Recommend me a flashlight, here are my factors

This is gonna be my first “real flashlight,” what I had before was whatever I grabbed from the hardware store at I think 300-somehting lumens. After losing it, I decided to get something (much) better, and now I’ve been tumbling down the rabbit hole for the last few days learning about flashlights. Any one of the hundreds of options out there are leaps and bounds better than what I’m used to, yet the more little details I learn about, the pickier I get in what exactly will suit me best. I have never experienced most of these details in play, but these are my thoughts from imagining them in usage.

My use case is for preflighting airliners at night, and I know some of you guys are out there. So here’s the factors driving my decision, in no real order:

– EDC-sized form factor, that will live in my flight bag and fit in my pocket for short periods of time.

– Non-turbo High regulated well, so the output stays the same over a long time. This is not practically important, but the notion of it gradually falling off bothers me at a gut level. Seems like most flashlights have this at around 700-1000 lumens. I’d like to know that I will turn it on and it will stay rock solid until I finish the walkaround, multiple times until I recharge it.

– Bright turbo. I have no actual need for this, but it would sure feel nice to just \*know\* that it’s there, to be able to amuse myself with my little pocket sun, and occasionally impress others. I wanna reach, for a fleeting moment, the pinnacle of flashlight life of someone commenting about it and asking to try it out, yaknow? Seems like 4000-5000 is the max of what’s out there for this, excepting the Imalent MS03

– Good lockout system (usable with minimal fiddling around), since the button getting accidentally pressed in my flight bag will be a huge possibility.

– Back instead of side button, also for the above reason (there’s a nice slot where it will stay upright).

– shortcut to moonlight or low, so I can immediately turn on and look around a cold and dark cockpit without having to cycle through High and blind myself, or have to be disciplined to set it to low/moonlight before turning it off every time.

– be able to cycle backward through settings. I realize very few flashlights have this. I don’t know if this is actually a thing to worry about, but I’m thinking of a super bright spot reflecting off white metal at night, blinding me or at least annoying me. So changing settings quickly and often, \*might\* be a factor.

– floody beam, so I can look around the plane without spastically waving the spot around. (By the way I was very surprised that none of the flashlights in this arena have adjustable focus)

I’ve settled on two front runners, but first a note on the one I eliminated: the Imalent MS03. This 13000 lumen monster caught my attention, to where even “Middle I” would probably be my main setting. Verging on a little too big diameter, but not a huge deal. But if my worry is correct about too-close white airplane reflecting too brightly, and I’ll need to change the settings very often, on this flashlight I’d have to cycle forward through all the settings, and this turned me off.

So, I’m between the Nitecore EDC35 and Olight Seeker 4 Pro.

Nitecore EDC35: I like that it’s got a 2-stage tail button (with a separate lockout slider), and it’s simple to use. If I forget to set the lockout, there’s very little chance the back button gets accidentally pressed.

What I DON’T like stems from, well, that it’s simple to use. There is no shortcut to moonlight, so before turning it off I’ll have to set it to that setting every time. If it wasn’t for this, I would be able to live with the rest of the modes only being able to cycle forward. I’d only use moonlight (with the option to cycle forward on the rare occasion I’d need the next higher low setting) from the shortcut, and High from the memorized setting at turn-on. But there IS this, and with it all the extra fiddling to avoid getting blinded at turn-on in a dark cockpit.

Also on High, there’s the gradual stepdown over a 10 minute from 1300 to 700 lumens according to the TGReviews test https://tgreviews.com/2024/06/02/nitecore-edc35/#runtime.

Olight Seeker 4 Pro: It nails almost every one of my criteria above. I was initially worried about the fiddliness of the lockout, but it seems OK after more thought. A quarter turn of the wheel and it’s ready to go. The only quicker one I can think of is the Nitecore above. Most other flashlights, you have to triple click the button or something like that. And once on, the wheel gives me instant and often adjustment of the brightness (in both directions!), the main thing I realize I’ve been banging on about (I didn’t’ realize this was so important to me until writing about it now). Once I turn it off, there is auto-lockout after 10 seconds, which I realize a lot of people would be turned off by, but it seems perfect for my use case.

This, combined with rock solid 1000 lumens for over 2 hours (https://tgreviews.com/2023/09/18/olight-seeker-4-pro/#runtime), makes it seem like the top choice.

During most of my exploration so far, I have had this low-level background dislike for the Olight for some reason I can not put my finger on. Maybe it stems from the side instead of back button, but any amount of conscious thought says that is OK. Given that the button is not recessed and is the same assembly as the wheel, it is almost certain that it gets pressed in my bag. So I’m relying on the lockout, and it seems very unlikely that the wheel gets accidentally turned a quarter turn. And even if it does, 10 more seconds of inactivity locks it out again.

Every new flashlight I read about, I keep coming back to the Olight as the front runner, despite the bit of hesitation over reliance on the lockout.

What are your thoughts? Any other flashlights I should consider with respect to my criteria above? Any aspects of the Nitecore and the Olight (or even the Imalent) that I haven’t thought about, that I should?

Thanks.

by Vessbot