MANKER LAD Mini EDC LED USB Rechargeable Keychain Flashlight with Cree XP-G3 LED(300 Lumen)/Nichia 219C LED (230 Lumen)+ 2X Red Straw Hat LED for Everyday Carry

This is a great little light for your key chain, it's really amazing how far this size light has improved over the last few years. I've had the Nitecore Tube and Tip and both are also great lights in their own respects. You can't beat the Tube for under $10 and the Tip is about the same price but offers a bit more runtime and more somewhat wider beam. There are some nitpicks but really it's hard to fault a light this size with 300 lumens.After a couple weeks of using it, I'd say it's pretty great, the light levels are useful, runtime is good for it's size, it's not that expensive. I carried the TIP for a couple months and it's great as well but I had it turn on several times in my pockets/bag inadvertently, this one has a very stiff switch so there's almost no way it could get turned on by accident. I'd say I have only a couple real issues with it. I wish it had a lower "low" beam, the red led's are a very tight beam pattern and full of ring like artifacts, so I don't consider them very useful for close up work or walking around in a dark room etc. So I'd much rather see a lower white low beam instead. I also wish the switch could give you some battery life feedback. Some of these style lights like the TIP allow you to see the current charge and warn you when the battery is getting low by illuminating the switch. The LAD has this functionality because it illuminates the switch during charging so it would be nice if there was a way to get the current charge status and a warning when the battery was getting low.

I have way too many flashlights, especially of the small variety. Gear acquisition syndrome - it's a horrible condition for anything. I have the small olights - the S1 and S0 - as well as the small nitecores, a handful of AAA lights, and the muyshondt maus. Many of them retail for much more than this. The maus lives full-time on my keychain as you simply can't beat the form factor, but I run into limitations there from time to time, and I'm not crazy about twist-on/off flashlights... I also don't always have my keys on me. So I'm often looking for something small that I can either pocket or carry with me that fulfills a lot of roles.A small form factor USB rechargeable dual-color LED light, with a high CRI neutral and a red LED has been sort of a holy grail for me... I often find myself wanting the red light, and I don't want to have to carry around a second light. The firefly modes on many flashlights do a reasonable job of not completely obliterating your night vision, but red light is still #1 in this respect. For travel, I find it nice to not have to bring a dedicated charger for batteries, and many of the rechargeable flashlights are either too large for my tastes (I travel EXTREMELY light) or aren't quite bright enough. Nitecore Tube came close, the TIP has come closest, especially with the high CRI model. But none of these have had red light, and most of the dual color light ones I have seen really have shortcomings in one way or another - often, the white light is severely compromised, and you literally will not find a high CRI light that also has red light functionality.Enter the Manker LAD. I was very skeptical, but this has quickly become my go-to if I need something that will cover MOST tasks and still be tiny. It has impressive performance, as good as you'd expect from the TIP CRI and other small high CRI lights. It's a reasonable form factor, and the dual red is actually an ideal amount of red light for my needs in terms of coverage and brightness. It has long runtimes, and is simple to charge.So why isn't it perfect? As usual for so many damned lights, the interface - and I have suspicions about the longevity of the button, as well as the USB "seal." I wouldn't want to submerge it, but I have no qualms using this in heavy rain - It's more than waterproof enough for how I expect to use it. And I've only used this short term, so I can't speak on the overall build quality. But lets get back to the interface...One click to turn on to the lowest setting of white light - which is still brighter than what we often see on low modes, but good as a general purpose light. Short clicks from here will cycle from LOW -> MED -> HIGH -> RED and back around. It's very easy to double click by accident, though, which gets you the strobe functionality, and goes to the second set of modes you can cycle through - STROBE -> "Dragon Breath" -> SOS -> BEACON. Dragon breath just lights up the button itself with a steady blue light... I guess it could be used for locating the light? I don't know. I never use it, and don't really want to. And that's the case for most of these modes, which I feel are too easy to get into by accident - and I've certainly accidentally strobed more often than I'd care to.Often, what I want is for a light to come on at the lowest setting that I can use without absolutely ruining my night vision - which would, in this light, be red. This can happen - but you need to ensure that you power off the light (long press) while it is red, then you can power back on the last mode with another long press. As long as you always cycle back to red before you turn it off, this is sustainable.More annoying is that this seems to reset whenever I charge it, and it ends up in a mode that it will always strobe when I turn it back on the first time after I charge. This seems to happen close to every time, but it isn't entirely consistent. And that's where I get frustrated - the lack of consistency.What would make this perfect? More differentiation between low, med, and high (as it stands, I'll never use medium as it isn't different enough), a slightly improved (only slightly) USB seal, and a different interface. I suppose you could have it programmable and customizable, but that always seems to be a nightmare to pull off. What I think would be ideal is something like this... From power off: Single click to low mode, double click to high, triple click to strobe, long click to red. This gives you all of the modes you'd conceivably want from power off. You could probably ditch the "dragons breath" mod, but if it must be available, it seems like continuing to hold a second or two after powering it off would be a good way of enabling it - I can't imagine why you would intentionally pick it up and turn on that particular mode. Once on, a single click to change modes is probably still appropriate, but I would think that in lieu of double clicking to change to an entirely different cycle, you could have the SOS / Beacon available after cycling through a couple of times, and just ditch the double click to change modes entirely.All that being said, I'm nitpicking a bit. This is excellent, especially for the price range, and I haven't seen anything else that quite covers this niche... The best light I've seen to combine red/white LED so far has been the Nitecore SRT3, which is considerably larger (but has about a perfect interface,) and also doesn't have a high CRI LED.So gripes aside, if I am trying to cut every ounce and travel very light, or have something on my person I can fly with without getting questions that will do about everything I need, I reach for this - every time. It came with me on an overseas trip, and I used the hell out of it - in addition to the standard uses, I found myself using the red LEDs for low light that won't disturb my wife / others late at night, and the high CRI leds for a good look at some hard-to-see dimly lit artwork... and these are things I've not found together in anything else.Time will tell how this will hold up, but for now, it's coming with me everywhere.

I'm disappointed with this. It's plenty bright, but I can't get over the 'hold to turn off' interface. Every time I want to turn it off, I tap the button like I do with the other 50 flashlights I own--but instead of shutting off, it goes to the next brightness level and blinds the #@!t out of me. Every time. I can't seem to remember to hold the button to turn it off. You may not have this problem. The other thing I don’t like is the form factor. It seems awkward to get ahold of and push the button, because it's too short, and also because it's fat on top and skinny on bottom (why?). It makes it too much of a challenge just to point the thing in the desired direction. Again, maybe this is just my preference, but it bugs me. Similar lights like the Mecarmy sgn3, nitecore tip, and nitecore tube don't bother me in this way. The interface is ok. You can hold the button to access your last used mode. If you just click it from off, you get low first, then medium, then high, then red. Double click to get into strobe, then a completely useless mode where only the switch brightness ramps up and down (is this what it's supposed to do or is mine broken?), then SOS, then beacon. The red LEDs are a bit artifacty, if that bothers you. I much prefer the Mecarmy sgn3 and the nitecore tip to this. I would definitely have a look at those too, if you are considering buying this.