Photon Rex

The Rex is a rechargeable keychain light by LRI : the creators of the Photon Freedom.

The Rex features four bright white leds and the interface is very similar to the one in the photon freedom. The brightness can be regulated keeping the button pressed, when maximum it is about as twice as bright as the popular photon freedom. After the brightness settings there are four additional modes in the interface: a fast strobe, medium strobe, slow strobe and SOS mode.

The single button operation is easy and the button glows in the dark after being charged by direct sunlight or fluorescent light.

What makes the Rex so interesting is that it is rechargeable keychain light, to recharge it you have to insert the recharging kit into the Rex and then just plug the mini magnets at the other end to any 1.5v battery you have around. AA, AAA, C and D batteries work well, if you use rechargeable batteries then you have a complete rechargeable kit. Having an extra AA or even AAA battery around allows you to recharge the Rex anytime you need and anywhere you want. This curious recharging interface is like a hack but works well and it is very practical to be able to recharge the light using common batteries you can get anywhere.

The Rex is a lot bigger than a photon freedom, being about twice as big so if the freedom was fine for your keychain the Rex might be slightly bulkier.

A very interesting option for a rechargeable keychain light.
You can get it for $24 at LightHound.

Arc AAA UV

This is an UV (Ultra Violet) edition of the Arc AAA. It features a Nichia NSPU510CS 375nm UV LED powered by a single AAA battery, it can use lithium, alkaline or nimh rechargeable AAA batteries 1.5v.

The body is constructed from Type III Hard Anodized 6061 Aluminum and the interior is coated with chemkote for stronger corrosion reistance.

The switch is a twisty at the head, twist the head for simple on-off activation, o-rings make the light water reistance up to a hundread feet. Runtime with an alkaline battery is about 5 hours to 50% power.

UV lights are useful in many applications where objects need UV wavelengths to flouresce, like detecting counterfeit, scorpions, body fluids and others. Exposure to UV light is potentially harmful to the eyes so this is not a light to play. If you need a keychain UV light the Arc is probably one of the most durable versions you can get it will last forever in your keychain. If you don't need a very rugged light you have several options much cheaper and with similar runtime and output so this one probably makes sense only for those that use an UV light every day.

You can get it for $40 at ArcFlashlights.

Glo Toob Lithium

This is a new version of the Glo-Toob designed to use a C123 lithium battery instead of the A23 battery used in the previous version.

The toob has 11 modes of operation selected using a redesigned cap button. To switch modes you have to turn the tube on, wait five seconds and then turn it off and on without a pause. Now switching on and off will change modes. To fix a mode just leave the unit on in the selected mode for four seconds.

The lithium version has 11 modes of operation: flash mode, beacon strobe, fast strobe, slow strobe, SOS, pulse, half flash, bounce, ramp up, 100% constant on and 25% constant on. It can use either primary or rechargeable 123 batteries without problems as long as the battery fits in the tube. Not all rechargeable 123 batteries are the same size.

The new model is 80mm (3.15'') high and 24mm (0.95'') in diameter it is bigger than the older model to acomodate the new larger 123 battery. With this battery the tube can from 24 hours to 100 hours depending on the selected mode. The push button cap is splash proof and the standard package includes a lanyard and twist cap. With the twist cap the tube can be used up to 100m deep making it suitable for diving applications. (328 ft).

The new model is easy to operate and the push button cap has a very good tactile response making it easier to switch modes. To our taste the unit has too many fancy modes and only two constant-on modes, it is doubtful to have 9 signaling modes and strobes and yet only 2 levels of constant brightness in the interface.

With a long runtime and 360 degrees illumination the tube is great for small rooms, tents and as a marker if you hike, dive, cycle or do any kind of night activities it has many applications and is a practical device to have in your kit.

The lithium version is available in blue, red, amber, green, white and IR for $40 at Lighthound.

Spyderco-Byrd Starling

The Starling is the smallest folding knife from Spyderco's child brand Byrd.

The total length of the Starling is 4 3/8 (111 mm) with a blade of 1 15/16'' (49 mm) . Total weight is .65 oz (15 gr). A very small and very light knife.

The blade is made of 8Cr13MoV steel coated in black carbonitride. The blade is sharp from the factory and is easy to resharp, edge retention is quite good unless you decide to use your keychain knife to chop wood. The blade features byrd thumbholes for one hand opening, they work great and even better if you have small hands.

The handles are made of reinforced fibergalss (FRN) and are textured, there is also texturing in the spine and the thumbhole making the grip and the operation of the Starling surprinsingly good for its size.

The lock is a backlock mechanism at the middle of the handle, it is very strong and works really well.

A ballchain threaded thru the lanyard hole is included to attach the knife to a keychain, purse or to use it as a zipper pull. The size and weight makes it a pleasure to carry and the performance is really good making the Starling a very nice keychain knife with a very affordable price.

You can read more or order from Spyderco for about $16.

Dyno-Mite Keychain Light

The Dyno-Mite is a keychain crank activated light that uses no batteries and requires absolutely no power source to operate.

To use the light you crank it using the lever on the side and after one minute of winding you get 5 minutes of light from the two 5mm Leds.

The light is of course not bright but is a perfect backup light and a very nice gadget to have in your keychain, specially considering that this is a light that will always work if needed.

The Dyno-Mite is 1.6'' x 1.22'' x 0.6 '' (40 x 30 x 15 mm) and weights just 15 grams so it is perfect for a keychain, it has a small attachment hole for a splitring or a small lanyard. A keychain is included.

Construction is solid and the internal parts are simple are well constructed so with normal use this light should last a long time.

You can order for $7 from EssentialGear. Available in blue, red, green, silver, black and gray.

Streamlight MicroStream Penlight

The MicroStream is a single cell penlight powered by a AAA battery. The light uses a 0.5watt high flux LED. The total length of the light is 3.5''.

The Microstream uses a propietary optics system called "Micro Optical System" to focus the beam in a strong hotspot. The lens is made of polycarbonate.

The body is made of grade II anodized aluminium, with orings to make the light waterproof, the light claims to be shockproof and is very strongly built, we really think it will resist drops and impacts without a problem. The pocket clip is long and very strong, can be used to clip the light to a shirt pocket or a pants pocket without a problem, it has good tension and will not break. Attached to the clip is a small attachment point in case you want to use the light in your keychain.

The output is about 20 lumen for up to 1.5 hours of runtime, the beam is very strong and useful for a light of its size, great to inspect places, find missing objects and the normal things you can do with a keychain light.

Since the light is small and uses only one AAA battery it is in our opinion more a keychain light than a penlight and if you are looking for a strong hotspot portable mini searchlight this is probably a very good idea.

You can order from LightHound for $16.

Keychain Transflash Reader

This is a keychain version of a transflash memory reader. It features a USB 2.0 connector on one side and a slot for a transflash card in the other end.

The dimensions are really minimal: 1.02'' x 0.43'' x 0.16'' and weights 0.2 oz. To use it you need to have a transflash memory card too, TF cards are becoming popular since they are used in many cellphones, you can plug the card, insert the reader in a USB port and access the card as a drive without drivers or aditional software. Used in conjunction with a 1gb or 2gb TF card this can be a tiny flashdrive, probably the smalles you can have since the reader is just as big as the USB connector itself so we don't see how it can be any smaller.

The reader has a small hole for a strap so you can carry it on your keychain or a necklace, construction is good enough to survive your keys, there are no moving parts so unless the plastic where the TF card is inserted gets crushed the reader will work fine. Remember you also need a TF card to use this as a flashdrive.

You can get it for $4.50 from DealExtreme.

Flat Mini Keytons

The flat mini keytons are very light and small handy tools made of aircraft grade titanium. The keytons are 2 1/4'' long and 0.048'' thick, they weight only 0.2 ozs (6 grams).

The keytons feature three screwdriver tips, they can be used for screws, small prying, scraping and other jobs where you need a strong and flat tool.

