You Deserve Better Than the Flashlight on Your Phone (2024)

Just slightly larger than a standard Sharpie marker, the ThruNite Archer 2A V3 fits comfortably in my hand and has four brightness levels: high, medium, low, and a soft, yellowish glow called firefly. It also has an emergency strobe light.

I like having options. I don’t need a searing beacon to find my way to the kitchen during a power outage—low works just fine. The gentle firefly mode is great for not distracting a driver when I’ve dropped something on a car floor at night. I’m not a parent, but I’m told that the firefly setting is also excellent for checking on sleeping kids.

If I do need to flood a blackened space with light, like the time one of my cats got into our cavernous crawlspace, the brightest setting, a 500-lumen beam is ideal: It easily found a pair of guilty eyes in a far corner and identified the rescue path with the least amount of spiderwebs.

In fact, I’m constantly finding new uses for this flashlight, such as for reading an awkwardly placed serial number on a dishwasher without having to slide the machine out from under the counter. Shadows deep inside my closet have parted to reveal a pair of rarely worn and much-needed dress shoes minutes before I had to leave for a wedding. And the morning I wrote this article, I had spilled a few drops of coffee on my dimly lit stairs. A swift pass with the Archer 2A V3 illuminated the few brown splotches on brown wood that needed cleaning, saving me from pulling out a mop and pointlessly going over every step.

It’s also handy for locating tiny objects—about a week after my revelation on the stairs, I stuck my wedding and engagement rings in my pocket while cleaning, and when I pulled them back out, the engagement ring (which is not much thicker than the wire inside a bread-tie) went flying. After a visual scan failed to turn it up, the Archer 2A V3 quickly found it on the edge of a patterned rug next to the leg of a chaise.

The Archer 2A V3’s settings are simple to toggle through, with an intuitive two-button design. The back-end button turns the light on, and a second, smaller button near the head clicks through the different beams.

The emergency strobe effect requires an extra step to activate—a thoughtful design touch that prevents it from accidentally triggering anyone’s photosensitivity or spontaneously kicking off a rave.

A subtle, hexagonal ring near the head keeps the Archer 2A V3 from rolling off surfaces. The handle has a firm, grippy texture, and a strong pocket clip and removable lanyard come included. Should the flashlight still manage to escape your side, it can withstand a 1-meter drop and full submersion in water.

The light will always turn on to the setting last used, with the exception of the strobe light. I often use the “momentary on” feature, which activates the light when I half-press the end button and switches it off as soon as I release it.

This feature is extremely handy when I’m out somewhere and digging for items in my always-overstuffed tote. Since I’m not fully engaging the satisfying “click-click” sound of the light turning on or off,I can make the beam vanish instantly and silently, which draws less attention to the fact that I’m that person who needs a flashlight to find things in their bag.

Senior staff writer Doug Mahoney found that when you’re using the Archer 2A V3 in a dark space on its firefly setting and then moving to a well-lit area, it can appear dim enough to trick you into thinking that the flashlight is turned off when it’s still on, resulting in accidental battery drain. But that wouldn’t happen until 15 days had passed, and it hasn’t been an issue for me, anyway, thanks to Doug’s warning.

Doug also found that the Archer 2A V3 will last only about 45 minutes if you leave it on at its highest setting. But if you’re doing anything in the dark that requires extremely bright light for a significant stretch of time, you’re probably better off with a strong lantern.

I use two AA rechargeable batteries in my Archer 2A V3, but another pick from our flashlight guide, the ThruNite TC15 V3, is USB rechargeable. At its highest setting, the TC15 V3 offers a much brighter, 2,403-lumen beam, and it has five other levels. But it takes a long time to charge, and it isn’t the best choice for emergency use: If the power’s out, you can’t recharge it.

I’ve done absolutely nothing to care for the Archer 2A V3 aside from changing its batteries, but the flashlight comes with a replacement cap for the end switch and two additional O-rings for the battery compartment, should anything happen to those elements. After three years, nothing has, but I’m glad they’re there—it’s another thoughtful touch that helps elevate this flashlight from a typical torch to a near-indispensable tool in my life.

This article was edited by Alexander Aciman and Harry Sawyers.