XTAR D35 100M Diving Cree XM-L U2 LED Flashlight(No Charger,No Battery)

This light is a beast. I've been night diving in Southern California for a few years with various handheld lights, primarily in search of lobster and halibut. My friends have used the more common pistol grip lights by Princeton Tec and Underwater Kinetics (UK), which are very nice quality and significantly brighter than the smaller lights I was using. They also were able to attach a lobster gauge directly to the front of their lights which is much more efficient in the task of measuring lobster carapaces. I was envious and eager to upgrade. I was going to buy a UK Light Cannon eled, the current champion of the mass-produced dive-lights with max brightness of 825 lumens. But then read about this monster and that was it; it had to be mine. Reviews are hard to come by, so I'm adding my info.The construction quality all appears to be first class, with no visible imperfections from the factory. Anodizing looks great. I think the switch design is the nicest that I've ever used. The switches on the pistol-grip lights might be slightly easier to operate with one hand, but they are also less rugged, and do not allow the ease of adjustment for more than two brightness levels. This magnetic switch ring has no possibility of a leak point, and is extremely easy and intuitive to use, switching from off to low, medium, or high brightness. The large notches are very easy to grip, and it is still usually easily operable with one hand. The only negatives to the switch are 1) it can be inadvertently turned on in a dive bag, although this has not happened to me yet, and 2) fine sand can get in between the switch and the flashlight body, making it harder to turn and it sounds a little grindy. Not too hard to flush it out post-dive though.The light is fairly large and heavy, but not at all a burden while diving. Also, the large diameter front end turns out to be just the right size to allow the use of one of those light-mounted lobster gauges. (I got a nice one made by Trident). Sweet.I've used the light over the summer months looking mostly for halibut, and scouting a bit for the upcoming lobster season. It is an absolute spotlight, literally as bright as a pair of car headlights. When diving with friends in 10-20 ft of water, they don't even need to bring a light. I can just float at the surface and crank it up to "nuclear", and turn the sea-floor into daylight mode. Actually I do think that the highest brightness level at 2300 lumens may be too bright when looking for lobster. But that is another reason I love this light. I can use the 800 lumen level when scouting from the surface on a good viz night. I can easily switch to 200 lumens when hunting down closer to the rocks so I don't scare anything away. I can reserve the 2300 lumens for special circumstances like when I want to illuminate the space station or give my dive buddy a tan. I can set the option setting down to a tiny 15 lumens if I find the need. I can set the light to strobe at max brightness to disorient the krakken when it comes for me. Maybe it will hypnotize lobsters to come right into my game bag too... haven't tried that yet.I like the beam pattern a lot. One of my complaints with a prior light was that the beam was too concentrated. It would light up a small hotspot well, but it had very little peripheral light spillage. When hunting lobsters and looking for anything moving around the reef, I very much want to have that peripheral light spill in order to see a larger area and maximize my chances of finding dinner. This light has a very nice spill largely due to the arrangement of the three LEDs, with cut-outs in the reflector where the conical sections meet.Run time is fantastic. It wouldn't be great if the light were just left to run on high the whole time but that would just be stupid. At 800 lumens it can run for 5hrs. That is more than long enough for anyone's night of SCUBA or freediving. I tend to turn my light off when breathing up for a freedive. Assuming that I average 2 minutes on the surface for every 1 minute down, the light would last for about 15 hours of dive time using 800 lumens while diving. And at 200 lumens it says it will last for 25 hours. I don't have the patience to test these numbers for myself, so I'll have to take the manufacturers word for it. That is a whole season's worth of diving. My average night dive is 2-3 hours total before I freeze into an icecube and have to waddle back to the car. Maybe with this light I can just point it at myself and warm up via the power of my pseudo-sun...I have bumped and banged the light in the rocks and in the dive bag a bit. There are some small scratches and wear on the anodizing, and a tiny dent in the bezel, but I don't mind, and it doesn't affect the function of the light at all. So far it has been great, and I hope it will lead me to many delicious sea roaches this winter, and for many winters to come.It is a pricey option as far as dive lights go, but as far as I know it has no significant competition. There are cheaper lights (like UK Light Cannon eLED) that have a good track record, but are much bulkier have one third the max output of this light and less range of settings. And there are custom lights that are even brighter, but cost multiple times as much as this light and typically use a canister configuration with a large remote battery... more cumbersome and more to get hung up on the reef. The D35 hit the bulls-eye as far as what I was looking for as my "perfect" dive light. It was more than I wanted to spend, but when I see perfection, I'm willing to pony up a little more and delay my eventual retirement by a few extra days.