Coast HP 14 LED High Performance Flashlight Review

by tuyen

Ever hear of Coast LED flashlights, lanterns, headlamps, knives and multi-tools? No, I hadn’t either – until they sent me a flashlight and knife to review. In this post I’ll cover their flashlight, so if you’re in the market for one, or if you find yourself struggling for Christmas gift ideas each year, listen up.

You know I give honest reviews, because stirring readers in the wrong direction is counterproductive to building a site that people can rely on. One thing that you can rely on, though, is the Coast LED flashlights. At least, I can see no indication why you can’t rely on them. They seem pretty damn rugged!

Coast sent me the HP14 that has a retail price of $65.00. Let’s cut straight to the chase – would I spend $65.00 on this flashlight? It depends. If I needed a high quality flashlight I would. By that I mean, I believe in buying quality products once rather than junk products multiple times, because they break.

This flashlight, if you can personally justify $65.00 for a flashlight, is worth the price. They’re not skimping on their products. I see no corners being cut. It screams quality, and I could tell that as soon as I saw the box it came in…

Sure junk products can come in nice packaging, but … when you open it up, you see it’s not junk…

The flashlight came with everything: light, batteries, carrying case and lanyard. It’s heavy duty, feels good in your hand. On “high” this thing will run 4 hours and 45 minutes with its ultra-efficient LED bulbs. On “low” it’ll run 20 hours. These are according to the manufacturer. It boasts an impressive 339 lumens on high, 56 on low. The beam distance is 175 meters on high, 36 on low. Scope the battery pack …

Handling this thing is both fun and smooth. You can do it all with one hand. Unlike the very common “mag lite” that adjusts its beam by turning the end left or right, the Coast light adjusts its beam by moving the end forward and backward. This is much smoother and faster. Rather than having the on/off button in the way by your hand, this bad boy has the rubber coated switch at the back of the light – all tactical-like. Now just witness this beam …

It’s true, the picture doesn’t do the beam justice. I had to toss it up against a living room wall on focused beam in order to capture any picture at all. If I set the light to wide, it encompassed the entire wall and more, couldn’t capture it in a pic. Very broad lighting that with its long run time would make it great for use inside a tent or around a kitchen table after an EMP STRIKES DOWN AND DESTROYS THE GRID!

*ahem*
Sorry about that.

Where was I? Ah yes, the sweetness of this lamp. It even comes with a hoity toity carrying case that you could attach to your belt, bug out bag, vehicle seat – you name it!

Now back to that original question – would I spend $65.00 on this flashlight? It’s a fair sum of money, so I don’t know. That being said, based on other lights, and the prices they go for, I can without question say this light is worth the money.

It’s priced high for a reason, and that reason isn’t to bilk the customer. It’s priced high, because I’m sure it costs a fair sum to produce. The quality and presentation of it would make it particularly great for gift giving.

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10 comments

James NZ September 5, 2012 - 2:52 am

Long time reader first time commenting:
this looks very similar to the LED Lenser brand, their headtorch is identical, have had a lot of good use out of LED lenser, inparticular their scope mounts!

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John Brown September 5, 2012 - 12:36 pm

I looked at Coast’s website and the most attractive thing to me would be the head lamps because they have very nice straps. I stopped buying the cheap ones (Made in China) from SMG because the plastic adjusters keep breaking after real world use, though the lamps themselves are usually fine.
I was going to post a semi-review to add onto this one because I believe I own one of their older products, but, under History I could not actually find a History.
> after an EMP STRIKES DOWN AND DESTROYS THE GRID!
I would like to point out any EMI/EMP event that took down a power grid would most likely take down your LED flash light too since LEDs by their nature depend on semi-conductors to pulse the voltage (in case you have never actually built a LED project with a bread board). Many flash lights have cheaply built SMT boards made in China that might not even survive a local lightening strike. imho, For backup to the LEDs you should have at least two regular incandescent flash lights, one head lamp and one hand flash light.
That being said, palights.com sells awesome 9v LED flash lights Made in the USA that I have been using for years, though not indestructible, that have stood up to years of use and abuse.

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j.r. guerra in s. tx. September 5, 2012 - 5:32 pm

‘+1 on PALights, those little guys are in my deer hunting kit all the time. The locator function provides enough light itself just to walk around in the dark or climbing inside the blind.

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j.r. guerra in s. tx. September 5, 2012 - 12:58 pm

I just learned this trick yesterday – a black light flashlight will light up scorpions like neon lights. I did not know this – if you have scorpions in your area, one of these flashlights would be a good idea! Don’t have to be expensive either, my friend’s $6 flashlight does the trick.

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solomon September 5, 2012 - 2:22 pm

339 lumens on high? that alone justifies the price! other flashlights that will go unnamed, get along on name alone and produce half the lumens at twice the price. definitely have to take a look.

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keeponrockin September 5, 2012 - 8:19 pm

too bad its not made in the USA

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MtnPrepper September 5, 2012 - 11:41 pm

I was wondering when some one in the Prepping Community would check these out I have a LED LenserP6 (kind of the first generation of these lights from coast) and two HP6 (newer generation than the Led Lenser) all three of these lights run on TWO AA Batteries and usually out preform even the big mag lights and if you go to Coasts site there is a survey that if you complete and pay shipping and handleing they will send you a free G10 (single AAA that is awesome for EDC) And the quality is even better on the other models.

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j.r. guerra in s. tx. September 6, 2012 - 12:42 pm

My Lenser model has the red, blue, green and three LED lights, not sure which model it is but its a handy size, about 4″ long, 1″ diameter. The housing around the LEDs is losing its luster though, finish is flaking off.

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John Brown September 7, 2012 - 2:48 pm

> I just learned this trick yesterday – a black light
> flashlight will light up scorpions like neon lights.
Yes, some of the larger ones look really cool, but, it is most handy on the smaller harder to see ones before you bed down or when you take in something left outside. I know we have a few different types in GA.
Some day I am going to see if they work on a brown recluse and black widows.

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Steve September 9, 2012 - 11:53 pm

Don’t waste your money on Coast. I’ve had
Multiple lights from them. They all suffer the same fate. After a few bounces off the floor they flicker. I’m emoyed in a profession where I need a flashlight every day. Coast is NOT the answer for long term usage. You will do much better with LED mag lights or petzel headlamps. In my experience they just don’t hold up.

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