I carried the e+lite for about 5 months of continuous backpacking this year (PCT), and had no trouble with it, still quite pleased with the choice. It's not the light to choose if you want to do much night hiking (unless you have a fairly full moon), but for just basic use in waking before dawn or setting up camp after dark it works fine.

Battery life isn't super long, but for me camp was just a place to sleep mostly, not to hang out and read or whatever. Per someone else's recommendation I ordered a bunch of the coin-type batteries via an online place (I forget where, do a search) and saved a bit of money in buying enough batteries for the whole trip in advance. About every 4rth trail town or so I would include a pair of replacement batteries with my resupply box and replace the batteries before they had run low. The only time I ran low was towards the very end of the trip when I got complacent, but the batteries are so lightweight that I had been carrying a spare pair, plus a small pinch-type LED as a backup. When they did run low it took me a while to notice, as it was still generating light, just ... less.

I never found a really great distinction between the high power and low power settings, and I have no use for the flashing function, but I really liked the option to use the red light to save my night vision, or in a couple of cases when sharing a room or camp space with others to have a light that was less annoying to others around me.


Brian / Gadget
http://postholer.com/brianle