I have had it in both 'styles'. To me, the "normal" FO appears dim. In TriCree, it is much brighter in appearance and becomes a very vibrant color.
But there are times when the normal LED is superior, IMHO. Arctic Blue (AB) is one of these. The TriCree AB is a great color, but it carries a green tinge to it. The AB sabers I've gotten in non-Tri Cree are a pure, ice-blue color without that green shading. And since it is a mixed color, it is also very bright. I don't notice a significant difference in observable brightness.
Now, that being said ... I like the TriCree AB color a LOT. I would just not call it AB. I'd call, maybe, Light Aqua... Its firmly between AB and SRD. :-)
I am pretty sure most of the other "mixed" colors - VA, SRD, and the various "forum" colors - cannot be generated with TriCree either.
So there's still a lot of reasons to love the normal LEDs and even favor them. :-)
When I was shopping for my Dark Sentinel, getting Tri-FO instead of regular FO was recommended by a few people. The general consensus was always that FO was kinda dim and underwhelming, and then Tri seemed to fix that.
That really stinks about the AB. I was wondering about how they even got AB in Tri-Cree and it appears I know now... they just found Tri-Cyan and called it AB.
