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Warning: This post is a sure sign of my of geekness…if you find yourself interested in the post, you may be in danger of becoming a geek yourself.

Ok, with that out of the way…I have a few serious infatuations…sure I love all kinds of tech, but that’s so broad and ever changing. Beyond my general interest in computers, gadgets, and multimedia, there are a handful of things that I just like to look at, no matter how many I already have, or how many times I’ve looked before. One of those is pens, which I’ve mentioned in prior posts, but the one I want to mention this time around is flashlights. That’s right…flashlights.

I know you may be saying, how can that even be interesting at all!? Well…like everything else, technology is really changing the flashlight world. LED’s have taken over the market and made battery life last for hours when it once lasted minutes. Sure, LED’s aren’t generally the brightest, but they last and they get the job done. Well…there’s more good news from the LED tech…they’re getting brighter. In fact, a lot of the LED lights on the market are surpassing their incandescent counterparts.

So, here’s a little personal history…about 6-7 years ago at a family reunion a cousin pulled out this little tiny flashlight a “Princeton Tec Blast“…it took 2 AAA batteries and was nearly as bright as a 3D Maglite. A few days later, I had one…it was small, durable, bright, and had an OK battery life. I thought it was the end all flashlight…until I went to work in the theater biz. Backstage is pretty dark and in order to direct traffic backstage a lot of the crew used these Scorpion Streamlights. These are about the size of a common AA Maglite, but much, much brighter. In fact, the brightest flashlight I had seen…the only downfall was the battery life-50-60 minutes max. And not only that, but they use these CR123 batteries, which can cost as much as $15 a pair…so I never busted out the bucks for one of those.

So…fast forward to today…I was browsing through walmart or target and happened upon the flashlight section and my fascination was piqued again. I nearly bought a generic scorpion-type light but decided that like all things, i should do some research first and make sure it was a decent light in comparison to the others out there. Well…turns out it was an ok light, but while in process i found “THE light”.

Are you ready for this…

it’s a… “Fenix P3D CE“.

Whew. It just sounds tough doesn’t it!? Ok, ok…maybe not. And maybe I’m way too excited about a flashlight…but I just think it’s really cool. It’s LED based, takes two CR123 batteries (which have since dropped in price to $1-2 each)…and is smaller than a AA Maglite. Not only that, it’s also 80% brighter than a Scorpion Streamlight and the battery lasts almost 2 full hours (on high)! To put things in perspective, this site, Flashlight Reviews, has reviewed over 750 lights…and there are only 23 that are brighter than this one…and most of those are twice the price and about 20 times the size!

I know, I know…why do you need all that light? i don’t know…i’m sure there are other lights that would get the job done…but isn’t it nice to know that you have one of the brightest, most durable, lights in a nice little tight package that you can carry anywhere, right? Well, I sure think so. It is pricey, I will warn you, but in comparison to the competition, it’s a pretty good deal.

Anyway… that’s enough of my geekiness for one day I guess. I’ll try to post an update/review once I find the cash to buy one of these little things.