12V Spotlight Review: Hard to Find Flaws With This Car Socket Light

By far the biggest advantages of the 12V Spotlight, a portable flashlight that snugly fits into the cigarette lighter of your car, are its rechargeable battery and very bright bulb. You don’t have to spend money to buy replacements, and a great way to blind yourself is to shine light directly into your eye. Twisting the cap turns the light on, and turning it the other way activates its charging mode.

At full charge, the Spotlight is powerful enough to actually cast its aura under direct sunlight. Informal tests show that the light retains useful brightness for about an hour and forty-five minutes, dimming considerably until completely drained by the third hour. The manufacturer claims a total of seven hours will fill up the battery, which is actually faster than it sounds when you leave it plugged into your car’s DC socket.

The Spotlight usefully emits red while charging, making locating it under low-light conditions a snap. It even comes with a special adapter (named the “Fit Clip”) that allows the light to draw power from any specialized 12-volt sockets that aren’t necessarily in your car.

I’m not even sure if there’s any significant drawback to this gadget. The $20 price sounds a bit high for your average penlight, but considering the very functional nature of the Spotlight, it’s a great buy/gift for people who spend a lot of time with their cars—whether enthusiast or your average driver. Worried about the Spotlight interfering with the other doo-hickeys on your dashboard? On my 2008 Mazda 3, the light protruded about .75″ from the socket, not blocking anything.

12VSpotlight.com offers the portable in a wide variety of colors; it would be better to just visit the product list page and see for yourself. Useful accessories are also available, like the Super Socket, which splits your car socket so that a Spotlight and another accessory (like a mobile phone charger) can draw power at the same time.

For online purchases made in North America, regular shipping costs $4, and express sets you back by $8. Perhaps that’s something the makers of Spotlight could work on, as the shipping charges makes ordering individual units less practical. Although 12VSpotlight.com also maintains a list of vendors located throughout the world.