Originally Posted by
Chris Pringle
Excuse my ignorance, are "floody lights" the same thing as a "thrower"?
The flashlight I've been looking at is this
one with 1,200 lumens. It gets very high positive reviews. A reviewer, however, said the following:
Evidently, this light is not a thrower. If you're looking for one of those...look elsewhere. It throws usable light a little past 100 meters. If you need something that'll throw light out to 300 meters, look for something with a larger reflector or a smaller emitter.
What do you guys think?
Almost all XM-L lights have a good combination between flood and throw to make them excellent bike lights. They have bright hotspot with good spill. If you look at the beamshots of
this light, you should be able to see the difference. The very narrow beam is all throw. It will light up a small spot at a great distance. The wider beamshot doesn't look as bright because the light is is spread out over a wider angle. The P7 based lights have quite a bit wider beam than XM-L. The P7 wasted usable light at wider angles where it isn't useful to a bike rider.
That flashlight you linked to is typical of the XM-L lights. I can't comment on that specific light, other than to say it won't be 1200 lumens. Those Chinese lights all lie about the specs; if you are lucky, it will be 700 lumens. It's a crap shoot. You can read about all the cheapest lights over at budgetlightforum.com. The KD C8 has a lot of fans and is a known quantity; it will be similar to the DX light. I can get 1.5 hours on my KD C8 on high. I always have a spare battery in my seat pack.