Thorfire VP-CL03 Camping Lights, Outdoor Waterproof Telescopic

This light exceeded my expectations by a lot. It's thoughtfully designed and well-made. The material is plastic, but it feels like heavy, solid, high-quality plastic. The boom for extending the light is metal and feels thick and sturdy. The design is awesome! The little tripod feet are highly stable yet don't take up much room at all when deployed. The tripod legs are also highly magnetic so you can stick this thing upside-down on the ceiling of your van or under the hood of your truck if you want to. With the light in its down position, it's a lovely little table lamp or ambient tent light. With the light extended (seems like about 3 feet / 1 meter max but any amount works) it becomes a work light or cooking light that you can aim in any direction you like. There are three levels of brightness, and if you press and hold the button you can access several different color temperatures from cool to warm. Once you find a color you like, it will remember your setting so you don't have to mess with it again if you don't want to.

I recently had the opportunity to use this multi-mode camping lantern/LED light, and I must say I am thoroughly impressed. This lantern was an absolute game-changer during our camping trip. We were a large Trail Life Troop of 62 trailers, and the brightness of this lantern was more than sufficient to light up our entire dining canopy at a primitive campsite with no available electricity. We used it for three consecutive nights, from 7 pm to 11 pm, and it still held its charge. It's incredibly energy-efficient!

Years ago I purchased the orange (2019) and green (2022) THORFIRE LED Camping Hand Crank USB Rechargeable Collapsible Lanterns and they still work great to this day. Based on having this lantern a few days ago, it appears they have another winner. The packaging is really impressive as far as quality, presentation, and protection for the lantern. The listed product dimensions are accurate, it’s not super small or lightweight by any means, but won’t be a burden carrying in a bag or by hand really. The plastic housing seems solid and durable enough to take some general camping abuse, not a problem. All the light modes and options are really nice, and provide a ton of versatility and use cases outside of just camping. It can get very bright! I tested battery life on the highest setting, it took about 4 hours to go from 4 to 2 dots (halfway drained). I then charged it with a solar panel in direct sunlight and it took about 4-6 hours to charge fully. I didn’t time it with a stopwatch or anything, but seems on par with the reported battery life info.

This is actually the second light of this type that I have - they really are amazing! They're incredibly versatile, and the battery life and brightness are extremely impressive. We used to use a few other lights when camping, but this is just too easy to set up and get the job done, by comparison, any other light becomes a bit of a hassle to get set up. It's very well-designed. In addition to using it for camping, I used it for some emergency auto repairs. The tripod base is ruggedly solid (and it comes with a few stakes if the ground isn't flat), and the magnetic feet make it stable in the engine compartment. The telescopic head and the pivotable LED provide light pretty much anywhere you need it. As a flashlight, it's not remotely ergonomic and it's practically useless, but in every other way, this is a great light. Note - this model does not come with a case, which would be nice to have. It's a bit expensive, but worth every penny.

Due to the small holes in the diffuser screen area, this light gives off a wonderful ambiance, the color of which can be changed by simply holding down the power button once on. It produces a very soft light, not harsh to look at when your eyes have adjusted to the dark, and you can fine-tune the "temperature" of light to what you like and what will mitigate attracting bugs. It works perfectly fine as just a cylinder light, but for added security from toppling over, you can flare the legs and get a much wider base. This becomes way more useful once you telescope out the lighthead and make the whole thing taller. The only downside to doing that is that you lose the 360-degree diffused light and instead convert to a broad beam point light. If you can point this up to a tent or tarp ceiling, you can get the diffuse effect again, but if you only need a point light for a table setting, it works really well. The flared legs also provide a magnetic option to secure the light to any surface that attracts magnets (partially iron). You can also just flip the light head around and use the whole thing as a handheld flashlight.