GSX 235 Lumen Tactical Handheld LED Flashlight

Deecent Light but a Little Overpriced

I purchased this light today, it was on sale for [$]. In Comparison, I also purchased an Everyready Night Strike Swivel Light for $69.99.My primary purpse for purchasing a multi-color led flashlight...Read complete review

I purchased this light today, it was on sale for [$]. In Comparison, I also purchased an Everyready Night Strike Swivel Light for $69.99.My primary purpse for purchasing a multi-color led flashlight is for investigative work. I also need the colored modes of red and green for maintaining night vision and reading documents covertly in the dark. The blue led mode will be used for identifying gun shot residue, fingerprints, blood residue and/or tracking when hunting. The Ultraviolet feature of the Night Strike is nice too for verifying counterfeit currency or flourescing monofilament fishing line in dark conditions. Any commpact flashlight is not as good as a crime scene or alternative forensic light source but maybe good enough in limited applications to see some things that you would miss without alternative light modes. The Night Strike Swivel light has a white led light and an Ultraviolet, Red, Green and Blue LED's. All the light functions have separate switches for each LED and can be activated at the same time except the Ulatraviolet LED. The night strike operates on one or two AA EveryReady Lithium Batteries. All the light modes except the UV LED can be cycled to high, medium and low to save battery power.The GSX 235 Lumen Tactical light is a nice light and uses two 3 volt lithium batteries but the white light is not that much brighter than the 100 lumen Everyready Night Strike Swivel Head. The aluminum case of the GSX Tactical light is also a bit light, lighter than my Surefire Executive I carry all the time, which is more durable than the GSX appears to be. The GSX Tactical light has a bright mode, then reduced to 50% and then a rapid flashing mode. Holding the switch down gets you into the blue, green and red led steady light modes, the last mode is the red led SOS mode. Neither the GSX tactical or the Everyready Night Strike have the ability to adjust the beam from wide to full to vary the intensity of the light. Furthermore, there is no momentary on feature to quickly shine the light without turning it completely on and then clicking the switch to turn the light off again. While the features are nice, in comparison to the Everyready Night Strike Swivel Head, I did not find it that much brighter for the original cost of [$] or it's sale price of [$]. Accessing the colored modes for red led night vison or green map reading is more difficult as well having to hold down the switch and cycle through the other modes versus pushing a dedicated button on the Night Strike. After the brief comparison, I decided to take the GSX light back for a refund. The fact it uses two 3 volt lithium batteries, that are not always easy to find, are more expensive and seem to lose power quickly the longer the light is used is a long term negative feature of this light. Compare this fact to the Night Strike which uses standard AA batteries that can be Lithium, or Alkaline and can operate with one or two batteries is a better cost benefit. Furthermore, the Night Strike has a limited lifetime warranty and the different light modes can be accessed individually making it a better buy. The only con to the Night Stike Swivel Head in comparison to the GSX tactical is that is is a bit larger, more rectangular and awkard to operate with the main light switch on the bottom. Being the light is larger it is also a bit harder to carry comfrtably in your pocket compared to the GSX tactical. I really like the GSX Tactical light but if it was closer to $20-30, I believe it would be a better buy and I would recommend it to someone who wants the a compact bright light, rapid flash feature and on rare occassion has a need for some of the colored LED modes. I have a NEBO Tools Redline light that is simlar to the GSX Tactical. The main difference is that it has all of the same feature of the GSX except the colored led modes but costs $29.99 and it has an adjustable beam head. The NEBO also runs on thre AAA batteries and is very bright. I also think the Everyready Night Strike is a bit overpriced, maybe a $40-50 price point would be a better price point.