I just got mine. Overall grade 4 stars from 5, good value, I will buy a few more. Remarks:
1) It was a big pain in the neck to get the lanyard through the two holes. I ended up prying out the switch boot in order to more easily push the lanyard through the 2nd hole from the inside with a SAK tweezer. Then I had to take the switch apart to get the boot back in. I guess disassembling the switch is the right way to change the boot, too.
2) I did have some contact problems with either the switch or the head end. Disassembling/reassembling/tightening stuff fixed it. I notice the + contact is just a circle on a PC board, not even a solder bump. I will probably add a contact disc. I wonder how reliable the switch will be after it's been used for a while. It doesn't seem like that great a switch.
3) I don't have any clue how to get the head apart but for now I don't have a big desire to do that. Short of completely replacing the electronics I don't see what improvements are worth making.
4) Beam is nice, spill is nice but could be a bit wider. Color is neutral, maybe slightly blue. Donut hole is gone once the light is a few inches from the wall.
5) The finish doesn't seem ultra durable. The box indicates there's a silver version made and I think I'd like to buy that version for xmas gifts.
6) The light comes with spare O-rings and switch boot. That's thoughtful of the manufacturer but who's going to remember where they're stored by the time they're needed? With this talk of 50,000 hour LED's eliminating bulb replacements, manufacturers should look for ways to make lights that don't need any other maintenance parts either.
7) The gift box packaging isn't bad but doesn't scream quality the way that Longbow packaging did.
8) Actually this light is in some ways what a Longbow should have been, and I'd like to see a Longbow version (better construction and packaging, at higher price if needed).
9) Light has been running (on NiMH) for about 9 minutes in front of me and is only very slightly warm, compared with Arc LS which was quite warm after running this long at about the same power level(?). I think the LED and thermal system could handle more power. The limiting factor is probably what you can draw from an alkaline AA cell for any length of time. But I'd like for this thing to have tighter regulation (different electronics) to keep running at full power on an alkaline AA for longer. It's ok if it kills the cell in 1 hour, especially if there's a 2 stage switch that allows still getting some operation on low power afterwards.
10) after 15 minutes total the light has warmed up a bit more, still not much.
11) I'm not that crazy about the digicam lanyard and I'd have preferred a different lanyard setup, I'm not sure what's ideal.
Overall this is a terrific form factor and it's amazing that other lights haven't used it. The execution is pretty good but I'd like to see some better ones.
