Etekcity Rechargeable LED Camping Lantern with Flashlights & USB Power Bank.

This Portable LED Lamp by Etekcity is a pretty interesting tool. If you are expecting a basic lamp with some gimmicky extras, after using it you will be pleasantly surprise by how practical it and its additional features turned out to be.

Light Up & Charge Up

Confidently go camping, hiking, or prepare for an emergency with dependable and rechargeable brightness. 15 bright white LED bulbs power this 180 Lumen camping light. The omnidirectional light make this outdoor light perfect for illuminating patios, campgrounds, and much more. The lantern features 4 brightness modes for your personalized lighting preference. Choose from bright, dim, red and red flashing lighting. Use the lantern to cozy up to a good read late at night, or to brighten your campsite. When there's an emergency, the red lantern light offers easy visual alerting from far distances.

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The rechargeable battery pack acts as a power bank for your devices. While you charge a device, the lantern uses the internal AA batteries to power the lantern light itself. With each feature having its own source of power, you no longer have to worry about charging time cutting into lighting time, or vice versa. With a micro USB cable, you're able to conveniently charge up phones, tablets, cameras, and other devices you need without the need of an outlet. When power is out, just replace or recharge the power bank batteries using the included micro USB cable by connecting it to a powered wall outlet or power strip. The lantern is also designed with IPX5 water resistant durability to withstand rugged travels in harsh weathers. Whether used for outdoor adventures, or as a handy addition to your household emergency kit, this power bank lantern has the ability to meet all of your lighting needs with simplicity and convenience.

DESIGN AND OPERATION

The lamp is made up of a mix of a hard plastic shell with a metal band (most likely aluminum) in the middle. The plastic feels tough and not flimsy, which was better than I was expecting. There are two folding metal hangers, and the hinges are pretty tight and robust, and they feel like they won't snap off after a couple cycles. The top and bottom caps unscrew to reveal the AA (it takes 3) and 18650 lithium ion battery (it takes 2) compartments. Towards the lower part of the lamp, you'll find a blue button for cycling through the different lighting modes and a rubber covered door housing a microUSB and standard USB for charging purposes. To turn on the lamp, you pull the top until you reach the trigger point. You can adjust the light output by how much you extend the lamp. When it's in the off position, the lamp is about 3"x3"x5.1" (see attached photos). Fully extended, it stands about 7" tall.     

The way you turn the lamp on was pretty cool. There's just enough resistance as you pull on the top to give a reassuring feeling - it definitely won't slide out on its own if the lamp is held upside down. Pulling up on this lamp made you feel like Dennis Nedry (aka Newman) from Jurassic Park, you know that scene where he's stealing the dinosaur embryos from the cold storage tanks. As well as the 4 different lighting modes (hi-white, low white, red, flashing red). There's also two magnets on the bottom of the lamp. It's a little weak, barely able to hold the lamp perpendicular on my fridge. You have to fidget with it to get it to stay, and any slight motion or vibration will cause the lamp to slide down. You can see, there are two other corners with rubber feet instead of magnets. It feels like one or two additional magnets, this thing would attach solidly to metal surfaces.

The lamp is able to draw power from three sources - the 3 AA's, the two lithium cells or via external power source through 5V USB. It also doubles as an emergency battery bank for mobile devices via the USB port, drawing from the two lithium cells (18650 cells are 2200mAH each, for a total of 4400mAH). You can recharge the lithium cells by plugging the lamp into a standard USB charger, but you have to remove the AA's before doing so. The battery bank function is a nice bonus - very practical for camping trips.

SUMMARY

Overall, this is a very useful tool to have around. The build quality is surprisingly solid, and the additional battery bank feature is a nice bonus.

Who’s it for: home use for power outages, a project work light, car, evening picnics and car or backyard camping. Backpackers might find it a bit heavy and bulky though.

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If you are a little bit of a portable light junkie, this is the perfect lantern for your next camping. With everything from portable work lights to headlamps for hiking, the Etekcity Rechargeable LED Camping Lantern always eager for yet another way to illuminate the darkness.

It's about the size of a tall 20oz coffee mug. After opening it up, you will be very pleased with the amount of light this throws - much brighter than others dedicated hiking/camping units. Cycling through the modes (which resets every time you close the lantern) it starts off with the super-bright, then bright, red (good for preserving night vision), then flashing red (for emergencies). I would prefer it starts with the red light to preserve night vision instead of the brightest white light setting. This would probably make it somewhat unattractive to astronomers looking for such a lantern as inadvertent white light is severely frowned upon during stargazing sessions.

Further examining the unit, the magnetic feet are more than strong enough to hold it on a vertical surface, or even fully inverted. And the IPX5 waterproofing should keep it running in the rain.

One feature that appears nice at first is the ability to be used as a power bank, although the 2 lithium batteries barely have the capacity to fully charge an iPhone 6 If more power is needed you can put 3 AA batteries in the top to supplement the two 18650 2200mah Lithium-Ion the unit comes with. If you really need a power bank that would probably opt for a dedicated unit that can handle multiple phone recharges or keep a tablet running for several hours.

The Li-ion batteries are recharged via USB, but twice in the manual it says to remove any AA’s before doing so (once in the safety section and again in the recharging section). There is no mention of what danger/damage could be done if you don’t remove the batteries, nor is there any warning on the device itself. Considering how few people read instruction manuals (especially in a house with multiple users of the device), this is a bit worrisome. If this is actually a safety concern then there really should be an onboard circuit detector or, at least, a switch to select between the AAs or Li-Ions to prevent any problems.

Moderate – Light mode sequence should really start with red to preserve night vision (like many other devices with red light modes)

Major – must remove AA batteries before recharging unit, no onboard battery type detection, battery circuit selection switch, nor even a warning on the device itself. And yet this is listed under the safety warnings in the user manual (twice!!!).

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