Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have four of these flashlights now and I use them at work. These flashlights are good for what they cost although there seems to some misunderstanding. People think an LED flashlight should last a long time on a battery, yes but not when it has a high output of lumens. The price to pay for more light is less battery life. Secondly the Seller seems to think if you use the biggest battery you'll get more light output. NOT SO, Cree rates this XM-L LED at 1040 lumens with 3 amps (max). The seller saying a bigger battery will give 2000 lumens is like saying a bigger gas tank in my car will make it go faster. FYI using three AAA batteries won't give enough power to get 1000 lumens. AAA's generally run from .5 amp to 1.2 amps. Hooked in series the amps do not add up only the voltage as I understand it so you'll waste you time unless you get Li-ion batteries too. AAA's are only good if your Li-ion battery is dead. About Li-ion batteries, there are a lot offered and many are not worth it and/or won't deliver the mAh output promised. I use ultrafire Li-ion batteries and love them. And not to forget my flashlight came without the plastic sleeve. As I'm now building LED flashlights (since I can't find a good one) I measured the current the driver is drawing on the one I was shipped. On high it draws .9 amp @ 3.5 volts which equals 3.15 watts. Cree states this LED will output 100 lumens per watt, @ 3.15 watt that's 315 lumens. This LED has a 10W maximum so it's capable of 1000 lumens if it were driven at 3 amps. (and it's not) Bottom line, it's a good flashlight for what you pay. I pay more for just a real Cree LED and sometimes three times as much for a custom 3 amp driver programmed the way I want it plus twice as much for a complete flashlight body. From this you can see how cheap these are. So if you just want a flashlight for a cheap price this is a good deal. If you want to light-up the the guy's yard three doors down buy a real one and expect to pay more than $50.