In a nutshell…

Strike a light! It’s an app that transforms your Nok into a torch.

What’s it good for?

Finding the keyhole on your front door after a heavy night out. And reading under the duvet.

Judgement time…

You never know when you’ll need a torch, and being without one when you do need one is generally a huge pain in the posterior – so the idea of converting your mobile phone into a makeshift flashlight certainly appeals. And that’s exactly what this cheap, simple app claims to do.

You’ve probably used your Nok’s screen backlight as an improvised torch in the past (we know we have), and that’s the principal behind NiceLight. Hit its “Display torch” option and it cranks up the backlight, keeping the screen lit up until you tell it otherwise. You can select various brightness levels and a handful of different colours, and in general it works pretty effectively.

In the name of testing we ventured into the big cupboard under our stairs, and the good news is that NiceLight provided enough brightness for us to avoid any obstacles/spiders and find our way out again. The bad news is that, well, so would simply sliding out the screen of our N95 and using its regular backlight. NiceLight is only slightly brighter, but to its credit it does stay lit until you switch it off – while the regular backlight dims itself after a few seconds.

You can also get the app to fire up your camera light, which you’d think would be far more effective, but sadly – at least in the case of our N95 – it can only ignite the dull red light, not the far brighter white light. That’s disappointing, as the white light really would be like a decent torch. So our advice is to try this for free on your mobile first before deciding if it’s worth the cash.