When you look at a torch, you wanna look for brightness, throw and spill. (There are other factors but these are the main characteristics)
How intense the light is? How man lumens or candela (types of measurements)
How far the beam will go, throw.
How wide the beam is, spill.
If you have all throw and no spill, you have a laser. Not much help indoors, but it'll reach out real far.
If you have all spill and no throw, you can light up your room, but won't do squat outdoors.
I personally like lots of spill and decent throw.
I really really like this cheapo flashlight. I have more expensive models, but I kind of don't want to bash it around. With these budget builds, I'm not afraid of dropping it in a pool of oil, or work under a car with it, or accidently drop it. Its pretty damn sturdy, i've already dropped it a few times on concrete from my hands (accidently) and dropped it in a sink full of water (purposefully). The Cree XL-M T6 Led module I'm using in it is super gd bright. 550 lumens is light a car's low beam headlights. Having a car's headlight in a 6" x 1" package in your hands is nice. It has more throw than a standard car's headlights, but not as much spill. It uses 18650 rechargeable batteries which cost from $4 to $10 (depending on quality) but they last for about 1 hour on max setting, you can see it getting noticeably dimmer at about 40 mins and it slowly peters out. It'll last much more on the mid and lower settings but I haven't tested it that myself.
I bought one, loved it and bought 12 more in an improptu group by with some friends. It is a cheapo made in China model but the body is sturdy and like I said, its cheap enough that if I destroy it, I don't really worry about it. One of the reasons why I started to look for a cheaper light, is that on my last camping trip, by wife lost my my 4sevens light, and my son lost my fenix >.< Those were $100+ flashlights. The Ultrafire 502b with Cree XLM was I got it for like $25 by shopping around.
If you are interested in a more tactical use, with a remote tape switch or whatnot, you can look up other P60 bodies. I think the Ultrafire 504 is compatible with Surefire remote switches, and there a few more. These bodies are a bit more at about $18 to 20. Still a bargain eh?
If you are interested check out
http://budgetlightforum.com/forum
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forum.php
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