The goal: Find the ideal flashlight, for both summer blackouts and camping in the Poconos. We spoke to avid hikers and buyers at outdoor stores around the city (including those with police-officer clients), who suggest aiming somewhere between the halogen-bulb clunkers of the E.T. era and the military-grade, 1,000-lumen models increasingly seeping into the market.
The verdict: The P7.2 by German manufacturer Led Lenser ($72 at Tent & Trails, 21 Park Pl., nr. Church St.; 212-227-1760) has an adjustable, 320-lumen LED bulb that goes from a short, wide beam (for lighting up your living room in a power outage) to a long, narrow one that will guide you to that marshmallow roast (should it start raining, the casing is made of waterproof matte aluminum). Rather than using pricey, hard-to-find lithium batteries, the palm-size flashlight takes standard triple-A’s.