I recently purchased the Energizer 7 LED Trailfinder Headlight off a recommendation of Steven Harris of Solar1234.com because I was in the market for a new headlamp.
After removing it from the package there was some basic assembly required, including attaching the headband and installing the batteries. One thing I noticed was that the battery compartment door was initially a bit difficult to remove but after first removal was no problem. I should point out that the battery door is secured in place with nice and secure clips but, once removed, is very precariously attached to the unit with a flimsy pieces of plastic (I guess it’s plastic) and seems to me to be something that could easily break. This is not a huge deal to me because the flimsly plastic serves no purpose other than to keep you from losing the battery compartment door but I would have preferred something a bit better.
I would also like to mention one more slight detraction, and that is the fact that the on/off (and change light mode) button is somewhat difficult to push. As a result, if you’re just trying to cycle through the light setting to turn if off then that could be an annoyance. I think I would have preferred a single on/off button and other button (or method) to switch between light settings.
I immediately started using the headlamp and found that it has four lighting modes: night vision (uses red color to keep from ruining your vision in the dark), spot light (uses three white lights), flood light (uses two different lights), and full power (uses all five lights). I’m not sure why they felt the need to include so many lighting options but I guess it lets me tailor my lighting needs a bit better and to conserve battery power. Personally, I would have preferred maybe three settings at most, but I’m really just nit-picking here.
On to more positive things…
As for function, the until can certainly light up a small room quite well and I was easily able to see what I was doing wherever I wandered while testing it. The package says the unit outputs 58 lumens but I only care if I can see what in the world I’m doing and that I was able to do.
Another good feature that I liked is the pivoting capability of the light; you can get two distinct angles when using the pivot (not including straight ahead, or no pivot at all). In fact, I found myself using the pivot feature most of the time.
I ended up wearing it for about an hour as I unpacked a few other things and eventually forget that I was even wearing it. However, once I realized I was still wearing it and later removed the headlamp I was glad to have it off my head as it is a bit bigger than other headlamps that I have used. Of course, it does include a nice foam pad that keeps the headlamp from pressing hard against my forehead, which was nice.
Another big plus is that this particular headlamp utilizes 3 AAA batteries, which means that so long as you have the capability to recharge AAA batteries then you can use it for a LONG time. The batteries used is something to pay close attention to. I have purchased headlamps in the past that utilize watch-sized batteries which makes them lighter-weight but also means you cannot recharge them. The package says it can run on a set of batteries for up to 14 hours on maximum setting. So, if you use a lower setting then that means a longer run time. In my opinion, 14 hours on max from a single set of batteries is a good deal for a headlamp.
Despite a few minor annoyances, all-in-all I would say that for the price (less than $17 shipped at the time of this post) this Energizer 7 LED Trailfinder Headlight is a good deal given light output, battery capacity, and overall capability. In fact, I should have ordered two. 🙂
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