Hey,

My current light is MagicShine MS-900, it's a little over a year old. The battery issue has bothered me although it still works reasonably well (I never bothered to return the battery due to rumors of major delays and general laziness)....burn time has dropped some but I suppose that's normal.

Anyway, I am looking for something that will be about as bright (or even brighter) as the MagicShine but more reliable. I do prefer a handlebar mount.

Budget is ideally approx $100 US or not too much over. That said, if there is a fantastic product that is more like $130-140 I would consider it.

I am leaning towards the Lezyne Super Drive. It seems pretty solid, is self-contained, and has an easily replaceable battery.

However I am open to other suggestions.

Thanks!

I'm doing research for my first light. The Super Drive does not seem to be regulated, so the intensity drops off over time. That's what killed it for me. You could look at XM-L flashlights if you want easily replaceable batteries.

If the MagicShine is still working, you could just get a new battery for it. You might be able to do an exchange? check geomangear, I believe he's been sending out new batteries using good cells. If the lighthead fails, you can just buy a new one by itself. You'd want to confirm, but I think it is compatible with the Gemini Xera (new, XM-L led) and Titan (MagicShine clone, in both P7 and newer XM-L) as well.

The magicshine/titan have aftermarket lenses to change the field of light. The Xera also has a reflector available (instead of the optic) for a wider spill.

Thanks....I am not tech-savvy enough to know how much of a negative the lack of regulation is.

Any other suggestions from the other enLIGHTened members of the forum?

Has anyone tried these battery packs for magicshine, like OP, my loaner light battery is just about dead..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/6400mAh-8-4v...item1c22235705

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Led-Lamp-640...item35b7b749f2

Some good reviews here: https://reviews.mtbr.com/2011-bike-lights-shootout

I have a Xera, and it's plenty bright. The drawback is it really does have to be charged every night after a 40-min commute each way -- it seems to have about 120-150 mins of juice, and when it starts to tail off (the light itself flashes), I get about ten mins at the low setting. I continue to rely on my Fenix knock-off, which I have mounted on my handlebars.
As I tried to investigate whether this was expected life or not, I got sort of middling support from Gemini, which is run by a college student in British Columbia. I was delighted by the support I got from Jim at Action LED, where I bought the light. He seems to really know his stuff, and he went out of his way to answer my questions and make me happy.