Recommendations for LED Booklight?

My GF wants one for Christmas.
Does anyone have comments of suggestions?
TIA

Two of my kids decided they would rather use LED headlamps instead of the LED booklights.

wwglen

i guess it depends on how she plans to use it.

i tend to lay on my side, with my little energizer folding led lantern laying on the bed or couch. works great in this manner, and is inexpensive with very long runtime.

Bob

I have an LED Lightwedge that works great. Two levels of brightness and easy to manipulate with a book at night (my wife appreciates it). I tried using an ArcAAA etc... and they were too difficult to keep in place and generally too bright.

I bought 2 this year and learned a few things although neither were led.

I realize this may be impossible to tell buy just looking at one in a store but... some things I learned is to look at how it actually clamps to the book or magazine. Because the clamp may only be enough for x number of pages and you may not be able to actually clamp it to the book cover, then it will have to be adjusted every 2 pages. If its a little heavy it can drag down the pages, especially if it takes 3-4 aa batteries. Look what kind of adjustment is available because some may have to be adjusted every so many paragraphs. Also the brightness level could reflect on certain kinds of paper for example glossy paper in a magazine. I also perfer to use a headlamp, but if you get a headlamp instead, remember that the ones with battery packs which go at the back of the head will be uncomfortable when reading while using a pillow in bed or a lazyboy recliner.

Because of this my booklights are now used as backup night lights.

I hate to say it, but I've yet to find a LED light that is as good for reading in bed as a compact flourescent light is.

My personal favorite right now is a 12 dollar Everready Arc White (One 5mm LED and one 2 inch CCFL tube). I lay it flat on my chest (as opposed to clipping it to anything) and it works great.

I've fiddled and fudged with a lot of LED booklights, either the lighting isn't smooth enough or it's too dim. Most of the CCFL lights out there are perfect without modification. Only two drawbacks I can think of are: they may be too bright, and they do consume batteries quicker than a LED light would. (However, the batteries that wont power the CCFL can still run a LED flashlight for a number of hours more.)

I have tried what limited lights I have for reading books and found that single LED booklights typically are hard on the eyes to focus especially if you almost need glasses to read, artifacts also add strain and coverage of the page is sometimes requires you to move things around all the time while reading. My idea of a booklight which I haven't made yet would be at least 8-12 LEDs putting out a flood wide enough to cover both pages at once with a dimming resistor or circuit so you could get the right amount of light.

I agree with the eveready CCFL lights.. they are nicer for reading and have flood enough to cover a huge almanac, I have considered finding a CCFL based booklight and wiring it for use with a wallwart also, booklights dont have to be always battery powered either if you only use them in bed you can wire up one to wall current or convert to a wallwart thus eliminating batteries in all but power outages.

[ QUOTE ]
JJHitt said:
I hate to say it, but I've yet to find a LED light that is as good for reading in bed as a compact flourescent light is.

My personal favorite right now is a 12 dollar Everready Arc White (One 5mm LED and one 2 inch CCFL tube). I lay it flat on my chest (as opposed to clipping it to anything) and it works great.

[/ QUOTE ]

A lot seems to depend on how you use it. My wife loves her itt-bitty-booklite. It's light enough that it does not aggravate her carpal tunnel problems. It runs long enough (4 AAA) that she charges the batteries once a week. The light source is two LEDs, so there's no visible rings or other artifacts. The LEDs are close together, so she can localize the light.

She likes to read after I fall asleep, so it's important that the light fall primarily on the page and not the surounding area. Stray light tends to wake me.

Daniel

The lightwedge has I believe 2 leds that are focused into an acrylic "sheet" which serves to diffuse the light over the entire page. You read through the acrylic. It really does work well and the 2 stage switch is a nice additional feature.

Thanks for all the input /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
I'm thinking LightWedge or IttyBittyBooklight.
Decisions, decisions.
Of course being a Flashaholic, I guess the answer is obvious. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

you may want to take a trip to office depot and look at the energizer LED lantern as a booklight also.. 2LEDs.. looks like it uses the diffused light and 4AA batteries for about $3.29 plus tax I think.

I have heard that some people do not like the LightWedge because you have to reposition it for every page.

I have a Lumatec book light, and it is nice and easy to position.

http://www.alwaysbrilliant.com/?PID=104&SC=98093&PN=LED%20Booklight&KW=Lumatec%20LED%20Booklight

The metal strip that holds the LED slides in and out of the body of the light which is cool, but when you move the book a little it waves around a lot, which is not so cool. It has a long run time on its AAA batteries, and the flat body is easy to hold even with paperback books.

I bought my wife the 2 LED book light from Sharper Image.

http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/productview.jhtml?sku=SI289BLK

The body is a bit bulkier, but still much smaller than most book lights. It does not have a problem with waving around when you use it. I recommend this one of the 2 that I have. Also if you live in a fairly large city you can visit a SI store and check it out.

I found a single LED booklight/cliplight for a dollar but I don't recommend it for serious book readers... it uses LR44 batteries and the switch on the one I have *leaks* slight amount of current even when shut off. I may mod it for an external battery and better switch for fun one day.

I have an evaluation of the LightWedge right here if anybody is interested.
I no longer have it though (it got left behind in a move last month), so I am not able to offer any comparative analyses between it and other book reading products. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif