User Review: Princeton Tec Apex

Princeton Tec Apex
Above: The current Apex, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed January 16, 2009 by Landon Parks

Rating:
Price Paid: $75

This is one amazing headlamp. I ordered it from On Rope 1 a few days ago (the model I got was the APX-R, which is 130 lumen).

I'm mainly a caver, so getting to use this underground was my main priority. For the past 3 years I have owned a Petzl MYOLITE 3.

I do a lot of vertical caving, and never have I been able to see all the way down a 150' drop with a light, until the APEX came along. I was totally amazed.

When comparing it to my old Petzl MYO 3, there is no comparison. The 4 LED's on LOW mode is brighter than the Halogen bulb of the MYO, and the 3 LED's of the MYO are not even near as bright as the low setting of the 4 LED's on the APEX. The 3 Watt LED, even on low, esily allows me to see down a 75' passageway with no problems at all. On high, I got to see over 150' (estimated). In caving, that is unheard of.

While I have issues with the "Regulated" time on the 3 Watt High, it does last more than an hour (for me anyway, more like 2.5). Really though, on the 3 Watt LOW it will go regulated for 9 hours, which is wonderful. Nobody really needs the high setting for a long period of time anyway.

Also, I noticed another reviewer here stated that they where not happy about the "False Advertising" on the box, about the length of the brightness. Really, do you expect a 4 AA headlamp to go 72 hours on a single set of batteries at High Power, 3 Watt, 130 lumen output? If you actually fell for that, you should have known that there was some catch. At this point in time, 72 hours on those settings would not be possible with 4 AA's.

Also, on my box, it says right on the back about the regulated vs. total burn time... Maybe you should read the entire box before you make assumptions.

Overall, I'm 100% pleased with this light. It was worth every penny of $75.

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