Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a longtime surefire fan, I probably own over 10 surefire lights in my household (I say this because I'm not your typical troll with a 1-star review ... I like their products, and am a repeat customer). Overall their products are of excellent quality, and for this reason I almost never have to make a warranty claim on my lights (only one prior to this was a broken pocket clip on an E2D - something you used to be able to order easily on their website, this is no longer the case). First, the good. The sidekick is an excellent form factor. It's a great little light. It's about the size of a typical car key-fob, and puts out an impressive amount of light, rated at 300 lumens at max setting and extremely usable even at the low and mid settings. I would give this product 5 stars if not for their customer service. After less than a year, the Sidekick will no longer charge. No problem, it has a 1-yr warranty. The problem is, they don't answer the phone. They don't return voicemails. They don't return emails. A warranty is useless if they won't pick up the phone to honor it. At the price Surefire products sell for, an unresponsive customer service / warranty processing service is unacceptable at all levels. Again, this would be a 5-star review if they would simply honor their warranty - even with the reliability issue, I'd overlook that if they would simply provide some customer service and back up their products. Surefire charges a premium price that, in my opinion, has always seem warranted due to their product quality. Premium price generally comes with premium quality AND premium customer service - the latter is lacking here. ********************************* Update April 2017 ******************************************************************************* So surefire did replace this product under warranty. After failing to get in contact with them via their phone number, I posted on their Facebook page and got a swift response (their social media / public relations manager is actually pretty good) on December 7 I received an email from their service department and on Jan 7 I received a replacement sidekick (one month turnaround - not very impressive but at least they replaced it). So get this, the replacement sidekick failed with the exact same problem. My 8 year old carries this clipped to his backpack, and when the battery died we plugged it in and the thing was dead. Light turns on when plugged in but will not hold a charge. Did a search on youtube and apparently I'm not the only one who's had this problem. Emailed surefire but at this point don't think I can trust this product, and don't really want to wait another 30 days for a replacement that will very likely die after its first charge. I'll probably just replace with a cheaper alternative, since this is the same or lesser quality and customer service. Reiterate my 1 star rating and would give 0 stars if I could. Surefire should discontinue or redesign this product as it does not live up to their brand. They also need to completely revamp their customer service - you shouldn't have to post publicly on social media to get a response.