Guard Dog Security Solaire 900 Lumen Waterproof Tactical Flashlight with 5 Functions, Rechargeable

I will summarize the other reviews in this review as I had the same experience. The Solaire 900 is VERY bright! Easily lights up my neighborhood. The Solaire has 3 brightness levels (900, 250, 30) and two strobe settings. The selector is at the end of the flashlight. Well made, high quality construction. HOWEVER, the batteries and battery charger get 1 star. They are junk. They quickly die and become unusable. I had to get two replacement battery chargers before I got one that worked. I would tell you to throw them away but Guard Dog customer service tells me that if I use any other battery or charger my lifetime warranty on the flashlight is void. (OK, I won't tell if you don't). So that being said, there are two batteries here on Amazon that I highly recommend, Orbtronics and ThruNite. Look for 3400 mAh or higher. I also purchased the xtar VP4 battery charger. I like it because it has 3 charging levels (1.0, .50 and .25). In addition, the charger uses a 3 stage charge algorithm for optimum charging (TC-CC-CV). This charger has a LCD display so I can see what the voltage is of the battery as it is charging. In a nutshell: 5 stars for the flashlight, trashcan for the batteries and charger.Update: I purchased two more batteries from Guard Dog. I received the silver wrapped batteries which are rated at 2800 mAh. After a 1 hr drain on high (900 lumens) the voltages were 1.4 for one battery and 3.84 for the other. 1) They should be draining equally and clearly are not 2) 18650 batteries are suppose to have a cut-off circuit at between 2.50 and 2.75 volts. These clearly do not. I contacted Guard Dog customer service and they replaced them with batteries "especially" for the Solaire flashlight. The "new" batteries are black wrapped and are 3200 mAh rated. Upon receiving them, I charged them to 4.2v. I then ran them for a one hour drain test. Guard Dog Customer Service assured me that these new batteries would last at least two hours. On the 1 hr test the batteries measured 3.76 & 3.82v. Recently I ran them for a 2 hr drain test on high. They never made it. After 65 min they shutoff. The light came back on and off again a couple of times. I tried it again the next night and this time they lasted 71 min before shutting off. Flashlight was very hot. I assume the thermal protection circuits kicked in. Voltages were respectable: 3.3 & 3.74. I wasn't sure if the flashlight did not have good cooling capabilities or if the batteries were to blame. Last night a ran a pair of ThruNite 3400 mAh batteries in my Solaire. They ran for two hours no problem. Flashlight cool to the touch. I noticed that there were "Ultrafire" stickers on the bottoms of my Guard Dog batteries. I don't like any batteries with the word "fire" in it. surefire, ultrafire, tangsfire. Just bad luck with all of them. I tend to trust ThruNite, Orbtronics and NiteCore. My verdict still stands: Great flashlight, junk batteries.

Wow. So lightbulb technology has completely changed over the last few years. This LED chip is so powerfully bright, I can't look at it. Maglight used to hold the corner on the lightbulb market, and believe me, I was a MagLight fanatic. I carried around the huge 22" ones to light up my neighborhood watch. I've been waiting for MagLight to compete in the LED market. They have tried, but literally, this flashlight outshines them all.Remarkably light (in weight as well as lumens), it has gagged ends and metal construction such that you really could take a swing at someone. But you won't have to, just look at the lumen output! The focusing on an LED chip is by far the best I've seen yet.**The downside: it says rechargeable, and it is. BUT, you have to pull out the battery cells and put them in a charger. I really thought it meant it would charge plugged in. This is a major flaw, and Guard Dog needs to fix it. Rechargeable flashlights should be grab-and-go; not load, align, screw on the cap, and then go. I really hope new models fix this.I bought two, one for my wife' purse, and one for me. I'm a volunteer fireman, so I took mine to the station to show it off immediately. They decided to buy some. The strobe is perfect off rescue in addition to the lights on the trucks. We use them to identify locations of firemen on brush fires at night and other long distance tasks. Look for when it has a recharging mount, and then enjoy! 900 lumens really says it all.

The light itself is really bright; however, when just walking with it just the motion of walking will make the light switch automatically between it's different settings. It's really frustrating to have to then keep pushing the button to get it back to full brightness and not blinking or dim. Another problem is the batteries charged okay the first time, but the second time I tried to charge them there were a few sparks in the charger and it then started having an electrical burning smell and the batteries were really hot in less than a minute. Since I was leaving the house, I unplugged it and waited till I could be home to try charging again. Plugged it back in an reloaded the batteries. Everything seemed okay; however, once the green light showed charged and I put them in the flashlight, they are not charged. I barely get a glow out of the bulbs. I have put a phone call in to the manufacturer - lets see if they return my call and how they handle these situations.

Initially this was a great flashlight; the bulb was extremely bright, the aluminum body felt (and still feels) substantial, and the rechargeable batteries and functional clip were welcome. Unfortunately, the flashlight quickly became unusable as button clicks no longer turned it on or off, or only did so sporadically after only 2 months of use. Recharging the batteries, nor checking connections within the flashlight have resolved the problem, and so this flashlight has become unfunctional, unreliable and ultimately useless---therefore, this flashlight sadly falls to a 2/5 stars rating.---------------UPDATE---------------After having this flashlight for a couple of months now, I realize that early on the light would go out from time to time, but that with a good hit it would work again. Once a few weeks of this went by, I haven't had a problem since, and the flashlight has proven to be reliable. Now it may be that it is a loose part, or something that was just jammed in somewhere where it shouldn't be or something, but in the end it's better now. Other than that, the only annoyance is how the light changes between the 5 settings every time you turn it on or off (e.g. you can use it in "bright" mode, turn it off and then on again to find the mode switched to "normal"). But now after the time I've had it, I will---for the time being---change my review up to 5 stars because of how the flashlight has proven to work dependably.