I was at Wal-Mart yesterday and bought a Garrity 4 Led lantern. I'm not sure if this has already been reviewed, or if everyone is familiar with this product...I'm new to the CPF so for all I know this is old news.
But...
Here goes...
The package says "NEW" on it. 4 Nichia LEDs and a 5 position switch, plus battery indicator. It was about $22, so I bought one.
The lantern is about twice the size of the River Rock (RR) lantern.
Two pieces of cheese engineering are included in the lantern. First is the crappy little plastic hook thingy that you are supposed to hang the lantern with. It looks to these old eyes as the type of thingy that is just waiting to snap and send the lantern into your plate of nachos. Second, be careful when you load the 3 c batteries (included) in the bottom: the plate cover is held secure by a plastic nut thing that wants to fly away when you get it loose, and since it's round it rolls. In obedience to quarkstar's first law of motion ("Any object that is drooped will find and occupy the least likely location in the universe") this round thingy really likes to move. I took a file and made mine square, then applied some yellow paint to it.
Once the lantern is loaded a little green led blinks indicating "full" battery. There are other lights to tell you when the batteries are low and lowest. IMO these are not needed. Can't you tell when the batteries are dead? I mean, even I can tell that, and I bought a Pet Rock. Garrity should have used the effort put into those lights into making the lantern brighter.
The 5 position switch functions like high, medium, low, blink (What the heck do you use blink for ?), and off.
The lantern does not seem as bright as my RR lantern, but I know that I would need instruments to tell that for sure. The Garrity is bright enough to read by...if you are 1, or 2 feet from it. I don't feel that it throws enough of a walking pool of light. I know because I took a walk home with it and it was trip-city.
But, the lantern worked well enough in my other real-world test...I used it in my bathroom in the dark. The lantern was bright enough to do everything I needed to do with no...errr...problems.
So, bottom line. I like the RR lantern way more better. But I would buy the Garrity if A. The RR was unavailable and B. The Garrity was on sale for say...$14
But...
Here goes...
The package says "NEW" on it. 4 Nichia LEDs and a 5 position switch, plus battery indicator. It was about $22, so I bought one.
The lantern is about twice the size of the River Rock (RR) lantern.
Two pieces of cheese engineering are included in the lantern. First is the crappy little plastic hook thingy that you are supposed to hang the lantern with. It looks to these old eyes as the type of thingy that is just waiting to snap and send the lantern into your plate of nachos. Second, be careful when you load the 3 c batteries (included) in the bottom: the plate cover is held secure by a plastic nut thing that wants to fly away when you get it loose, and since it's round it rolls. In obedience to quarkstar's first law of motion ("Any object that is drooped will find and occupy the least likely location in the universe") this round thingy really likes to move. I took a file and made mine square, then applied some yellow paint to it.
Once the lantern is loaded a little green led blinks indicating "full" battery. There are other lights to tell you when the batteries are low and lowest. IMO these are not needed. Can't you tell when the batteries are dead? I mean, even I can tell that, and I bought a Pet Rock. Garrity should have used the effort put into those lights into making the lantern brighter.
The 5 position switch functions like high, medium, low, blink (What the heck do you use blink for ?), and off.
The lantern does not seem as bright as my RR lantern, but I know that I would need instruments to tell that for sure. The Garrity is bright enough to read by...if you are 1, or 2 feet from it. I don't feel that it throws enough of a walking pool of light. I know because I took a walk home with it and it was trip-city.
But, the lantern worked well enough in my other real-world test...I used it in my bathroom in the dark. The lantern was bright enough to do everything I needed to do with no...errr...problems.
So, bottom line. I like the RR lantern way more better. But I would buy the Garrity if A. The RR was unavailable and B. The Garrity was on sale for say...$14
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