Flashlight Fiesta
SkyWolfEye TLY-A04
Price: £1.00 Free shipping
Manufacturer: SkyWolfEye
Model: TLY-A04
Power: Cree XP-E Q5 3W Emitter
Run By: 1 X 18650 lithium cell
Focus Type: Zoom
Modes: 3
Vendor: seller via ebay
Shipped From: Hong Kong
Description:
What's in the Packet?: Just the torch and standard lanyard
First Impressions
I have seen these things floating around ebay for absolutely ages now and on every occasion dismissed them.
Partially because they look a bit crap and also they sell big often ending with a price well over two quid. - I'm not prepared to pay that for a crap looking torch.
I was bored and saw this example in the listings. Decided on bidding but bidding low. Won the lot for £1 with free postage. I don't mind taking a chance at that price.
It took about 2 weeks to arrive and came stuffed between that thin crappy foam sheeting you get with Chinese parcels. The torch arrived in pristine condition so the foam sheets did their job.
Well my expectations were certainly right, it does look cheap and crappy in real life.
The main body is an aluminium alloy construction. This itself is fine. It's nicely milled and anodised to a good standard. Moving on to the head and it's a different story.
The majority of the business end is made from aluminium alloy however near to the top of the head slotted into the aluminium is a red plastic ring just under a centimetre roughly. Its purpose is not known at this time, although I bet it's some kind of emergency light of some sort? Whatever it is, its very poorly made especially the cheap plastic screw threads which don't have any rubber o-rings or anything.
Another strange feature of the head is the strange gouges that are found all the way around. These are simple cuts in the aluminium to make a pattern but I'm afraid it looks shit.
The tail cap is silver in colour and is quite well made. The clicky button seems to work every time and there doesn't seem to be any contact issues with the plunger and the battery. It should be reliable if nothing else.
Not the nicest looking LED bed
What the hell is this? Why do we have a red filter?
Testing
Testing
Performance-wise it's as good as all the regular cheap chinese offerings. The beam is bright and clear with little to complain about. One thing that really annoys is the stupid red ring which is incredibly bright. It's off putting and is a waste of useable light in my opinion. Just plain unnecessary.
Rating: ✅✅✅ 3 out of 5
Even though it only cost a quid, I'm still not excited over this torch. The stupid red warning ring and over inflated prices makes this torch a little unappealing. Quite why there is such interest for these on ebay is beyond me!
It's not waterproof and looks like a kids torch. Avoid
