Nice product. Seems well built. The waterproofing and run time sold me on it.

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Headlamps rule! Especially, the Matrix. I have taken it on a car camping trip, and my buddies were sold on the idea. You can cook and have light and hands available to you. I ran on 2 NiMH rechargeables for over 10 hours, with more power to left for future (I recharged the batteries just in case). So far, a great all around use lamp. I can see needing more power in exploring large caves, but for staying on path, reading, cooking, etc. it is excellent.

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I used flashlights before, but this is my first headlamp.

This is a compact and light headlamp. It produces a blueish white light which is diffuse but covers a large area. This makes it great for night hiking beacuse there are not any intensnce "light rings" with shadows. The color of the light also means that you can see the natural color of object reflected back rather than the yellowish colors you usually see with incandescent lamps. The battery life is promised to be at least 4x longer than a regular headlamp.

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Princeton-Tec Solo headlamp.

After years of abuse to my two P.T. Vortecs I managed to break one. The seal must have failed during a saltwater dive, because corosion destroyed a terminal (It should still be easily fixable), but instead of fixing it I instead replaced it with a Matrix - I'm glad I did! My first outing with it turned into a trip from hell, a friend bonked at 12,000 feet, becoming somewhat delirious we left the light on him all night for his safety - the first 8 hours into the lithiums. The next night found us clamoring over fridge sized boulders for 4 more hours while the first of the petzls lost power. On the drive home the light went from person to person because all other bateries were dead at this point (8 more hours) Since then I've read several books by its light (perfect for reading) and did a night hike durring a cold snap (20-25 deg F) I figure I'm about 60 hours into the lithium bateries I first added and figure it is about time to carry spares again. The light isn't the brightest, but it wins hands down for weight, diffused light, and stamina. It is much more comforable to wear than the vortecs to boot with much less weight over your eyes.

Customer Service

I said I broke one of my vortecs, but I have made no effort to contact P.T. yet.

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Several petzls
Vortecs
Princeton Tec Dive Lights

I just finished a review on the Petzl light and it wasn't nice.
I took this light with me into two caves. One cave had large rooms with nasty holes and other obstacles, the other,was mostly wet with smaller passages.
In the first cave,I was dissapointed in the lighting as the spread and actual brightness leave alot to be desired. I was familiar with the cave so it wasn't that big a deal. If I were in an unfamiliar cave things would be drastically different. The pace would have to be slowed down quite a bit so as to not fall into a chasm or hurt yourself on other obstacles.
Now as for the smaller cave, this light really shines (excuse the pun).
It does take awhile for your eyes to get adjusted to the the lower light output of the three LED's but once they do, you see formations as you have never seen them before.The bluish/white light gives formations an almost erie look.It's quite beautiful.
In the smaller passages the light is adequate enough to move along at a moderate pace as long as you are somewhat familliar with the area.
This light is by no means a good primary light,but it would suffice to get you out of a cave if your primary did fail. 40 hrs is an incredible burn time for two AA's. And the LED's promise durability,and long life.Tis promises to be a very dependable light and I'll not go into any caves without it.
My suggestion to Princeton Tec would be more LED's (six to nine) coupled with the four-cell setup they currently offer in their headlamps. That would be sweet!! I would buy one of those and get rid of my Wheat lamp. That is saying alot.

Customer Service

Thay have not responded to an e-mail request for replacement parts. I will call soon.

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Koeler Wheat lamp
Justrite
Petzl Zoom
Princeton Tec

I have been using my Matrix headlamp for a few weeks now and I'm fairly happy with it.

I have used it for 3 functions so far: reading, walking on clear paths, and bike riding in the city. It is by far the best light you can imagine for reading. There is a slight emphasis to a line segment in the center of the field, so the illumination pattern is not completely uniform (the perfect reading source), but it is closer than any other light I have seen. Add to that the long run time (listed at 40 hours for alkaline - I've run it maybe 10-20 so far and it still runs full power), and you have a great solution for reading.

Likewise, the light is more than adequate for night hiking when the path is pretty obvious and as the previous reviewer mentioned, the color of the light seems more natural (it is probably bluer than sunlight) than incandescent lamps.

Forget bike riding - there is not enough power (nor is there on a regular bulb Petzl Micro either). But where I ride (Pasadena), there is enough light to see the road anyway.

I try not to climb at night, so I don't have any feedback there - don't expect to scope out long routes, but it should work to see your gear in the cracks.

I wrote Princeton Tec weeks ago asking for the actual lumen light output and wattage draw so I could compare the Lumens/watt to the best halogen bulbs (which are getting better), but they have not replied.

I think the ultimate light will be something like a Petzl Duo with the low power light run by one or several LED's (note: this has been done - see http://www.montage.co.nz/led). Until somethink like this is available, this one will do. My only real complaint so far is my mind is programmed to use Petzl lamps so I'm always turning it the wrong way.

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Most Petzl units (Arctic, Micro, Mega, Zoom, Duo)

This is a much better improvement over other headlamps for night hiking. The flouresent (sp) light lets you see what your looking at in its real color. I like the strap for the headlamp better then the quest. Its a great light and worth the money.

Customer Service

no experience with the customer service. It also has a lifetime warrenty.

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Petzal

This is a well built and well designed headlamp. The two optional lamp units (LED and bulb) are nice. Use the LED for around camp and the bulb is you need to move at night. Light weight and adjustable.

Customer Service

None.

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Pelican lights.

I like how this unit is waterproof (compared to the Petzel), and think it is cool that it has a smart circuit to make the lighting uniform, but the unit is needlessly but due to them making an "LED unit" to fit within the space of a regular bulb. I would rather have a tiny, purpose-built headlamp. So, I hope they make a smaller one soon -- perhaps with "premium" LEDs (coming from the manufacterer, there is a 50% range of brightness levels and it would be nice if they only used the best).

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