For some reason I’ve always liked flashlights, I find them very useful and they can be very interesting items. I’ve got quite a few of them, numerous Maglites, big and small, a Streamlight and numerous others; It seems I can never have too many flashlights floating around. GizGeek has sent me their 14 LED Torch for review, (flashlight on this side of the ocean), and this thing is just amazing, the quality of it is excellent and I’ve found it to be extremely useful for many, many things. One of the best things about it is the price, this flashlight is very inexpensive, I wasn’t expecting much for the low price and I was truly shocked by just how nice this thing really is…
14 LED Torch from GizGeek
Reviewed by: Kristofer Brozio AkA Dracos
Sponsor: GizGeek
Tech Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
14 LED Torch from GizGeek
Description:
Water resistant aircraft grade aluminum
Shockproof
LED Color: Ultra bright white
Operation modes: End Cap Switch on/off
Compact and attractive design, small enough to fit in your pocket
Batteries: 3 x AAA
Dimensions: 95 x 31 mm
Weight: 68 gm
Color:
Black
Silver
Blue
Price: $7.00
A Better Look at Things
:
There’s nothing special in the way of packaging, the 14 LED Torch arrived in a plain white box, with the light itself wrapped in bubble wrap for protection.
I just can’t stress enough the excellent quality of this flashlight, you could throw the Maglite name on it and it could easily sell for much, much more than for what it’s selling at now. It’s basically made entirely out of aluminum, of course the lens is plastic, and there is a rubber button switch on the bottom and rubber non-slip grip on the handle. It does come with a small lanyard type attachment that I found a bit cheap feeling, but that can easily be replaced.
The LEDs are aligned with ten circling the outside and four in the center, this seems to work very effectively. The light itself is not focusable and set to a spot type beam, which I have no problem with, all my other lights are normally set to spot beams anyway.
One of my favorite and things I found most useful about this light is the button switch on the back, it just seems to work very well when your using this light. The light itself fits right in your hand, and if you turn it upside the button is right under your thumb making it very easy to push the button to turn it on and off. The button is easy to use, it pushes in and out easily and makes an audible click sound to let you know it’s working.
The light itself can be broken down into four main parts actually, but normally you’ll only need to concern yourself with three of those parts, the end cap where the switch is located, the main body and the battery casing. The fourth part would be the top where the lens and LEDS are located, there is really no need to take this part off. The end cap does have a rubber O-ring to prevent moisture or liquids from getting in the light, and the battery casing is mainly plastic, it houses the three AAA batteries that are needed to power the light.
Again I just have to stress that I was very surprised by the excellent quality of this light overall, it’s lightweight but yet solidly made.
Installation, Testing and Comparison
Inserting the batteries is easy, you saw the batteries installed in the casing on the last page, that just slides into the flashlight and you need to screw the end cap back on, no big deal, simple and easy to do.
For testing I waited till midnight, turned off all my lights, computer etc. These first two pics are of my workspace in the dark, you can faintly see the standby LEDs on my monitors and the glow in the dark keys of my Raptor-Gaming Keyboard.
These next few shots are closeup and from a distance, you can see that obviously the spotlight effect is much better at closeup, but yet it still will illuminate the area from a distance for you to see things easily. My camera doesn’t quite like the almost total darkness, so the last two pics are a bit fuzzy…
For the last picture I threw a few of the flashlights that I own next to the 14 LED from GizGeek to give you an idea of scale. The large silver light in the middle is a standard 3-D cell Maglite, with the smaller silver to its’ left being the 2-AA version, with the black light on the right being my Streamlight 20xp rechargeable. The 14 LED from GizGeek feels like it weighs exactly the same as the 2-AA Maglite actually, just to give you an idea of weight anyway….
I found the 14 LED Torch from GizGeek to be extremely useful, I’ve used it for various things already, being that it’s so small in size it makes the perfect light to use when working on a computer. I used to to see inside cases to clear my CMOS, to make sure I’ve got the SATA connectors going the right way and various other things that require precision lighting when the overhead room light just isn’t good enough to see details.
I’ve showed quite a few of my friends and they all were very impressed and just could not believe that it only cost $7 plus shipping, they expected it to cost 3-4 times more actually.
Battery life seems excellent, they are LEDs after all, I’ve used it numerous times over the past two weeks and it still shines like the first day I put the batteries in.
Summary:
Honestly this is just one great flashlight, it’s very well made, durable and bright. It’s extremely useful and just plain cool….
If you’re like me and like flashlights, or use them quite often for various tasks, then I suggest you do yourself a favor and get this flashlight, you won’t regret it!
DragonSteelMods gives the 14 LED Torch from GizGeek a 5 out of 5 score and our Editor’s Choice Award as well.
Pros:
-Excellent quality and construction
-Very inexpensive
-Water resistant, shockproof
-Very bright
-Useful
Cons:
-Lanyard is a bit cheap
I would like to thank for GizGeek the chance to review the 14 LED Torch and for their continued support of DSM.
review# 251