- Joined
- Jun 8, 2000
- Messages
- 3,140
My wife rocks. She scored for me again for my birthday a couple days ago and bought me a Streamlight Twin Task flashlight. Like many here, I'm a light geek as well as a knife geek, gun nut computer geek, well, you get the idea. Anyway, I already have some nice lights like the Surefire L4 the bought me for Christmas and a couple others, but all were either incandescent or LED. I didn't have a twin source light. Now I do. I'd kind of looked at the Surefire Aviator, but it's too bulky to EDC in my pocket for me, and at the same time, too expensive to be a secondary light. The L4 is my EDC and I have a high level of confidence in it so it's what I take whenever I leave the house for more than walking the dog in the evening. It's awesome, small bright and reliable.
I generally use other lights when I'm around the house or walking the dog in the evening. The Inova X5 is bright enough for most tasks, but once in a while I'd like a brighter light. The Surefire M3 w/ KL2 head is kind of bulky but provides all the light I generally want up close, and also has the reliability of Multi LEDs like the X5 (but 19 on the KL2 vs. only 5 in the Inova). My Surefire E2e is usually packed in my laptop case as a back up for my L4 which is funny as it's a more fragile incandescent light and the L4 which it is backing up is a more reliable LED design. I don't use the E2e much these days as it eats batteries and bulbs too, but I thought it was awesome when I bought it. I really like the long term reliability of LEDs and the long run time when there's just a few of them clustered like in the Inova X5 or the Streamlight Twin Task.
The Twin Task seems to cover a lot of bases in a compact package. With it's three LED array, it's good for most tasks and puts out almost as much light as the Inova X5 and has the the attendant long run time. With two more quick clicks, you've got the Xenon bulb which seems to throw about the same amount of light as my Surefire L4 or E2e even though it claims more output. The Streamlight seems really well constructed and Streamlight's reputation for building tuff, reliable lights is well documented. To make the Twin Task even sweeter, the two cell CR123 light only retails for $49.95 making it less than a third the cost of a Surefire Aviator which it competes directly against. The Streamlight Twin Task 2xCR123 may well become my around the house, every day light.
My only complaint is with the switch. It's not a tail cap mounted switch like my Surefires and Inova, but is up on the front of the barrel like on 2D and larger Mag lights. On a bigger light like my 6D Mag (Ugg!) that placement is fine and the switch is big enough to easily locate by feel. On the smaller Twin Task light the switch is small and hard to find for me. I will admit to being very used to (trained) to use tail cap switches on all my other lights near this size, and the switch does seem high quality, so it's not so much a fault as learning a different manual of arms to operate this light.
With it's apparent high quality build, great feature set, solid performance and low price (less than one third the price of an Aviator), I'd say this Streamlight Twin Task 2xCR123 light is highly recommended in my book.
Based on my experience with this light, I'll probably investigate some of the larger Streamlight lights as they boast impressive run times and a great feature set.
I'll probably end up with a Surefire Aviator some day anyway, probably with red LEDs because I'm a Surefire addict, but I'll end up keeping the Twin Task and probably just re-assign it to car duty.
John
I generally use other lights when I'm around the house or walking the dog in the evening. The Inova X5 is bright enough for most tasks, but once in a while I'd like a brighter light. The Surefire M3 w/ KL2 head is kind of bulky but provides all the light I generally want up close, and also has the reliability of Multi LEDs like the X5 (but 19 on the KL2 vs. only 5 in the Inova). My Surefire E2e is usually packed in my laptop case as a back up for my L4 which is funny as it's a more fragile incandescent light and the L4 which it is backing up is a more reliable LED design. I don't use the E2e much these days as it eats batteries and bulbs too, but I thought it was awesome when I bought it. I really like the long term reliability of LEDs and the long run time when there's just a few of them clustered like in the Inova X5 or the Streamlight Twin Task.
The Twin Task seems to cover a lot of bases in a compact package. With it's three LED array, it's good for most tasks and puts out almost as much light as the Inova X5 and has the the attendant long run time. With two more quick clicks, you've got the Xenon bulb which seems to throw about the same amount of light as my Surefire L4 or E2e even though it claims more output. The Streamlight seems really well constructed and Streamlight's reputation for building tuff, reliable lights is well documented. To make the Twin Task even sweeter, the two cell CR123 light only retails for $49.95 making it less than a third the cost of a Surefire Aviator which it competes directly against. The Streamlight Twin Task 2xCR123 may well become my around the house, every day light.
My only complaint is with the switch. It's not a tail cap mounted switch like my Surefires and Inova, but is up on the front of the barrel like on 2D and larger Mag lights. On a bigger light like my 6D Mag (Ugg!) that placement is fine and the switch is big enough to easily locate by feel. On the smaller Twin Task light the switch is small and hard to find for me. I will admit to being very used to (trained) to use tail cap switches on all my other lights near this size, and the switch does seem high quality, so it's not so much a fault as learning a different manual of arms to operate this light.
With it's apparent high quality build, great feature set, solid performance and low price (less than one third the price of an Aviator), I'd say this Streamlight Twin Task 2xCR123 light is highly recommended in my book.
Based on my experience with this light, I'll probably investigate some of the larger Streamlight lights as they boast impressive run times and a great feature set.
I'll probably end up with a Surefire Aviator some day anyway, probably with red LEDs because I'm a Surefire addict, but I'll end up keeping the Twin Task and probably just re-assign it to car duty.
John
