Ordered this unit because of the 2008 ice storm in the Northeast. I like the fact that it can be charged in several ways, solar, hand crank, DC off auto accessory and with an AC adapter. Lantern gives off comparable light to my Coleman fluorescent lantern which requires I believe 6 D cells.
We bought this light for camping & emergency preparedness. The solar charging worked great. Cranking is the least efficient and the knob on the crank handle is a little small, but it is nice the way the handle fits into the base and stays out of the way. It has a solid base and the fold away hook is a nice feature. Overall, this is a well designed emergency light.
This great lantern could not have arrived at a better time! Less than a week after it got here, we had a power failure for several hours. There was not much left to do at 8PM but read, so my husband decided to take the lantern out of its box and give it a try. It cast a firm light for longer than the 30 minutes indicated on the box -- should be amazing with a solar charge.
We live in a rural area and have frequent power outages. (We have had two each lasting 8 hours in the last three months because drunks took out utility poles.) We have a bunch of plug-in LED devices, but they last only about 6 hours. With these lamps, we are prepared! We can just keep cranking them until the power comes back on. Wonderful!
