I'm kind of a flashlight nut. Why? I'm not really sure. I'm not afraid of the dark. I guess I just like the sight of a bright beam of light illuminating things where darkness should prevail. I have been a flashaholic for several years now and have accumulated some knowledge that some may find useful. I will try to be fairly brief as I could probably write a quite lengthy book about flashlights. I am fairly knowledgeable, but I would not consider myself one of the ultimate experts in lights. There are some folks who I will mention later that test hundreds of lights (with lightmeters and a miriad of other tests) on hundreds of flashlights in their spare time and have websites with their results.

I have personally tested (and own) 50+ flashlights but have the use of their website to narrow my search down to the categories that best suit my needs.

In short, there are many types of flashlights bulbs including (incandescent, xenon, led, etc) powered by many types of batteries (alkaline, lithium, rechargeables).

Incandescent bulb flashlights are old technology, but are still the main bulbs powering most flashlights today (ie maglites). The bulbs are easily breakable and drain batteries dry very quickly because of the loss of energy through heat that the incandescent bulb produces.

Xenon bulbs are some of the most powerful bulbs on the market today and many xenon powered flashlights have to be powered by higher voltage batteries (like expensive lithium cr123 batteries) or specialty high voltage rechargeables just to run them. They are fairly durable but can break upon impact between your flashlight and a hard surface. All of these xenon lights start out very bright but diminish rapidly. Most have a runtime of just a few minutes before reaching just 75% of original brightness. I like some of these flashlights for their superior brightness, but I do not like their low runtimes.

Led bulbs are some of the newest technology bulbs on the flashlight market today. Led's have been around for several years, mainly serving as background lights for electronic devices. Most led flashlights use a low powered led or a combination of many low powered led's to produce a very bright (to look at light) but the light does not project very far. These low powered led's use very little power, so they can run for very extended times even with small watch batteries powering them. They also will not shatter like ordinary bulbs and have a lifetime of several thousand hours (compared to a few hundred hours for Incandescent and Xenon).

Now for my favorite flashlights, The newest technology bulbs on the market today- The Luxeon and Cree high output led bulbs. These ultra high powered leds are virtually unbreakable, do not burn out and do not need to be replaced for virtually the life of the flashlight. And the genuine Luxeon bulbs are made here in the USA! I didn't know we made anything here anymore! Beware of imitators though, many flashlights sold here on E-bay advertise themselves as Luxeon and are actually cheap imitations made in Korea or China. These Chinese "Luxeon" flashlights are inexpensive, but trust me, you get what you pay for. I've bought a few, some did not work, some were just OK and most were cheaply made. However, some are very good. Just remember, you usually get what you pay for.

Cree is a US based company that has thier bulbs manufactured overseas. In doing so, they have been able to produce a very high quality, very high powered led that is actually affordable to everyone. Luxeons were once very expensive but they have come down in price since the Cree's came out.

Most high powered led flashlights (like the Crees and Luxeons) have good output (espescially the higher 3-5 watt lLuxeons or Crees) but have only a decent runtime because of the energy required to run the high powered led's.

But there are some Luxeon and Cree powered lights that have regulated output to make them have runtimes of several hours at nearly 100% of original brightness! These are my favorites! I have several varieties of these Luxeon and Cree lights and they are great! They run on normal alkalines or rechargble batteries AAA, AA, C or D. Some higher powered one's run on CR123's or specialty rechargeables. Some are almost as bright as the xenon bulbs and last a very long time! And the Luxeon and Cree bulbs will probably last the life of your flashlight without burning out or breaking. A couple of my favorites are the Fenix (with a Cree led), Streamlight Luxeon Propolymers or I've actually found some Ultrafire Cree based flashlights to be very good. Some of the Chinese and Hong Kong Cree and Luxeon lights are good too. Just look at the detailed feedback for some of these overseas companies and you can get an idea about their quality. The Cree and Luxeon lights are not outrageously high priced, run on normal batteries, are very bright and are very durable. What more can you ask for?

Now if that was not enough info for you to swallow, check out flashlightreviews.com (a not for profit) website that shows detailed tests of hundreds of flashlights. I have spent many hours there researching lights. Although they are not updating or testing the newest flashlights anymore, you can still reseach hundreds of flashlights there.

Another good source is Candlepowerforums.com.

Hope this helps!!!!