Flashlight Collection Update 2019!

I've gotta admit, these days I'm getting much more usage out of my flashlights than my knives. Light is just one of those things you can't easily replicate unless you're some sort of wizard. If it's pitch black out, you're screwed unless you've got some sort of light source on you. I use my knives mainly to open mail/packages which you can usually end up ripping open if you had to. If I could truly only carry one thing everyday, it'd hands down be a flashlight. Because of my increased usage over the past year or so, I've spent more time researching lights and expanding my collection. The majority of the newer additions have been very generous gifts, so huge thank you to those that sent them my way! Here's the current state of my collection with maybe a few random ones missing. It's almost as big as my knife collection if you saw that post a few weeks ago with 16 lights in this photo. I expect it to a change a bit by the end of the summer so I can try out a few others that have been on my list to try. I also just realized I left out my headlamp which is one of my favorite lights I own. Nothing beats having hands-free lighting. Let's get into it!

Something that surprised me when I was getting all these together was how colorful my collection is. It's kind of neat because I've got three purple ones, three blue ones, three black ones, and three green ones. That's a nice symmetry that I didn't intend to happen. I've complained for years that the standard black flashlights are so boring and thought my collection would closely reflect that market. It goes to show that companies could easily make more colorful lights if they tried. These days, I'm not going to buy a flashlight if it only comes in black. Colorful lights are much easier to see in the dark and are more fun for me to carry. Anyways, sorry for the tangent there, back to the lights.

Starting on the left side and going down is the Eagle Eye X2R, Convoy S2+, FourSevens Classic Preon P2, an Ultratac that I don't know the model of, Utorch UT01, Streamlight Microstream, and Thrunite T01. The top 2 are both 18650 lights and are extremely bright. They're not lights I'd carry on my person but could easily throw in my bag if I knew I'd need something brighter. The Preons are my favorite lights of all time, and while I don't carry the P2 that much because of the longer size, the neon green is one of the coolest colors. FourSevens did a great job making the colors pop and stand out. The rest are ones that I don't use too frequently in my EDC. I have a few of the Ultratacs scattered around my apartment and in various bags as backups. The Microstream is a classic light that maybe doesn't stand up to the higher end flashlight tech available now. I love the simple design and rubber tail cap and am hoping to upgrade to the USB rechargeable version near the end of the summer.

The right side is filled with the flashlights I rotate through the most. I've got the Lumintop Tool AA, Astrolux A01, Olight i3e, Maglight Solitaire, FourSevens Updated Preon P1, Foursevens Classic Preon P1, Singfire SF-348, Spotlight Speck, and Nitecore Tube. Of this bunch, I pretty much love all of these lights. The most used have been the Preons, Lumintop, i3e, Singfire, and Tube. The Tube and i3e are some of the best values at $10 or less. I'm currently carried the Lumintop because I love the purple and green tail cap combo. So there you have it, that's my flashlight collection as of 2019. I'm happy with where it's at and feel like I have a great variety of lights. I know I didn't go to in-depth on any of these, so be sure to check out the Gear Thoughts tab if there's any you'd like to hear more about. I have a large majority of them covered there but not all of them yet. Thanks for looking!