100,000 LUMENS!
Some people say that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should.
And for those people, this is not the flashlight for you.
The Imalent MS18 emits 3,300 times more light than one of those old school big baton looking Maglites. It is 20,000 times more powerful than the first flashlights ever created. And they say it can throw the light about one and a half kilometres.
100,000 LUMENS!
This thing could be used as a weapon. In the Vietnam War, there was a device which emitted a very bright flash in the jungle to illuminate the enemy and shock them. They only put out a fraction of the brightness that this thing does. In a combat situation, there’s a risk that it would be sniped out pretty quickly but I’m pretty sure that if you look at this thing through a scope, you’re going to be blind. So this thing could definitely give you an advantage in a night-time combat situation. An overpowered floodlight like this on the battlefield gives you a full visual and it can blind large amounts of people at the same time because 450,000 Candela is more than enough to be tactical – even with 50,000 Candela power it could blind somebody.
100,000 LUMENS!
You can feel the heat of it from across the room and you can hear that fan working hard – it’s a noisy flashlight. It has an input and an output fan. Not many heat dissipation ridges on it, which is surprising.
This is like the Burj Khalifa of flashlights. The tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai. There was no real logical reason to build it. But they did it because they could. When you’re out there in the dark dead of night, and you’re using this thing, you can literally see everything!
I thought that 10,000 lumens was all that I would ever need. Bill Gates once thought that you only needed 100 kilobytes or something like that. And now we have 10 terabyte hard drives. Boundaries and limits are constantly being pushed.
If you had an acreage of land, and you wanted to see your entire property at once, or rather a whole quarter section at once, this thing will do it. It’s just insanely bright.
100,000 LUMENS!
However, it’s not all good. I think there could be more heat dissipation ridges. They say it’s waterproof, but I don’t put too much faith in the IPX6 rating. I also don’t put too much faith in the 1.5-metre drop but I’m not gonna drop it or blast it with water to find out – it’s an expensive piece of kit.
It’s a dangerous flashlight to have around children. It’s very easy to turn it on and very easy to activate the turbo. Notwithstanding the ‘blinding’ effect, if it’s on a piece of paper on the table and it’s accidentally turned on, it will heat up and heat up and burn whatever is underneath it. It will turn itself off once it gets too hot, but it could potentially start a fire. This thing is so hot – if you’re ever in a winter survival situation, and you want something to help you stay warm, this torch will do the job. You could probably boil water with it.
100,000 LUMENS!
Is it practical? Not really.
Is it going to be for most people? No.
The Imalent MS18 is going to be for the odd person who has a lot of money to spend and maybe has a large property and wants to have the means to survey that property very quickly? And maybe even use it for some self-defence applications. Or someone that likes cool gadgets and wants the top of the range flashlight.
If you want the brightest flashlight in the world then it is something you might want to get right now, because I can honestly see these things becoming regulated. When dumbasses start pointing these things at traffic or, pranksters are getting up to mischief, the government will say, ‘right, that’s too many lumens, you don’t need 100,000 lumens and these things are a health risk’. And BANG they won’t be available any more. In fact, the folk that already have them will have a rare piece of history in their hands, which will only increase in value over time.
100,000 frickin’ LUMENS!
If 100,000 is a bit overkill for you, then try Imalent’s MS12, 53,000 lumen version from last year.