Best Solar Powered Lantern (Our top pick for 2020)
The best solar powered lantern for camping trips or disaster preparedness is one thats bright, quick to charge and long lasting.
After many experiments in the field, weve found our personal favorite to be the solar powered lantern by MPOWERD .
Heres why.
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Best Solar Powered Lantern
MPOWERD Luci Pro Outdoor 2.0
| Weight | Max Lumens | USB Port |
| 5.5 oz (155 g) | 150 | Two-Way |
This solar powered lantern checks everything off our list:
- Excellent features
- Great ambience
- Good light quality
- Quick-charging
- Reliable solar panel
- Decent mobile charging capabilities.
When it comes to lumens , this is the best solar powered lantern. It pushes out 150 lumens, making it one of the brightest solar powered lanterns on the market.
However, if were honest, we found ourselves using its lower settings more often than not, especially when out camping.
Often LED puts out a harsh white light, but not this lantern. The Luci Pro puts out a warm, comfortable diffused light that creates a magical ambience.
Another point worth noting, is how quickly the solar panel charges. It is able to charge itself up enough to run for a few minutes simply from indoor ambient light and indirect sunlight!
Charging capabilities
The mobile charging capabilities obviously cant compare to a fully fledged solar panel charger or portable battery back, however it still did pretty well.
When 100% charged, the Luci Pro solar powered lantern gave a 34% boost to a mobile phone in 1 hour and 32 minutes, before being completely drained.
That obviously doesnt sound too impressive compared to standard power banks. But thats twice as much as what most other solar powered lanterns could handle.
Even when the lantern was completely drained, the Luci Pro could charge a phone from sunlight alone.
There were times where its mobile charging could be somewhat problematic. For instance, there were a couple of times when charging under the sun, where I wasnt able to get the lantern to register the phone.
I suspect the reason for this was that I tested the charging capabilities under the weak winter sun.
All in all, if you want to have the ability to charge your electronics on the go, the Luci Pro is the best solar powered lantern to do so.
The cons
Besides being the best solar powered lantern on most points, the Luci Pro is also the heaviest lantern I tested.
And at the time of writing, also one of the priciest.
But considering you get a trustworthy solar lantern and solar charger in one, its not a bad deal at all.
Conclusion
Overall, this is by far my favorite solar powered lantern. Its light, durable and reliable and has the best mobile charging capabilities out of all the lanterns I tested.
How does solar power work?
Solar energy works by capturing the suns solar energy and turning it into electricity. The sun is pretty much a natural nuclear reactor, it continuously releases tiny pockets of energy, called photons.
Each one of these photons travel 93 million miles from the sun to the earth within a staggering 8.5 minutes.
Amazingly, every hour enough of these photons hit our planet to theoretically power our world for an entire year.
Solar Powered Gear
Further Reading:
