Posted from: Portland, OR
Next tour stop: Denver, CO
The gang at TerraLux
are at it again, and this time, they’ve breathed new life into the smaller,
penlight sized AAA MiniMag flashlight with the MicroStar1. I teased you all
about this a few weeks ago, but now I’ve actually had a chance to use it, and
it’s just as cool as I expected. I’m not going to do a detailed, blow-by-blow
review, since it’s pretty similar to the MiniStar2, so I’ll just note the key
differences.
As you can see, it’s slightly smaller than the MiniStar2, and uses a surface-mount
emitter instead of the Mini’s side-firing emitter. It puts out about 20 lumens,
as opposed to the Mini’s 25. In a AAA MiniMag, the MicroStar1 will keep pumping
for 6 hours; it also comes with a larger reflector for the AA which will keep
it going for 18 hours, according to TerraLux (not having the fancy gadgets one
would need to test this, I can’t verify this at the moment. I can say that it
lasts a pretty long time, and is extremely bright compared to the standard lamp
in the AAA, and brighter than a standard AA but obviously not as bright as the
MiniStar2 with the trade-off being lower cost (about $10 cheaper at a list price
of $20) and longer runtime). It is focusable in both lights, although it won’t
give anywhere near the kind of control you’ll get with the MiniStar.
TerraLux notes that you can use this upgrade in "candle mode", the
popular(?) MiniMag feature where you pull the head off, flip it upside down,
and use it as a base to put the flashlight in so it can be freestanding. This
is true, but it might be a bit too bright, depending on how you use
it; if you can put it in an area you don’t need to look directly at to illuminate
the room, it’ll be great, but if you have to look directly to it, it’ll be a
bit rougher on the eyes than the original incandescent lamp would be.
Years ago, I bought a AAA MiniMag to keep in my briefcase as a backup light,
and it’s sort of languished in semi-uselessness since then. Between short battery
life and laughable output, I just didn’t use it very often at all. As soon as
I popped the MicroStar into it–with the old set of semi-used batteries–I was
very pleased to see an incredible boost in output. My reaction was to do the
only logical thing I could think of, so I put the flashlight into my jacket,
where it’s stayed since then; the MicroStar turned a near-useless toy into a
very useful everyday carry flashlight. The only thing that really bothers me
is that if TerraLux keeps coming out with cool toys like this, you’re all going
to think I’m a shill!
As always,
Andy