>>27891692/2
-The majority of the time, these companies are heavily astroturfed in online social media spaces. A few, characteristic, strategies they use are the owner of the company having an English name and, inexplicably, two or three other members of the forum are ardent supporters of that brand. "You need to check out an AstroSUNY. Jake will take care of you." *this when "Jake's" real name is something like Jilin Xiao. They all use this sort of strategy, though, even the good ones.
-Sometimes they make it big and get an REI promotion, which is what happened to get Fenix, Olight and Nitecore into brick and mortar stores in the US. I personally do not think any of these brands are any better quality than any random chink flashlight you'll find on aliexpress.
-The only two brands I've really come back to are Emisar and Convoy. Convoy is inexpensive but not "cheap." I've never had one crap out on me, although I also don't expect much from them. The UI is pretty basic, although for some reason, they contain a strobe mode, like a lot of chink lights. I bought about a dozen S2+'s and T2's and use them as "battery holders" that I keep in junk drawers and by doors around my house. That way, if I just need a flashlight when stepping outside, there's always one handy. Emisar is a high end flashlight brand that I use for EDC (D4K), although I don't use it for camping, since I'm not totally convinced of the waterproofing. Even so, I do trust the brand to hold up basically forever, and never crap out randomly.
I will say that, for camping, you literally don't need any of this fancy pocket torch bullshit. You mainly just need something that you can use to help you see around camp. Get the cheapest Black Diamond headlamp, and the thing will last all season before you need to change the battery. The only time you might want something brighter is if you want to hike at night. Bring a chinesium pocket torch and a few spare batteries for night hiking, if you want to do that.
