5 of the best torches
The light of your life should be special. Here are the brightest sparks out there
Jetbeam RRT-3 XML
£280, flashoholics.co.uk
Imagine holding 1,950 candles in one hand. Now imagine doing it not with the searing agony of a flaming hand, but with the beauty of a sleek, waterproof, aero-grade aluminium tube torch in your mitt instead.
Petzl NAO headlamp
£TBA, petzl.com
Headlamps look silly but as they’re made to be worn in the dark it really doesn’t matter. Especially when yours is this fancy reactive lighting Petzl Nao. It detects the width and power of the beam required to light what you can see, extending battery life. A thin powerful beam will light long paths, while a soft wide light is perfect for reading – and for banishing your fear of the dark.
Tiny Flashlight + LED
£Free, market.android.com
A simple but effective app for using your LED as a torch on most Android phones – it claims to be the quickest and brightest you can get. Warning lights, police lights and strobes are included, but even better is the potentially life-saving Text to Morse Code function. It can also make for hours of secretive fun with mates in the pub – not (quite) as annoying as ring tone sharing.
Eton FR160
The Eton FR160 has it all. It’s a torch – obviously – a radio, and a mobile phone charger – plus it’s wind-up and solar powered. Mother Nature will thank you for buying this one, and your train companion will too as you can forgo using the speaker in favour of headphones for music, while the USB port lets you charge almost anything cable powered.
X1 HID Torch
£150, amazon.co.uk
This one makes your eyes bleed. Not literally, but the X1 High Intensity Discharge (HID) Torch is the most powerful in the world at 3500 lumens. The police and army use its xenon superpowers to hurl light up to 3000ft. Its weakness? You only get 80 minutes of constant use, so we’d recommend taking a charger if you’re planning on venturing into the wilderness at night.
You may also like
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
