Bought a $15 headlamp at the register on a whim and it's brighter than the $45 one I babied for 3 years
I'm a retail manager so I see folks grab the cheap stuff by the register all day, and I finally did it myself two weeks ago. Grabbed a $15 headlamp just to have a spare for the car, and last night changing a tire in the rain it lit up the whole driveway better than my old one ever did. The kicker is my old one took 3 batteries and this one runs on a single AA I already had in the junk drawer. So here's my take, if you're about to drop $50 on a name brand headlamp, buy the cheap one first and see if you even notice. What's the last cheap thing you grabbed at the register that made you feel dumb for not getting it sooner?
At 2am last winter I was hunched over my engine in a snowstorm cursing my $60"tactical" headlamp that died after 20 minutes. Meanwhile my buddy pulled out some $12 thing he got at the hardware store counter and it lit up half the block. I always assumed cheap meant dim and flimsy, but that night proved me wrong fast. The expensive one had all these modes I never used and still ate batteries like crazy. Now I keep a cheap spare in the glovebox and it has never let me down once.