Streamlight ProTac 1L-1AA Field Test

This isn't technically a field test.

But then the power went out at my house.

And I figured, what better time to review a flashlight than when you actually need one?

I've had the ProTac 1L-1AA for roughly two years. It's lived in a jacket pocket, a nightstand drawer, a glove box, and the top lid of a pack. Most of that time it's done what small flashlights do: nothing, until something.

The outage was the something. A few hours of no lights, no fridge hum, and no ceiling fixtures meant this little light stopped being a "just in case" object and started being the thing I carried from room to room. That's the test — not a lab, not a light meter, just a normal house that suddenly went dark.

One word: batteries.

The ProTac 1L-1AA is dual-fuel. It runs on one CR123A lithium, or one AA alkaline, or one AA lithium. Swap the cell, swap the body's personality, and keep going.

That mattered more to me than raw output. CR123A gives you the brightest, longest-throwing version of this light and stores for years — perfect for a kit you hope never gets opened. AA gives you the battery that exists in literally every junk drawer, hotel remote, and checkout-line rack in America. When the grid is down and stores are picked over, being able to feed a light two completely different ways is a real advantage.

On paper: 350 lumens on high with a CR123A, 150 lumens on high with a AA, and 40 lumens on low with either. Throw is rated at 160 meters on CR123A and 105 meters on AA. Manufacturer numbers, all of them.

What I can tell you from my own house is this: on high, the ProTac completely lights up my king-sized bedroom. Not "you can see the outline of the dresser" lit — actually lit, corner to corner, off the ceiling.

Which is also the problem. Indoors, high mode is frequently too much. Bounce 350 lumens off white walls, a mirror, or a glossy countertop and you spend the next thirty seconds blinking at ghosts. During the outage I found myself defaulting to low almost immediately — 40 lumens is plenty to cook, find a breaker panel, or walk a hallway without wrecking your night vision.

High earns its keep outside. Down a driveway, into a treeline, across a yard to check a noise: that's where the throw is worth having, and it's noticeably stronger on a CR123A than on a AA.

The pattern worth noticing: AA lithium buys you the same brightness as AA alkaline with roughly three times the high-mode runtime. If this light is going into a kit that sits untouched for years, that's the cell I'd store it with.

TEN-TAP is Streamlight's way of letting you pick which of those three programs the light uses. Out of the box it ships in High / Strobe / Low, which is fine if you want strobe available and mildly annoying if you don't.

The pocket clip is reversible, and that's more useful than it sounds. Flip it around and it slides over the bill of a ball cap, pointing the beam roughly where you're looking.

During the outage this is how I ended up resetting a breaker with both hands free. It's not a headlamp — the weight sits out front and the beam moves with every head tilt — but as an improvised solution using gear you already have in your pocket, it works.

The body is anodized machined aircraft aluminum with an impact-resistant glass lens. Streamlight rates it IPX7 (1 meter for 30 minutes) and to 2 meters of impact resistance. Those are their numbers, not mine.

Mine's earned the anodizing wear honestly. It's been dropped on concrete more than twice, rattled around in a glove box through two summers, and rained on. The rubber tail switch still has the same positive click it had on day one, which is usually the first thing to go on cheap lights.

Two years in, it has never failed to turn on. That's the durability claim I can personally make.