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Descending into a dark basement to flip a breaker or finding the keys you dropped in your car is a lot easier with the help of a flashlight. That little light in your smartphone isn’t bright enough, and you can save your phone’s battery for making phone calls, texting friends, and updating your Instagram. Gone are the days of large clunky flashlights with weak incandescent bulbs. Today’s models come with rechargeable batteries and bright LED lights capable of illuminating objects hundreds of feet away. Unlike the flashlights of yesteryear, modern flashlights are small enough to fit in your pocket and weigh next to nothing. The best flashlights will illuminate your search so you can choose the model that will light up the darkness when you need it.
How we chose the best flashlights
As an avid camper and one who lives in a rural area prone to power outages, I find myself traipsing around the dark quite often, so I know a thing or two about flashlights. I considered a few important criteria in researching more than a dozen flashlights for this article. Brightness, of course, is key.
However, I didn’t just consider flashlights with exceptional brightness. While a 1,000-plus lumen output is great when searching for a missing person or pet, it’s too bright for close-quarters use inside a house or tent. With that in mind, I chose models that offered multiple modes that would allow them to be used both indoors and outdoors.
They should be able to endure a fair amount of abuse, so I chose models with rugged anodized aluminum construction and waterproof ratings. For rechargeable models that come equipped with batteries, I chose those with at least 3,000 mAh (milliamp per hour) batteries that can last for many hours on moderate light settings. While cost was not a major factor, I did include lights for those…
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