The Photon II is a jewel, topped only by the Photon 3
Written: Jan 08 '02 (Updated Jan 10 '02)
Product Rating:
Pros: light weight, small size, 7 colors, replaceable batteries, and extremely adequate brightness.
Cons: difficult battery change (fixed in Photon 3 version)
The Bottom Line: Bulletproof and bright enough for night-hiking with very long battery life, you can carry a few and won't even notice they are there until you need them.
The Photon series is the most rugged, reliable microlight product on the market. you can get all the technical info at www.photonlight.com so I'll stick more to my experience. I have been carrying LED microlights for over 7 years, and now I use the Photons exclusively. The primary "con" on the Photon II is definitely the difficulty of changing the batteries. This issue was solved with the recent release of the Photon 3.
In my experience, the Photons are more durable than ASP's and more reliable than the Pulsars. An improvement on the Photon 1 microlight, the Photon II is basically the same, but with the addition of a handy on/off switch so you don't have to hold the button for it to stay on. I like them more than the Pulsars because the Pulsar's button is too light and could easily be held down inside luggage, or a backpack, or even in your pocket while you are sitting down. They are better than the ASP series because you can change the batteries yourself and they are much more durable. The screws are very small and hard to work with, but it is much easier than mailing your ASP light back to the manufacturer for a battery change. I haven't seen any Photon 3's yet at retailers, but paramagic1 on ebay has them for about $16 for the Photon 3's and Photon II's for about $11. I've bought from him 4 times without any problems and he always has the new stuff out before anybody else has even heard of it. There are a few other people with similar pricing, but I've never dealt with them. I was a little hesitant to include this, but its a tip to save half your money if you can't find anybody local with below-retail prices.
I would like to say is that I think it is worth it to spend a few dollars more for the Photon 3. They are of the exact same size, materials, and brightness, but the features on the photon 3 will be very useful to some people. With a few minutes of practice, the battery in a photon 3 can easily be changed in 30 seconds. You just take a knife or anything with a thin edge and pry up a little knob on the backing and pull it away from the main casing. This exposes the battery and after changing, you just snap the backing back in place and you are done. It sounds too easy, but it is a very tight fit with a specially designed polymer and it would be almost impossible for it to come apart accidentally. It is the only microlight I have seen with multiple settings. The medium- and low-brightness are nice for reading in camp and conserving batteries. It also has 3 strobe setting, which are pretty useless to me but might be fun at raves and dance clubs. There is also a setting that will automatically stay on full-bright for 1 minute and turn itself off. This is really nice for people that might forget to turn it off.
Nobody believes how bright they are until they experience them in the dark. In October, I did a 12 mile hike in the Grand Canyon from the Bright Angel trailhead to Plateau Point and back with over 2 miles hiked in total darkness on a moon-less night with a red Photon II. Anybody who has hiked there will tell you that those 2 miles are the steepest and roughest part of the whole trail, and I never felt like I didn't have enough light. At only 6 grams each(about 1/4 ounce), I was also carrying (as I do 24-7) 3 extra photons. I don't carry the extras because I feel like I need them, but I like to have a few colors to pick from, and at 1 ounce its not any burden at all.
The red and turquoise LED's are my favorites. The turquoise is the brightest color, and the red is the best for preserving your night vision. You need white if you really want to distinguish color(picking out clothes/socks in the dark without waking up your significant other or travel buddies). The red, green, orange, and yellow are 3 volts and have a longer battery life than the 6 volt white, blue, and turquoise. Unless you use them extensively for something like night-hiking, you probably won't need to change the batteries for at least a year anyway.
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