Being made of titanium the keytons will never rust and are extremely strong for their size, the anodizing is strong and will not get scratched from contact with keys and other metallic elements. The keytons have a generous lanyard hole that can be used to thread cord, the walls are too big for a splitring so you need to thread cord first if you want to keep it in your keychain.
Being as flat as they are the keytons can also be carried inside a wallet, you will never note their existance.

Available in bronze, blue, pink, purple and gray/green. You can order from Peter Atwood's website for $25.

Buck Transport

The transport is a keychain folding knife by Buck made in collaboration with Peter Whittaker.

The transport is 2 7/8'' long when closed (7.3cm) and the blade length is 1 1/4'' (3.2cm). The transport locks and unlocks using a button on the side, interestingly the knife is also locked preventing accidental opening.

The transport features a bottle opener incorporated and a lanyard half-hole at the back of the handle. The lanyard hole is generous enough for splitrings, paracord, ballchain and other options. There is no pocket clip.

The handle is made of nylon, is strong and has a good grip but may be a little slippery if your hands are wet or greasy.

The blade is a drop point made of 420J2 steel. It cuts well and it is pointy enough to penetrate cardboard and similar materials, the short blade will make large cutting jobs difficult but for small tasks such as opening boxes, cutting cord and similar tasks works perfectly well.

One thing we liked is that the transport really doesn't look scary at all, you can deploy it and use it at the office, when camping and other public places without scaring anybody. A practical little knife that is accesible and easy to use.

The transport is available in red, pink, gray and blue handles for about $18 from REI. You can also read more at Buck's website.

Leatherman Squirt S4-P4

The squirt S4 is a keychain multitool by leatherman conceived as an improved version of the classic Micra. In the squirt the most significant change is that tools can now be opened with the scissors closed, the tweezers can be sepparated and the handles are now in color.

There are two models of the Squirt, the S4 featuring scissors as the main tool and the P4 featuring pliers as the main tool. In both models the accesory tools include a small blade, a small screwdriver, medium screwdriver, nail file and cleaner, philips screwdriver and tweezers. There is also a splitring attachment point in one of the handles. There is also a ruler in the handles in case you need to make a quick measurement.

The main tool either the scissors or the pliers work great and they are spring activated the spring being very noble so it will last as long as the tool itself. all the tools work well as expected in a leatherman, the tools can be opened without deploying the scissors or pliers. The screwdrivers are strong enough to be used for little prying and scraping jobs if needed.

Compared with the Micra the Squirt is a little bigger due to the handles being thicker this is the price you pay for being able to use the screwdriver without opening the tool. In our opinion you don't have to replace your micra if you already have one but if you don't then this is a nice tool to consider. Along with the Victorinix minichamp this is a top quality and useful keychain multi-tool.

The squirt is available in red, blue and gray. You can read more about it at Leatherman's official website. And order for about $25 from Amazon.

Kershaw Twocan

The twocan is an interesting combination of a knife and a pair of scissors by Kershaw.

When closed the twocan is just 2-3/4'' long (70 mm) and weights 0.9oz. The material is stainless steel, it has a nice solid carabiner that has good pressure and can be used to clip the tool to a backpack, belt loop, keychain, etc we don't think the carabiner can open by accident so the risk of losing the tool is very low.

After deploying the first blade you have a wharncliff style knife that is 1 1/2'' long, very sharp and pointy from the factory can be used to open boxes, make sharp cuts, remove splinters and many other tasks.

Things get interesting when you deploy a second blade that opposes the first one and has a spring mechanism converting the knife in a pair of scissors. There is no handle so you use the scissors pushing the spring blade with your thumb. The scissors cut excellent because the blades are very sharp and the fit is perfect, they will get a little difficult to use for long cuts because your hand will get in the middle of what you are cutting but for small precision cuts they are great, small rope, fishing line, paper, cardboard are cut without any problems.

The twocan is a great combination of a pocket knife and scissors in a small size and with superb quality construction.

You can get it from Knife Center for $20.

Keychain Lighter

This is a keychain lighter in the form of a spy capsule. It's as small as the small spy capsules, and comes with a small ballchain for attachment to keyrings purses, etc.

