I ordered an Ultrafire C2 flashlight after reading Ernest Sanada’s great review on CandlePower Forums, but delivery from DealExtreme.com in Hong Kong took 5 weeks. They have good prices, but you can’t expect your stuff right away.
I got impatient and ordered another C2 from BatteryJunction.com (highly recommended) – they only took 4 days for delivery.
The Ultrafire C2 uses a Cree XR-E-7090 P4 LED (PDF) which puts out up to 87.4 lumens @ 350 mA, according to Cree. What this actually means is this flashlight is really bright. The manufacturer also says, “White XLamp LEDs are tested for luminous flux and placed into luminous-flux groups.” Your flashaholic calls it binning -they test the LEDs, then throw them into “bins” depending on their output. These Ultrafire C2s use a P4 bin LED.
The Ultrafire’s exterior aluminum is available in two anodized finishes. One C2 I bought is hard anodized to type III specification – it’s gray. The Battery Junction Ultrafire uses the type II specification anodizing – it’s black.
A couple of days ago, DealExtreme came out with an Ultrafire C2 that uses the Cree XRE-7090 Q5 LED, which has a maximum luminous flux of 114 lumens @ 350 mA. What this actually means is this is really, really bright. I ordered two Cree XR-E Q5‘s on star boards from Kaidomain.com, maybe I can stick one in one of my C2s.
I’m becoming a (noob) flashaholic. The last photograph in this group proves it. It’s a beamshot comparing the AA Maglite (using fresh AA alkaline batteries) and the Ultrafire C2 (using RCR123A 3.7v Li-Ion batteries), taken with a Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens at 55mm, color temperature – 5700K, ISO 400, .7 sec., f8. I’m not sure how meaningful this beamshot is, because it was taken from about 15 feet, but it shows the relative brightness for comparison.
