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Reviewer's
Impressions:
I'm sorry to say that my impressions from this light were
not good at all.
The light produced by this product is rather good. The beam
pictures show a tight spot with a very large spillbeam. This
is great for lighting up a room while still focusing the spot
at a particular item. The spot itself has some distracting
little rings that almost look like a contour map of a mountain.
The spillbeam is a swirly looking thing like a satellite photograph
of a hurricane. For a smooth reflector it does do a good job,
though, of keeping away the heavy distracting rings seen in
many smooth reflector lights.
The CCFT takes about 10-15 seconds to warm up, but once
it does it is very bright. This is by far the best part of
the light. It creates a nice soft room-lighting glow.
The base of the light is where I have the most issues. First
of all, we know you're supposed to stand the light upright
on the base because it has 3 little feet molded into the plastic.
The base is just too narrow for the light to be stable in
an upright position. The slightest tap and over it goes. So
we get clever and flip the light over, resting it on its
bezel. This is just as bad. Now the batteries are up in the
air, making the light top-heavy. Tap it and over it goes again!
The base is also the focus of the battery changes. To open,
press down and slide. Nice idea but I have trouble opening
and closing it due to the fact that it is narrow and slippery
plastic with no gripping ridges. I have to put an inordinate
amount of force on the base to slide it closed. Got arthritis?
Forget it. Weak hands? No chance. If you try to place it on
a level surface to get more force, the light skitters out
of your grasp because the bezel is angled and you can't press
straight down with the bezel flat - you're pressing down at
an angle. When you finally do succeed in closing the base
on the batteries it makes a sickening plastic-cracking type
"snap". The retaining clip that holds the base cover
in position is tiny and I wouldn't trust it for too many open-close
cycles. Sooner or later it'll probably snap off leaving you
with a light that won't close and therefore won't work.
The switch is quite small and has a rather light touch. Pressing
the switch forward activates the incandescent portion of the
light. Backwards and the fluorescent light comes on. Off is
in the middle. As a result, when you try to turn off the spotlight,
the switch frequently slides right past the off postion and
you accidentally activate the CCFT. This seems to happen almost
every time I use the light.
The overall design of the light appears "shoddy".
Fit and finish is poor. The seams display wide gaps. It has
the feel of a cheap plastic toy car. For being advertised
as a "premium" light on their website - the only
"premium" thing about it is the price. It looks
like they took a rather expensive component - the CCFT and
its driver circuitry - and placed it in a very poorly constructed
(read: cheap) light in order to keep the price at a reasonable
level.
(Rating updated April 2003 to reflect ongoing testing
and update to rating system.)
+ + + Pluses: Bright incandescent beam with large
spillbeam, very nice CCFT
- - - Minuses: Poor construction, poor switch, not
water resistant, fragile battery compartment catch
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