
Princeton Tec, or as it's known in the rap game, P-tec, puts out really good lights these days. Exhibit A: the Byte headlamp, a water-resistant (IPX4), flyweight 2.1oz unit that won't break the bank and guarantees good times when the lights go out.
The Byte comes in what is a now a fairly standard form factor: a vertically pivoting plastic enclosure barely big enought to take two AAA batteries (lithium compatible). Which, by the way, intall easily with just a flick of the finger. The button is big enough to operate with medium-weight gloves, and the elastic strap is easily adustable, holds well and should fit 95% of the brain buckets out there. Three modes include red (from a separate LED), low white and high white with run times of 146, 96 and 80 hours respectively. No strobe, but have you ever really used that? Tip: if you really need to signal someone twirl the damn thing in a circle. You can see it forever.
You want lumens? We got lumens, 35 of 'em on high white, which throws damn close to 100 feet, low white about half that. The red setting is good for just beyond arms-reach, which is plenty good enough for most red light applications such as reading a map without destroying your night vision while people are trying to kill you. What the person trying not to be killed might appreciate is not having to cycle through both white light settings to turn the unit off, which unfortunately you have to do with the Byte. Overall, for non-military applications the Byte is fantastic: small and ultralight, long burn times, weather resistant and
$19.95 at REI