Maglite torches

Maglite Torches are the iconic police torch, renowned for their "bomb proof" durability and made famous by hanging from the belt of every US police officer (or Cop) in countless TV shows and films over the last 20 or so years.  The fact that they are still so commonly used today is testement to their build quality, and in fact my 3D cell is over 20 years old and still going strong (though I did fit an LED upgrade recently, doing away with the old filament bulb for a brighter output and longer battery life).

Maglites are available in a range of different sizes from the key ring size Maglite Solitaire to the baseball bat size 6D cell and everything in between!  The basic models have not changed that much over the years, more recently the filament bulbs have been improved to the Xenon bulbs as standard but you still only get the same basic functionality "On" or "Off".

A little bit later than a lot of other brands the the party, Maglite released a range of LED Maglites and an LED upgrade module for each of their traditional torch sizes, however they recently pulled the official Maglite brand LED upgrade module from the market (though there are still a range of third party suppliers out there).  The LED Maglite torches cost a good 20% more than there Xenon counter parts but you soon recover that in a reduced spend on batteries, not only do the LED Maglites offer a better run time as standard, the substantially better light output means you are likely to spend a lot less time looking for whatever you are after in the dark than trying to use a filament version!!!

Even more recently Maglite have expanded their range to offer a lot more of the functionality that brands like Fenix were starting to offer to the police market like, half strength, strobe, SOS and "turbo" modes as well as integrated rechargeable products which could be wall or vehicle mounted and charged from mains or cigarette lighter.  The Maglite Magcharger system is quite an expensive outlay at first, but for a regular user like a night patrolman the money is soon recovered in savings on batteries not to mention the convenience factor.

What's great about the new Maglites is that they have caught up with the technical innovations that other companies had beaten them to the post with, but maintained the traditions of rugged durability and reliability at a reasonable price point.