The Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED flashlight has the makings of an exceptional and compact LED flashlight. Its narrow body, long run-time, and easy-to-adjust beam make for a product that will have decent appeal to the masses. The Shifter 2.0 uses a pair of standard AAA batteries to power its LED lamp at up to 110 lumens of output. It also features a Reflector Lens System (RLS) which lets you direct the light output in either spot or beam mode by simply twisting the lens hood of the flashlight.
Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED Flashlight Build Quality
Backing up a bit, I took a look at the overall body style of the Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED flashlight. It’s made of “aircraft-grade aluminum” which has always made me wonder (cynically, of course) if that refers to the aluminum alloy used in the aircraft’s wings and body, or the one used in its aluminum cup holders… All joking aside, the case feels both durable and really lightweight – two characteristics I like in these style of flashlights. The Shifter 2.0 is about 6-inches in length, which is possibly the perfect size. You can hold it in your hand and it doesn’t get lost, yet it’s small enough and light enough that it doesn’t get in the way and remains superbly portable.
Unscrewing the rear battery compartment (which you will need to do in order to remove the protective film which prevents premature power depletion) we saw that there is a rubber gasket protecting the batteries from moisture and dust. The rubber-covered toggle button to activate the flashlight is located on this back piece and it looked to be moderately well-protected from the elements as well. You’re not going to want to go diving with this flashlight, but getting it a little wet doesn’t strike me as anything that should cause any problems.
To activate the Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED flashlight, you just press the rubber button on the back of the flashlight. It acts as a momentary button, but clicks ‘on’ when you push it in all the way. If you cycle through quickly you will move through Bright mode, Low mode and Strobe. The Strobe mode is amazingly effective and we immediately imagined ways in which this flashlight would serve as a great tool for that next hunting or camping trip.
The Spotlight Shifter 2.0 is currently available in Black, but there seem to be indications that it will soon be available in Metallic Blue, Green, Red, Silver & Pink as well. These are anodized aluminum shells, so they should hold up well to normal use and abuse (with lighter colors showing less wear, based on our experience). Both the Shifter 1.0 and 2.0 include pen-style clips that can be removed if desired.
Testing and Use
In using this flashlight we really enjoyed the output it provided for the weight. You might be able to get more output from a larger flashlight, but to garner 110 lumens from a couple of AAA batteries – and for 4 hours – is quite possibly the perfect solution for a portable pen-style light. We’ve seen thinner flashlights, but they take the elusive AAAA batteries and don’t have the same run-time. The Spotlight Shifter 2.0 delivers essentially the same performance and in a package that is only a couple of millimeters larger in diameter. The range of this flashlight is given as 75 meters. That’s the distance at which this flashlight continues to output 0.25 lux when measured with a lux meter. 1/4 lux is approximately the amount of light given off by the full moon on a clear night in an open field (per the ANSI FL 1 specification).
We took the Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED flashlight with us on several late night adventures, including a trip to some early 20th century homes we were renovating which didn’t yet have the power turned on. Switching on the Shifter 2.0, the entire interior of the house lit up as if the moon had dropped out of the sky and was shining in through the front door. The flood beam is very wide and almost perfectly smooth, with no center hot spot. The spot mode, activated by twisting the lens shroud, intensifies the light output into a tighter circumference, allowing the Shifter 2.0 flashlight to throw further and with a much higher level of intensity. We loved the focus mechanism as it gave us a very simple way to alternate between pinpoint lighting and a general flood to illuminate the entire area we were walking through.
Spotlight also has, among other products, a Shifter 1.0 flashlight which outputs 80 lumens and runs for 3 hours on a single AAA battery. It’s considerably shorter than the Spotlight 2.0 and the exact same girth. If you’re in the market for an even smaller flashlight that can still put out some lumens, that might be the perfect choice.
Conclusion
At $44.95, the Spotlight Shifter 2.0 LED flashlight is reasonably priced and one of the nicer models we’ve tested. We haven’t done long term testing of the product but it appears to – at least on a feature level – have everything we’d want in an LED-based product. While there are a ton of cheap LED flashlights coming to the market, decent products that utilize high-quality components and which have decent optics tend to cost more. But you do, in most cases, get what you pay for and the Spotlight Shifter 2.0 seems to be no exception to that rule. Hopefully the Spotlight Shifter series will be coming to a retail location near you – but until then you can order it online.