The lighter itself is a standard mechanic ignition lighter using standard fuel the zippo fuel refills work perfectly and the flint is also standard and oh-surprise the zippo flints work as replacements.

Being in a closed capsule the lighter won't leak fuel and won't smell fuel, with a standard charge of fuel it can work for weeks or months if you don't use it often. Even in a closed capsule the fuel that is very volatile will eventually evaporate but from our quick tests we think it can be months before a charge of fuel renders the lighter useless without use. This means this little lighter is fine in emergency kits or to go camping. It is not wind resistant and there is no shielding from the wind so you need to cover it with your hands as a regular lighter if you are outside.

The flame is a regular normal looking flame, not hot enough as the butane piezoelectric ligters but good enough to start a fire and other normal activities.

A good keychain lighter with the strong advantage of being very easy to refill and service if needed.

You can get it for $5 from EDCdepot.

E6-B keychain computer

This is a en E6-B sliding rule in the shape of a keychain. The diameter is about 1.7 inches and it's flat so it goes well in a keychain or inside a wallet.

It is made in plastic but might suffer wear or break if carried in a keychain with keys and other abrasive elements so maybe better for a slim keychain, the car keys or a wallet.

The sliding rule is used by pilots to perform manual calculations about fuel usage, time to destination and others it's basically a decimal logarithmic scale and can be used by non pilots to do multiplications, divisions, square roots, percentages, unit conversions and proportions.

To perform a multiplication you just align the first number from the inner scale with "10" in the outer scale, then look in the outer scale for the second number and the inner scale will show you the result.

The precision is not very high because of the size, you will not know about decimal values in divisions and your multiplications and proportions can be off by some small units. But it works very well for aproximations, estimates and to calculate the tip or split the bill at the restaurant. It's also great to start conversations and has a vintage element reminding of the times when calculators didn't exist and everybody had to use a sliding rule for calculations.

You can get it for $5 from PilotEssentials.

Key Knife

The key knife as it name indicates is a small keychain knife in the shape of a reguler key. The blade of the knife opens from the key and when stored it is hold by friction.

The key size is just a little longer than the regular keys we have here, it can certainly camouflage in a keyring as another key but with just a little inspection you can notice it is not a regular key because the blade can be seen. In other words the blade does not hide completely behind the key.

Opening and using this little knife is easy, it works fine to open boxes, cut paper, envelopes and other minor cutting jobs that are common for a keychain knife.

The grip if you need to cut something a little more resistant is not very good because the key as a handle makes the blade a little fragile and it has some noticeable play in the joint with the key so we wouldn't recommend serious cutting jobs with this little knife.

It is certainly a very interesting tool to have in your keychain in case of need, the only problem is that you may forget you have it.

You can get it for about $24 from Garrettt Wade.

Cash Can

The cash can is a novelty container designed to keep some cash for emergencies.

The capsule is 1 1/2 Inches Long built in solid brass with a small bar inside. This cool little cash keeper is for just one bill, which is to be folded in thirds, then rolled around the center bar. The center bar with the note is then inserted in the container and through a hole in the top. Then a split ring ot a clip goes through the hole in the bar the bar then can't be removed from the container as long as the splitring or clip is blocking the hole.

Very clever solution and very practical, o-rings at the bottom of the container make it water-proof. You can use it to keep some emergency cash in your keychain, or as a very elegant gift. The design is also practical to store a mini roll of duct tape cut to fit the inner bar or some nylon thread.

We believe a removable ring makes more sense than a split ring in some uses to be able to quickly access the contents without removing the split ring. We really liked this product either to keep some cash, some duct tape or as a gift, it is small, sleek and works great. Our strongest recomendation is that ordering one is not going to be enough.

You can read more and order for $13 from Sunshine products.

Flat Spannerbabies

The flat spannerbabies are a new tool by Peter Atwood from a new line of very thin tools.

They are made of .050 titanium and are thin to carry in a change pocket, a wallet or in a keychain. They feature a spanner wrench for Strider folding knives, a screwdriver for Hinderer and Emerson pivot screws and a bottle opener.

The tool can also be used for little prying or scraping, popping tape, opening boxes etc.

The tool is very beautiful and thin and is probably an ideal companion if you carry a strider folder, if you don't it is still a very useful tool that as other Atwood tools will be useful in many situations that you wouldn't expect.

Available in plain bead blast and solid colors only. Bronze, purple, blue for $25 from Peter Atwood's website.

JezeBra Pill Fobs

This pillfob is one from the many available designs at Jazebra. The fob is made of medical grade stainless steel. The fob we tested was 12mm in diameter by 50mm long, enough for about 6 or 7 standard sized aspiring tablets.

The fob has o-ring seals to make it water proof and airtight, the construction is very solid and sleek. The stainless steel attachment point is good for a keychain or neck carry, there is no paint to wear if carried in a keychain.

There are models ranging from mini fobs for neck carry to larger capsules that can be used for survival kits or as a water tight container for different things.

You can read more and check the different models following this link. Prices from $18.

Cyber Snipa Dog Tags

This novelty item combines a USB pendrive with a flashlight and a multi-tool in the shape of a dogtag chain.

The tool comes shaped as a dogtag with a chain, intended for neck carry but can certainly be used in a keychain with a shorter chain or a splitring.

The USB drive has 512MB of capacity and slides in and out from the tag. It has a normal transfer rate, nothing exceptional but is not bad either.

From the "case" sides 3 small tools can be opened, a small set of pliers, a flat screwdriver and a bottle opener. The small tools are fine, a little fragile but they are not intended as power tools.

The flashlight is activated pushing a button, it is not very bright but works if you need a light in a hurry and have this handy.

You can read more and order for $54 from this site.

Nite Ize S-Biner

The S-Biner is a double gated thin carabiner from Nite-Ize, the biner is available in 3 sizes. Size 2 "small" is 2 x 7/8 inches and can load up to 10lb (4.5k). Size 3 is 2 5/8 x 1 1/8 inches and can load up to 25lb (11k). Size 4 is 3 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches and can load up to 75lb (33k).

The gates operate smoothly enough to be easy to open and close but have enough strength to prevent being opened by accident. The double gate is useful in several ways, you can use one gate for your keychain items and the other as an attachment point or you can use the s-biner to connect items together.

The biggest problem we had with the s-biners is that even the smallest one is a little bulky for what we like in a keychain or to hang from a belt loop, they are quite noticeable. A smaller version would probably be better for a keychain, since the sizes offered are 2, 3 and 4 maybe there is a size 1 planned for a near future.

If the sizes are good to you the product is nice, works as expected and seems to be solid enough to live up to the specifications. Remember this is not a climbing product, just an accesory.

You can read more in Nite-Ize's website and you can get them from $2.99 in black, silver or spectrum colors from ZBattery.

Lumapower F1

The F1 is a stylish single cell light using a Seoul P4 LED powered by a single AA battery.

The F1 is constructed using a aluminium body and reflector and over this another strong aluminium layer with inserts. This makes the light good looking and helps dispate heat.

The F1 can use any AA battery including alkaline, lithium, NiMh rechargeable and 3.7v 14550 batteries as well. The brightness is around 60 lumen with a normal AA and might go up to 70 using a 14550 rechargeable battery.

The body is very well constructed with knurling near the head and a glow ring that helps finding the light in the darkness after exposure to a light source. The reflector is made of aluminium and produces a very smooth beam. The lens is a saphire window with anti-reflective coating.

The light is not regulated it will last for about 1 hour at full brightness and then drop down being usable for about 3 to 4 hours getting dimmer as the battery is consumed. The switch is a twisty, twist to turn on and untwist to turn it off. The total length is 3.39'' (8.6cm) with a hole in the tailcap to add a lanyard or a split ring. The light can stand on its tail for candle mode and surprisingly the head and reflector can be removed to use it as a lantern providing 360 degree illumination in a room.

We have the impression that the F1 is a light designed and manufactured with a lot of quality, there are little nice details in terms of design and usability everywhere. It is probably not the Ferrari of AA lights but a good formula 1 car.

You can order the F1 from BatteryJunction for $47.45