more information than I can easily see myself on the manufacturer’s website then these reviews are a good thing. So please, no outrageous claims, unless it’s a positive claim about a light that I like. Lists are good but they should be organized in some manner. Try not to discriminate. Review on.
Like Toykeeper, I also have some selection bias, in that I will usually reject lights that I know I will give a negative review. As I don’t like lights with alternating frequency strobes (if I am reviewing them for light painting photography) that’s now a lot of vendors that I reject!
Yes. Two remarks:
(1) As @MascaratumB pointed out, a review costs a lot of time, and time is money. That said, reviewing is fun, part of the hobby for some. But some may actually generate an income from it.
(2) If you’re really 100% honest, your first review sample might be your last, depending on your preferences and your communication skills.
But then it’s the customers responsibility to ask the right questions about the product and read reviews accordingly (and even ask those questions to the reviewer).
I’m happy to do impressions reviews, use a light for a while and post a thread on BLF with my thoughts about it.
Examples
Hi all,
I also wrote flashlight reviews on my blog (lumenzilla.com).
No new articles yet but I will start writing again after I sorted some stuffs first.
Thank you.
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Hi everyone, @Correllux forwarded me the link to this thread, thank you. I’m a flashlight reviewer and you can find me here:
I’ve been into electronics/lights since I was a teen, and had an account from back then, but can’t remember the old login details. I remember there was a guy here called Don who’d post a lot.
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