Costco 4AA LED Mini Lanterns

[bitslammer]

Since this is both LED and lantern I figured I'd post this in general.

If you see the little 4AA LED lanterns at Costco SAVE YOUR MONEY!!

Horrible horrible light diffusion. As stated on flashlightreviews about the River Rocks they cast light in harshly striated lines that make it look like your seeing the lines in Jupiter.

NOt even for $19 were these worth it. I can't tell if they they are some other makers lights rebranded as there were no real markngs.

On the positive side they had Inova XO2's for only $22.79. At that price I figured what the heck.

 

[Sigman]

...merged threads.

 

[bitslammer]

Wow! Thanks Sig. You're really on top of things. I looked for this by searching Costco & Lantern but got WAAAYYY too many hits to weed through.

 

[justjim]

Since this is both LED and lantern I figured I'd post this in general.

If you see the little 4AA LED lanterns at Costco SAVE YOUR MONEY!!

Horrible horrible light diffusion. As stated on flashlightreviews about the River Rocks they cast light in harshly striated lines that make it look like your seeing the lines in Jupiter.

NOt even for $19 were these worth it. I can't tell if they they are some other makers lights rebranded as there were no real markngs.

On the positive side they had Inova XO2's for only $22.79. At that price I figured what the heck.

i must be one of the few people who likes the costco lanterns. i agree with bitslammer in that the light quality is very harsh - similar to the river rocks, but the build quality is very solid. the costco lanterns are not quite as bright on high, but run-time is significantly longer. addtitionally, the costco lantern has a low mode which is much more practical than the rr's strobe mode. the costco lanterns are smaller and you get 2 for the price of one rr, what's not to like? oh yeah, the only advantage of the rr is the switch which is located on top of the lantern, very easy to locate. the costco switch is mounted on the side, so you have to keep spinning the lantern around while you're feeling for the button.

neither of these lanterns will light up a room - for instance, you couldn't read with the amount of light these put out. but they do make for good emergency lights with long runtimes. and a little bit of of plastic wrap around the cylinder will diffuse the light nicely. i'm keeping mine.

-jim

 

[geepondy]

Guys I had bought a pair from Costco way back when but now girlfriend has confisticated second one. I agree light output is on the harsh side but I liked the size, ruggedness and two stage switch. What might be a suitable replacement with possibly smoother light output.

EDIT: I did a search on the Costco lanterns and came across this thread but I wonder if it would be better suited in the lantern thread.

 

[Sigman]

...moved to the lantern thread...

If you want to take the time, consider inserting a "tube" of opaque milk jug material inside for a diffuser. Works GREAT!

...or you could use some Glad "Press~n~Seal" around the globe.

 

[geepondy]

I should have said the first one was gone too which was why I was looking for a replacement. Well I sucked it up and went to Target and purchased the RiverRock K2 version. Indeed this is much better then the Costco offerings although at $25, I wonder if better buys might be had from the DX extreme offerings or others. I also wish I could disable the green find me LED as it will be a bedside emergency lantern