36 LED Dynamo Lantern

Super-powerful lantern for night trips

Product

Vango 36 LED Dynamo Lantern

Promise

Is this Vango's most powerful camping light for the money?

Performance

Wielding this in your hand, fresh from the box, you're going to think that they've left the batteries out. It's impressively light to handle, even more impressive when you think that they've squeezed in the dynamo and all its winding apparatus too. It's certainly comparable in weight to a 6" Maglite, though whether you'd want this strapped to the outside of your backpack for any length of time is dubious.

Lanterns occupy a strange place in the camping accessory market. You want one once you're bedded in, playing cards or cooking past sunset, for instance, but they just feel as though you're giving something up in flexibility. You'd never stash this in the bottom of your sleeping bag so you could find it in the morning!

What it gives you in size, it makes up for in brightness. The 36 LEDs of this lantern, arranged over three faces of a Toblerone-like central pillar, shed some seriously heavy light on proceedings. With a light that's bright enough to read by even at 10 feet away, you can cater for quite large parties with this single bit of kit. There's also the facility to switch on just half the LEDs too.

Add in a wall socket charger and a car charging lead, and you're looking at a very versatile bit of kit.

Verdict

If you're going for a lantern at all, you might as well make it the brightest - you're asking for serious coverage, and this model certainly offers that. With 2 mins of winding giving you nearly half an hour of bulb time, it's also got a highly efficient power conversion.