Joby Gorillatorch - Closer Look and More

Closer Look:

As I previously mentioned the Gorillatorch is quite small and the three "AA" batteries as stored behind the head of the unit.  Joby has offered great performance and battery life on this unit thanks it it's 1.5v operating voltage.  The three batteries merely provide greater milliamp capacity and longer run-time.  At full brightness, the Gorillatorch is rated at up to 20 Hours of usage and at the lowest power setting it can run up to 80 hours.  A single set of batteries should easily take you through a weekend of camping.

Torch Head

Battery Compartment

Testing:

In order to test a light, you simply shut the lights off and use it.  It works.  Things were brighter with it on that with it turned off.  We'll get a little scientific though and talk a little bit about lumens and how we measure brightness.  The Cree Emitter that is inside the Joby Gorillatorch is rated at 65 lumens according to the specs.  A lumen is a specific measurement of light output and we measure everything in lux or foot candles.  Many spotlights are rated in "candle power" and you may be familiar with that measurement.  A foot candle is the amount of illumination at one foot from the candle and is 10.964 lux.  Lux and foot candles are a more relevant unit of measurement as they indicate usable illumination.  For the "testing" we used our lux meter and compared the results of the Gorillatorch with a traditional Maglight (2x AA version) and a Nkoray K-106 Cree Q5-WC Flashlight that uses special 3.7v Lithium-ION batteries.  The Nkoray light is rated at 230 lumens, and I'm not sure of the rating on the Maglight.

Lit Up

Using our luminance meter at a distance of one foot, we measured the brightness of all three devices.

The Nkoray light is the brightest of the three, but it is rated at having a run-time of one hour on a single 3.7v battery.  The Gorillatorch comes in slightly dimmer, but can run up to 20 hours at maximum brightness.  The advantage of the Nkoray is that it fits in your pocket, but in an hour you'll be in the dark.  The Cree emitter on the Gorillatorch is much more efficient and with each battery providing up to 2400mAh each - you've got 7200mAh in the device as opposed to Trustfire 3.7v batteries that come in 900mAh each.  The capacity of the Joby torch is much better.

Final Thoughts:

If you need a flexible light that can go almost anywhere, attach to almost any surface - either by wrapping around it with its legs or by the strong magnetic feet - the Gorillatorch is a great choice.  I'm not sure if it is the only choice, but it is certainly a good one.  It is very bright at full power and has the ability to dial down the output thanks to the variable dimmer knob.  The magnetic feet are very strong and the Gorillatorch can easily support its weight using just one magnetic leg.  I've used it more than I thought I would and if you do some macro photography, this little light could be worth its weight in SD cards.

The long run-time, bright LED output, even pattern, dimming capability and flexible gripping/magnetic options make it a great choice.  It may not be the cheapest LED light on the planet, but it probably has some of the handiest and most useful features.  It's hard to break this down with our rating, but the Gorilla torch certainly earns our "Gold" award based on design, functionality, features and quality.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them in the forum at the "Comments" link below.