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Black Friday/Cyber Monday - what are you buying?


wvu80

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I'm also looking for an LED flashlight for my soon-to-be son-in-law, so I searched Amazon for "flashlight."  Not Google mind you, Amazon; nearly a half MILLION results.  :blink:

 

I narrowed the search down to TACTICAL flashlights, which was very helpful.  Now I only have to choose between 70 THOUSAND results.  Not helpful.

 

I'm looking to spend around 15 to 30 bucks, just an around the house general purpose light, something 300-500 lumens, either 3 AAA battery or 4 battery (rechargeable OK) and looks cool.  B)

 

71gqG2aHaxL._SL1500_.jpg

 

http://www.amazon.com/OXYLED-Flashlight-Rechargeable-Batteries-Charger/dp/B00JE329YO/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1447470528&sr=8-16&keywords=flashlight+tactical

 

Any suggestions?

Edited by wvu80
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For a small LED flashlight--I bought 5 from Tractor Supply Company for 3 dollars each.

They have an aluminum body and man are they nice around the house.

They actually are better than my large 3 bulb LED lights.

These have 9 small LED's and take 3 AAA Batteries.

They fit nicely in the glove box too.

Edited by rebuy
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Stephen, I'm just curious, if you are going to purchase on-line, will you wait for Cyber Monday?

 

FYI I have a couple of Amazon purchase items in mind, but I'm not convinced waiting will get me a better price.

 I am lucky in that all of my nieces & nephews are old enough so that cash is king, so my shopping list is quite short. Something nice for the wife & I am done. My brother & I stopped exchanging gifts years ago, at my age what do I really need? I have enough booze & wine to last a nuclear winter, so I am good on that front.

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I'm also looking for an LED flashlight for my soon-to-be son-in-law, so I searched Amazon for "flashlight."  Not Google mind you, Amazon; nearly a half MILLION results.  :blink:

 

I narrowed the search down to TACTICAL flashlights, which was very helpful.  Now I only have to choose between 70 THOUSAND results.  Not helpful.

 

I'm looking to spend around 15 to 30 bucks, just an around the house general purpose light, something 300-500 lumens, either 3 AAA battery or 4 battery (rechargeable OK) and looks cool.  B)

Any suggestions?

For a cheap tactical light I'd be looking at Fenix. Sometimes you can find deals that are in your price range. That brand is respectable. Chinese LED technology has gotten the uber-cheap ones down to where they are surprisingly bright though. My dad has some of the cheap ones from Lowes and they're ridiculously bright. A few problems you'll find though:

1. The switches suck on super cheap lights. Like most all of them, the cheaper you go the worse the switch is. A lot of times you're paying for a better switch, not a better light output.

2. Sometimes to get away from cheap hard switches they'll use a programmable switch like where you just touch it to go through the different modes or turn it on or off. The problem with this is that it's kind of silly for a true tactical light, they can turn on or off when you don't want them too, or you can get in the wrong mode. A nice hard switch is best. I've thrown one in a hunting backpack and had the batteries drain, I've gotten in strobe mode accidentally in a night time 3-gun meet. For tac lights, simple is best.

3. Sometimes other things don't last as long, like the lens. They advertise as a tactical light, but use it on a rifle and you can break stuff. Makes no sense. Tactical nowadays more or less means black, LED, uses a smaller battery, and a push button switch. Like pretty much everything except Mag-Lites.

4. Sometimes lumens isn't everything. Cheaper lights have a way of using certain light wavelengths to boost the hell out of the lumens rating, but it is a piercing blue'ish light that is uncomfortable and doesn't show detail as much as other nicer lights. Like you can get a 200 lumen SureFire and you'd probably like it better than a 500 lumen cheaper Chinese one. I've seen 200 lumen lights plainly light up the woods on the edge of a field from 200 yards away so I wouldn't get too carried away on this number. More yellow light is more comfortable with long term use, some aren't bad but some are just piercing.

5. The best ones are going to use CR-123A batteries. Personally I wouldn't buy anything unless it uses these. Shelf life is longer, twice the voltage, and in a battery the life doesn't fade away as fast, they output pretty steadily until they're almost dead. Normal batteries don't do this. CR-123A, you know instantly when it's about dead, that's time to switch them out. Normal ones slowly fade, drives me crazy.

If you're not hung up on a scary looking one and for some old school goodness, Lowes typically puts Mag-Lites on sale on Black Friday, like every year. You can get a mini-mag with an LED for like $12. They are awesome Christmas presents and that brand isn't going anywhere, they last forever and parts like bulbs are easy to find if they don't. AA batteries are easy to find too, not everybody likes paying what I do for CR-123A's. If you really did want an around the house all purpose light, I'd look at something like this. Tooling around the house with a 500 lumen Chinese light would not exactly be very comfortable. If you can spend a little more and want something nicer I'd look at Fenix. Also look for a CREE bulb.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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I'm tempted to pull the trigger on a new TV this year. My Plasma is 5-6 years old and the PQ is still great, however I'd like to step up to a 65-70 inch. I've been doing a lot of browsing the last week or two. Intrigued tby the LG OLEDs but the only one in $2k or less is the 55" and I would really like to have a larger screen that that.

 

I purchased a Samsung 55" Curved LED 4k about 6 months ago and returned it 3 days later. IMO the PQ wasn't up to snuff with my plasma and the motion blur really pissed me off.

 

Kind of torn on what to go with. I've purchased nothing but Samsung's in the past but I'm a little intrigued with some of VIZIO's price offerings. I've seen multiple Black Friday ads where they will be offering their 65" 4K for $999. 

 

No Tv expert but I did alot of research and picked this Tv a couple of months ago, It's a Vizio 65", our last Tv lasted 10+ years so all this new technology was new to me.

 

No problems so far and it has a great picture and has everything much more expensive models have. Good luck

 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/vizio-m-series-65-class-65-diag--led-2160p-smart-4k-ultra-hd-tv-black/3858039.p?id=1219606085774&skuId=3858039

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For a small LED flashlight--I bought 5 from Tractor Supply Company for 3 dollars each. They have an aluminum body and man are they nice around the house.

 

I know which ones you mean, I have a bunch of those as well.  They fit into the palm of your had and are about $3 a piece almost everywhere, auto parts stores, etc.  I recently picked up a few cheapies for $1 each at Walmart as well, rubber covered, no packaging, there were a few thousand just piled into a shopping cart.  I put at least a couple in every glove box and around the house.  Like you said, they are very handy.

 

I have my favorite, 3-AAA battery, much brighter, all stainless with a knurled barrel, and it has a nice heft or feel to it.  I think I picked mine up in Sam's Club, but there are much nicer lights out there available on-line for much less.  I just didn't realize when I went to shop for a flashlight on-line there were tens of thousands of choices!

Edited by wvu80
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I recently picked up a few cheapies for $1 each at Walmart as well, rubber covered, no packaging, there were a few thousand just piled into a shopping cart.  I put at least a couple in every glove box and around the house.  Like you said, they are very handy.

 

They are handy, not the brightest but handy. I stuck one in the camera bag. Kind of been looking at the better flashlights but some can get expensive fast. 

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Apparently at Best Buy you can get a 40" Samsung, XBox One, and the Lego game, all for $500. Got a 49" Toshiba for $149 as well. Still 60 hz, but, crap.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba-49-class-48-5-diag--led-1080p-hdtv-black/7437034.p?id=1219682850718&skuId=7437034

This guy will be $800.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=4563904&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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