Chinese 7w CREE LED Torch- any good?

[troutman]

Good evening all!

I've been looking at these on ebay and amazon, they seem to retail for around £7-14. Does anyone have one or know if they are any good?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400LM-Alu...rnsTorches&hash=item2c673ec428#ht_4418wt_1397

There's also a similar version on amazon for around £14, which has some good reviews. I'm after a high powered cheap torch for work, what do you think?
Troutman

 

[sasquatch]

I recently bought a Chinese torch for my rifle, £12.88 delivered with a mount and pressure thumb switch and a normal torch cap. It even had 2 CR123 rechargable batteries ready to go. Normally I'd pay more and buy it here but I took a punt and I'm really happy with it. 300 lumens and perfect for an air rifle. Makes my other torches look crap in the dark!

 

[steve75]

Maglite all the way for me. People at work have the Chinese cree torches and are impressed with them. But after 20years of faultless service im not ready to retire the mags.

 

[Outdoordude]

Look on deal extreme at the torches. You have loads of reviews to look at. They have loads of other stuff as well all at good prices.

 

[maddave]

Look on deal extreme at the torches. You have loads of reviews to look at. They have loads of other stuff as well all at good prices.

What he said.... I have a couple of AA cree's from DX and they rock !!

 

[cbr6fs]

Might be worth doing a search as we've had similar threads very recently.

To sum up my responses to those threads, i've had very mixed results with cheapo Chinese torches.
Some have been ok, others terrible bordering on dangerous.

As the vast vast amount of these cheapo torches are blatant rip off's a lot depends on which generation rip off they are.
If it's a first generation copy then they tend not to be too bad.

The problems start when you start getting a copy of a copy of a copy, as it inevitably gets worse with each incarnation.

As you can buy damn decent torches very reasonably priced these days from manufacturers like say Fenix, i no longer bother with the rip off's, my thinking being if we all bought these rip off's the original manufacturers would go out of business so there would be no more new designs as these companies sure as hell won't put money into research and design.

So speaking as someone that tends to buy a fair few torches, i'd advise to invest a bit more money and go for a known brand with a decent quality control, after sales service and warranty.

 

[Outdoordude]

What he said.... I have a couple of AA cree's from DX and they rock !!

Could I have a link please. I want a small torch i can put in the glovebox.

 

[Adze]

I bought one of these after seeing a link on the forum a while back:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-Min...ing_LightsLanternsTorches&hash=item19d48b33ba

At £1.59 (including postage) I wasn't expecting much, but it's actually not a bad little torch to hang on a key ring / leave in the glovebox.

 

[troutman]

Thanks chaps, I've looked at the previous threads but posted this as I wanted to know if anyone had used this particular torch. As for these brands ripping off the big companies, I think there will always be the big companies as lets face it these cheaper torches will fail in some way at some point. Plus, look at the customer base for Led lenser etc, most are loyal and won't move onto "cheapo" torches.

Who knows maybe these cheaper companies (if they can offer a very good alternative) may force the expensive brands to bring their prices down. I say this because although good quality, it costs only a fraction of the retail price to make, market and sell these expensive brands. I would be interested to see how much they make a Led lenser P7 for!

 

[oldtimer]

I bought one of these after seeing a link on the forum a while back:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-Min...ing_LightsLanternsTorches&hash=item19d48b33ba

At £1.59 (including postage) I wasn't expecting much, but it's actually not a bad little torch to hang on a key ring / leave in the glovebox.

Yes, I bought one too hoping for a key ring size but it turned out to be too big. I was very surprised at the quality for the price. Its a glove-box torch at the moment as I know I can rely on the maglitein my pack that I've used for years. Being a country dweller, I always have a key-ring torch with me. The best I've had is the Energiser- powerful,light, long-lasting and there.

 

[rik_uk3]

Bear in mind that a lot of the more expensive torches are more than likely made in the same factory as the cheaper ones.

I had problems with the £9 Tesco cree but after changing it its proved to be very good with excellent build quality and output... made in China like most torches these days.

DX cree
http://dx.com/s/cree.html?category=931

Tesco
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=270576285

 

[cbr6fs]

Bear in mind that a lot of the more expensive torches are more than likely made in the same factory as the cheaper ones.

Sorry mate but i have to call BS on this.

The copies i've personally handled had poor machining, cheap materials and far cheaper electronics.
Even the battery cages were rubbish and made of rubbish materials.

So it does beg the question, if they are produced on different machines, with different materials, using different internals it's highly unlikely they are produced by the same factory.

It's not like the factory will have a machine shop with good machines and experienced workers and another shop with poor machines and run by monkeys.


I have bought copies of torches i already owned the original of, sometimes i don't want to leave a £200 torch in my car or at work, or i'm just plain curious.
In all cases though i've binned the copies they were THAT bad.

This is specifically copies i'm talking about here, there are no doubt some ok cheap torches out there, that if you have low enough expectations and very little experience with quality torches you MAY be fairly happy with.


For NiMh based torches to be honest i'd probably take a gamble as pretty much the worse case scenario is the torch simply stops working.

With torches using Lithium based cells/batteries though personally i don't think it's worth the risk.
I'd feel a bit of a twonk if i burnt my car, workshop, home to a shell to save £20.

 

[rik_uk3]

Another worth having
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5W-CREE-L...ing_LightsLanternsTorches&hash=item1e731d2b83
I got two after they were reccomended here a few months ago, very bright and very good battery life.