I use to have a incandescent minus maglite , and I really like it . when I lose it , I think I would upgrade to a lead version . I be disappoint . as far as brightness go , there do not seem to be a great difference between my old maglite use nimh battery and the led maglite with alkaline . the beam be more uniform in the lead version , but I find the bluish tint to be harder to see in than the reddish incandescent light . my main complaint , though , be that the lead version do not work properly with my nimh battery . it produce a very dim , barely visible light with one set of older , fully charge nimh battery I have . when I try a higher capacity , fully charge set , it do not produce any light at all . I be return this version and get a incandescent version instead .