Special thanks to Intervine Technologies for providing a sample of their product for review purposes.
No matter where you live in the country, you always need to be prepared for natural disasters. Throughout our time in the military, we’ve lived in places that have been hit with floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, mudslides tropical storms, blizzards, and a variety of other weather related situations. We’ve also lived in areas where the power went out on a regular basis for no apparent reason. Because we’ve been through all of these situations, we’ve found it important to have a variety of different lighting devices available at our house as part of our emergency kit.
We have flashlights, candles, oil lamps, and lanterns available for use as they all serve different purposes. I tend to stay away from candles and oil lamps when the power is out when possible, but we have them just in case. I prefer to stick to either battery operated or handcrank units for our lighting when the power is out.
Recently, I had the opportunity to test out the SuperNova 300 LED lantern in our home. Thankfully, we haven’t had any emergency situations lately, so it was more of an every day use test. Because we live in a location where there are no street lights, it’s nice to have portable lighting available on a regular basis.
I was pleasantly surprised at the smaller size of this lantern. It stands a little over seven inches tall, and the base is roughly 3.25 inches across. The square, rubber base provides stability and grip. In addition, the required 3 D sized batteries in the base provide weight, so the lantern does not easily get knocked or blown over. (That’s important when you live in an area that has high winds on a regular basis.) The batteries can be a bit of a pain to install unless you line up the slot on the base to the ridge on the battery compartment before trying to twist on base onto the battery compartment.
The lantern has 3 different settings: high, low, and strobe. You switch between the settings by pressing the power button. You can also remove the top of the lantern if you want a more focused light. The lantern has both a normal handle for hanging/carrying as well as a bottom hook for hanging upside down. The lantern has a small green blinking light right above the power button that can not be disabled. It’s not overly bright, but it’s bright enough that locating the lantern in the dark is easy.
The lantern comes with a 5 year warranty. I always appreciate when a company stands behind their product with a solid warranty.
Overall, I’m impressed with the size and brightness of the lantern. I like that it is durable and sturdy. We tend to be in a lot of windy locations, so having something that has a little weight to it is a good thing. It provides ample light for most situations including camping and power outages.
Whether you’re looking to add a lantern to your camping equipment or to your emergency supplies, I have no problem recommending this compact lantern.
