About 2 weeks ago I bought 10 of these 4-LED hand crank lanterns on impulse, through Amazon.com. It's one of the very few impulse purchases I've made in the last 10 years, and I have every reason to regret it. First, the lantern is overpriced; you get a very small (about 6 inches tall) lantern with just 4 LEDs for $20, plus shipping. I've since seen (and purchased) lanterns twice as big, with more LEDs, for half the price (I purchased 2 just like that at Walgreens for $9.99 each, plus tax).

But, the worst part of these little hand crank lanterns isn't their price, it's their performance; there isn't any. In short, in the 2 weeks since the lanterns arrived, 6 of them have broken!! And, they've all broken the same way; the shaft that connects the hand crank to the gears on the inside snapped. Why? Because the lantern's design is a cheap piece of $hit. When the first one broke, I took it apart, and I could see the shaft was not only plastic, but just glued to the part inside the lantern that connected the rotating shaft to the interior gears. So, this is stupid twice over. You can't have a little plastic part that bears any kind of force, and expect it to last long. Also, as anybody knows, glue does not hold something together nearly as well as screws, bolts, nuts, etc.

I'm sure I could fix the damn things for about $2 in screws and other assorted parts; just drill a hole in the crank handle and the part inside the shaft connects to, put a small bolt through the hole, and secure the outside with a washer, and the inside with a washer and a nut.

However, there are other problems with an item obviously designed and made on the cheap. The length of time the light lasts at any useful brightness is very short, even with extended cranking. The product ads claim you can get an hour of light for just a few minutes of cranking. BULL!!! I've cranked each of the lanterns for up to 10 minutes (over 1,000 turns of the crank handle), and with all 4 LEDs on, the light has already become dim in 15-20 minutes. Yes, it's true the LEDs will cast some light for hours, but even in a pitch-black room, they appear to be no brighter than the tiny "runway" lights bordering the aisles in movie theaters. Of course, the lanterns do have a setting that only lights 2 of the LEDs, but then what's the point of having 2 settings if only 1 is useful?

I've also found that the effort needed to wind each lantern is quite variable; some of them are very easy to wind, while others have enough resistance that your hand can be sore when you're done.

I've never been so unhappy with anything I've ever bought, with the exception of the 1975 Pontiac Ventura I owned (long since taken apart for scrap, I hope), that I'm going to take all 9 of them, put them in a box, and send them back to the company with a caustic note. But didn't I say I bought 10 of them? Yes, I did, but I only have 9 left. Why? Just before writing this review, the 6th lantern failed, and just after it did, I smashed it against the concrete floor of my basement. That didn't fix anything, but it sure made me feel good.


UPDATE

As per my statement above, I sent all the windup lanterns back to the company about 3 weeks ago. I got an
e-mail from their customer service about 2 weeks ago, stating the problems I noted with the lanterns were something they already knew about, and had corrected. They also asked me if I would like 10 new lanterns as replacements. I agreed; the lanterns arrived a few days ago. So far, I've used 2 of them a few times, and there were no problems. However, I'll need at least another month or so before I know if the "new design" is better than the batch I had.

Recommended:
No