Light

I bought a new flashlight yesterday. It's a Nebo Redline. I wanted a brighter flashlight for work than the one they issued me, so I've been looking.

For a strictly pocket EDC flashlight it's a little bulky, but for a duty light, it's a great size. It has a 10% setting, 50% setting, 100% setting, as well as strobe and sos functions. These are all accessed by a ring on the base, so you don't have to toggle through using the tail switch. You can operate the settings while keeping the beam pointed where you want it, and do this one handed easily. At highest output, it give 310 lumens, and man is it BRIGHT. You can also focus the beam to put bright, 1-foot illumination at 15 feet, or give a wide, spotlight effect. This can be accomplished 1 handed, but requires a shifted grip and a lot of dexterity. It is much easier to do with 2 hands. In the 2 pictures above, you see my shower curtain, one illuminated with the tight beam, and one with the wide-angle.  My bathroom has no windows, and the flash on my camera was turned off. Even these pictures don't justify how bright this light is.

It runs on 3 AAA batteries, and at 100% illumination, has a 2 hour run time. I haven't had it on for 2 hours yet, so I don't know the validity of that. It comes with a pocket clip, but as I said, it would be a bit bulky in jeans. In kakhis or tactical pants, this is no problem, though. It also comes with extra batteries and a lanyard, although it is a smallish lanyard, and seems to have little practical use.

The body is made of aircraft grade aluminum, and honestly seems a bit over-engineered. It seems as if it could withstand a drop from an airplane, but I'm reserving judgement until I've carried it for a few months. The packaging was heavy-duty as well, and also seemed a bit over engineered. Oh, yeah... the base is magnetic, too, so you can stick it to the underside of a car hood or whatnot while working on your engine. I cool feature, certainly, but maybe a bit excessive. The tail switch is luminous rubber, so you can see a faint green dot in a darkened room before you activate it.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this light. It is insanely bright, is generally easy to operate 1-handed, takes batteries that are common, and seems very solid. For $40, it seems like a great deal, and functions as advertised. I'll use it for a few months, and give an update.

As a side note, I bought it at a local sporting goods store, Security Sporting Goods, and they let me take several of their lights into a store room wit the lights turned off to test them. They also let me disassemble them on the counter, to look at the innards. It's hard to beat service like that.