Fenix TK35 & TK70

I bought a Fenix TK35 sometime around the beginning of this year and it is a magnificent and impressive light. Having the second toggle button takes some getting used to though (my previous lights being of the more compact, tactical variety), however, this is an exceptionally solid light that I can rely on when the zombie apocalypse comes.
Well a couple months ago, I bought the [then] new Fenix TK70 making it the most… everything light in my little collection. While I love the light, there are some gripes I have with it (and nothing to do with weight/size).
TK35
This is a wonderful light and I can’t reiterate that enough. For all intents and purposes, this is really about all that anyone really needs short of search & rescue haha. With a 12-lumen low-setting and an 820-lumen turbo-setting, this light pretty much has you covered for all sorts of “civilian problems” (power outage, flat tire etc.).
I only have one gripe about this flashlight: the use of a battery carrier – occasionally it will rattle. A very minor (nit-picky) annoyance really. I think the base of the light could stand to be a bit bigger as to be less slip-out-of-your-gloves but again, this is a super minor issue (as that’s what the lanyard is for!)
TK70
This light is definitely a thrower: 700m+ range – loads of fun to take out to the lake or in fog. Where many lights (the TK35 included) will (in heavy fog) get washed out in 100m, this light manages to punch 300m+ with ease. Turning the light on turbo definitely invokes a boyish giggle/cackle of delight as damn near everything gets washed out in light.
My problem with this light is that, unlike the TK35, I can’t count on this light. I’ll note that I’m currently running alkaline (Duracell) batteries, so when I make the switch to NiMh batteries, I’m sure (and hope) a good chunk of the reliability concerns will be addressed. The problem is essentially, whenever I press the power switch, I don’t know if the thing will light up!
There are two causes for this. Firstly, I’m not convinced there is good contact for the batteries: everything’s clean, all the batteries are fresh and everything is twisted tight but when I hit the power button, I get a flicker of light. Usually dismantling everything and putting it back together will solve the problem – but this isn’t something I should have to do (at least not in this class of light). When I shake the light, I can hear the sound of the batteries rattling. Granted this has only happened three times – that’s three times too many (especially for a light that doesn’t see very much in the way of ‘tough’ environments). I’ve examined the spring mechanism and verified that the contacts are clean… kind of at a loss at how to further diagnose.
The much more concerning issue is that the TK70 uses D-cell batteries to begin with. The supported batteries are:

• 1.2V NiMH
• 1.5V alkalines
• 1.5V lithium primaries

Well both the NiMH and alkalines get neutralized at -10ºC (meaning I can’t leave this in the car overnight during the winter). This leaves impossibly hard to find lithium primaries. This effectively nullifies the TK70’s effectiveness in the winter. Sure, the TK35 can handle all my lighting needs during the winter, but the point of this light was to have a no-compromise lighting solution (at the cost of size/weight, which is fine to me) and not being able to use the light in cold weather is something I should have thought of. Then again, it’s damn near half the price of the Olight SR90.
I will ultimately end up grabbing the NiMH batteries regardless of cold-weather performance simply because the Duracell batteries just can’t keep up: the light keeps having to kick down to Medium/High from turbo. I suspect that this is just due to them being alkalines, but I’ll find out when I get around to buying the batteries.
Ultimately, this isn’t that big of a deal: it’s more of a disappointment rather than a critical problem (as I have the TK35). I really like the size/length of the TK70 (the long battery tube/barrel gives it awesome weight balance) and I love the retarded amount of light that it puts out.
Looking Ahead
It would seem a little silly to buy a whole new light to replace the TK70 for 4-months and my original plan was to have the TK70 as a in-the-house light and the TK35 as my in-the-car light, so this inconvenience doesn’t really affect me per-se. But it can be fun to contemplate possibilities!

• Olight SR90 Intimidator,  SR91 Intimidator and SR92 Intimidator are clear alternatives. The SR91 seems to be the best fit fit for me though: it’s the smallest of the three and offers more of everything than the TK35. It also happens to be the cheapest of the three
• JetBeam RRT3 XML and NiteCore TM11 These are just so neat! They pack an absurd amount of light into a tiny form factor. Ideally I would like to get away from the multiple LEDs and the Jetbeam unit has a smoother (and brighter) spill but the ridiculously tiny TM11 wins for sheer novelty and ludicrous factor. I do like the analog control mechanism for the RRT3 much much more than the digital tomfoolery used on the NiteCore.

Ultimately I see this going down between the RRT3 and the SR90. The SR90 is the superior light in every respect (size/weight into an issue for me) but the RRT3 is significantly cheaper and I don’t need the additional range provided by the SR90. The way things are going, I guess I’ll find out what light I’ll end with about this time next year!