Comments on: Android Flashlight Apps Compared

By: Aton

Aton — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:29:56 +0000

Id’ like to see a case with a built in LED on it, flashlight ever present, no drain on phone.

By: Yenta

Yenta — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:38:15 +0000

I am a tour guide and looks like neither of the applications mentioned will do it for me. I agree with those who suggest an application to just keeping the camera flash on. It would be a lot brighter. I sure would like to avoid schlepping my separate flashlight for night tours.

By: The RedHeaded Rambler

The RedHeaded Rambler — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:43:54 +0000

Ultimately if you are in a situation where you’re area has lost power, the last thing you want to do is run down the battery in your one communication device. So you have to take phone flashlight applications within that context. IE you don’t want it to be some kind of flood light. You want it to be just bright enough to help you find an actual flashlight.

Now having said that, I realize there are a whole host of other situations where having a flashlight on your phone comes in handy. Which is one of the reasons why I have resisted going with the crowd to the smart phone store.

I LOVE my Casio G-Shock phone and one of the reasons why, its that it has an actual real flashlight built into it. Much like the applications shown in the above, it has limited use and I won’t be using it to direct aircraft to a landing strip anytime soon but the LED light does project light out from the phone which much nicer that those applications.

Its come in very handy for helping someone jump start their car in the middle of the night, helping coworkers find the flashlight box when the power goes off, or giving me just enough light to see what I’m doing while installing a vent duct, or finding a contact lens dropped on the floor…

I’ll never own a phone without a flashlight ever again.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:08:13 +0000

We’ve actually come out with a Flashlight app called BeLightWorks which incorporates all the best features of both flashlight apps you reviewed. Color picker, brightness slider, and a built in strobe light feature for any emergency situations. If you are interested, it is definitely worth a try.

By: raine

raine — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:15:30 +0000

What I don’t understand is why they can’t just use the handy dandy little light that the camera uses to take pictures..I’ve seen it done on way older phones, is it that hard to recreate on the droid?

By: Clay

Clay — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:57:06 +0000

OI Flashlight is updated and works very well.

There is a free app made by Motorola called DroidLight that uses the LED camera flash and is way brighter than the screen.

I have both, OI Flashlight for night vison and DroidLight for everything else.

By: denise delgado

denise delgado — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:19:34 +0000

Which “Flashlight” did they rate? The developer was not given and there are multiple apps in the Droid Market with the name, “flashlight.”

By: Peli

Peli — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:53:00 +0000

Hi,

Thanks for your review! We have updated the OI Flashlight application in the Market! Please try it out again :-)

If there are still issues, please let us know and we’ll try to improve that!

Peli

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:18:13 +0000

I am in the military and we have to use red light when we are in tactical or “blackout” operations. Like Matt says, it reduces the effects that white light has on your night vision. If white light is used and then turned off, your night vision takes significantly longer to return than if you were to use red light.

This is a REALLY handy feature as map reading in blackout operations is tough with a red light as our military maps use red lines to denote certain features. The red lines become invisible with red light. A simple solution would be to change the tint of the light to blue or something else other than white.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:54:09 +0000

I have 2 comments:

1) You would use colored light in order to minimize the affect on your night vision. Red affects your eyes the least in terms of adjusting to the dark.
2) I find flashlight applications a bit overdone since if I need a flashlight (like when I come into a dark room and don’t want to turn on the light), I just turn on my phone backlight and I can see just fine.

I suppose if you need a light for an extended period of time, you might find this useful but the amount of times when I might use this are slim-to-none.

By: Android-Freak.Org

Android-Freak.Org — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:59:30 +0000

Why would anyone want to use colored light?
That effectively lowers the available light since white is as bright a color there is.