Saturday, March 4, 2023

Lumintop tool AA vs Sofirm SP10

 

 As I've had these two torches a few months I thought I'd do a side by side comparrison.  And tell you which I think is best.

 The Lumintop tool AA and Sofirm SP10 are near enough the same size and weight (minor variations) Both can use the AA or 14500 battery, both put out a lot of light for is really a small pocket, bigish keyring torch.

 On paper the Sofirm blows the Lumintop away, more output and longer runs time.  But I'm taking real world use here.

 The Sofirm has a much warmer colour, ok on it's own you'd probably not notice it, but when you compare it to other torches, it's quite warm.  The Sofirm also has a much more complicated interface, programable in fact to suit yourself in many ways.

 The Lumintop is a much simpler, almost old fashioned by todays standards, a nice white light and a tail clicky button (it will still tail stand) It also comes with a diffuser to use it as a lantern.

 Power, The lumintop pushes out 650lm on full power with a 14500 batter, comapred to 900lm from the Sofirm.  No contest you say, well it's not that simple.  In the real world in the pitch dark, I cant see much difference, although the Sofirm has more power, the more focused "hotspot" on the Lumintop kind of even it up on distance, spill wise theres bugger all to choose.

 It's battery life the Sofirm excels, with full power on AA 350lm claimed 1 hour and 9 minues, compared to the Lumintops 220lm for just 21 minues.  Now I've not tested either of these on run times, but more output for longer sounds wrong to my logical mind, especially that much longer.  That said the Sofirm has a more complex chip set.

 So which is my favorite.... .  The Lumintop oddly enough.   I find the tail clicky switch miles better than the side monuted switch on the Sofirm, add in the Sofirm needs to be "locked out" to stop it turning on in your pocket, which the Lumintop doesn't need.  I can live with the Lumintops shorter run times, batteries are cheep enough, having to press a switch 4 times to unlock a torch every time I need a light is a PITA Sofirm!

 Oh and the Lumintop sits better on the peak of a ball cap too, if you want it as a headlight




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