Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
Well lets ponder this logically, If Mars 4 uses a ultrabright 1 watt bulb and the Cateye uses bulbs less then 1 watt total how is that going to be brighter then 1 watt? And neither would be brighter then 2 watts, so why spend the money for either if the Cygolite is the brightest of the 3?
It would be interesting to see a You Tube video on the Cateye and compare it with the Mars 4 but so far it's not available.
Keep in mind that the wattage rating isn't the last word. Take a 1-watt LED from three years ago, and a 1-watt LED from the latest generation. The new ones put out much more light per watt. Equally important: how is the light dispersed, is the flash pattern good at grabbing the viewer's attention, and is the LED actually being
driven at the rated wattage or not.
This is where some hands-on testing and observation can give surprising results... for example, the classic SuperFlash has a good attention-grabbing pattern and even though its main emitter only fires in very brief bursts, they're very strong. Compare it against a Princeton Tec Swerve, which has two 1/2-watt LEDs (twice as good, right?) but uses them in a lame fashion: