why did they have to make it look so ugly? I will stay with my modified NH..
What do you find so ugly ? The heat sink fins ? If that's the case, if you want good ballast, igniter and battery life, excessive heat is the killer.
It is a fundamental engineering design and heat management necessity to have enough total surface area. Fins are the most effective way to dissipate the heat produced by the bulb and ballast.
Lights such as the Polarion PH-50 have had heat management issues, many comments on the forums over the years have mentioned this. So much so, they can sometimes "burn" your hand on the head (not just the glass lens), if you touch the metal during and immediately after a long run time period.
That light is only a 30/45 or 50 watt light of 4500 max lumens. 4500 lumens as they specify would likely indicate 45 watts to the bulb, and 50 watts input to the ballast.
The XV-LX70 does not share this issue of heat management with other lights, only the front lens gets too hot to handle or touch.
The XeVision/Lemax lights are not toys, the beauty is in the functionality and performance. This light was not designed as a "garage queen", its meant to be used often and in the harshest of conditions.
There is no light currently on the market that can come close to the refined and very practical performance capability of the XV-LX70. 50 watts to the bulb (5300 bulb lumens) at the lower setting and 70 watts to the bulb (7500+ lumens) at the higher dual output setting.
As for ~100 watts, there is currently no suitable (Xenon/metal halide hybrid)
high quality bulb in production that can provide substantial instant on performance.
Most users (buyers) of these kinds of searchlights don't want to or can't wait 20 seconds to a minute before the light is ready. The XV-LX70 as it stands would be preferred to that.
Then there is the battery run time issue. The goal is to find a suitable balance between run time on a single battery and performance. This also includes the weight factor.
It is our opinion and i believe many if not most here would agree, the XV-LX70 has found that balance for the vast majority of users and applications.
The additional weight and size of the superpower variant in our opinion, is for very specialized applications where any of these or all of them (weight, size, ergonomic balance and waterproof depth) are not significant factors.