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Reviewer's
Impressions:
The Lightwave Pocket-Bright is a handy little pocket light
with an exceptionally long life on a set of batteries. Unfortunately
it has a couple of characteristics which could be considered
problematical.
The light output is good, although not as good as a Photon
or an Arc-AAA. This is probably due to the regulator circuit
which extends the life of the LED at the expense of some brightness
initially. The long life of the light gives it a good potential
for use in situations where one might use an Infinity light
- camping, spelunking backup light, etc.
The battery change is pretty simple, but I found that I needed
to use a knife blade to remove the back of the light after
unlocking it with a coin. Banging the light to remove the
batteries (as instructed) did not remove them, but again,
a small knife blade did the trick.
The on-off switch is pressure sensitive with no feedback.
Press once and the light is on, press a second time and it
turns off. Although this may seem very convenient, especially
compared to "squeeze lights" where you need to keep
pressure on the light switch to keep it on, there could be
problems with this design. If the light turns on in your pocket
or in your luggage/backpack due to pressure being applied
to the switch, it will stay on. There goes your battery life!
The Eternalight and the Photon 3, with their pressure switches
take care of this by having the light turn on in "timed"
mode initially, turning off after a few minutes automatically.
It would be nice to see this feature added to the Pocket-Bright.
The switch pressure sensitive area is recessed a little bit,
but this provides little protection from keys, gear, etc.
The light is pretty tough and was able to handle being tossed
about, stepped on, dropped, etc, with only minor marring of
the case.
In general, it's about as thick as 2 stacked Photons, making
it a bit bulky for a pocket, but not excessive. The LED is
recessed in a rectangular opening in the front of the light
giving it an odd rectangular spillbeam. This does not diminish
from its usefulness whatsoever, and in fact, it's nice to
have the otherwise wasted side light project forward to the
area you are trying to illuminate..
+ + + Pluses: Long battery life, easy battery change,
watertight, comes with nice accessories
- - - Minuses: a bit dim compared to other pocket
lights, a bit bulky, accidental turn on in pack/pocket possible
with the result of the batteries becoming depleted
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