Coleman Deluxe PerfectFlow Lantern

Solid, reliable, simple, yet runs forever.

These lanterns are plenty bright, casting usable light even on low settings to 20-30 feet, depending on how cluttered your campsite is. On the higher settings it's not unlike a 100-watt bulb in intensity and color. After it's warmed up some it can be turned way down to a much warmer, less harsh light that, once your eyes adjust, is still pretty bright. 

Over the last few years, I've been able to wrangle some significant burn times out of mine. while the published max time is about 14 hours, on the most recent trip, i used just one bottle over the course of four nights, running for a good 5-6 hours a night. so the published run-times are pretty conservative. granted i was running just above minimum for most of that. it shouldn't be hard to get 20 hours out of a single tank of propane even at brighter settings. 

And even when the lights go out, changing a bottle out isn't too hard, and can be done in the dark. 

As with many Coleman propane products, usage is dead simple. turn valve, apply flame. whoosh. electric start would be nice, but with lanterns it's a little iffy(the one i've tried, the sparker was very low, and wouldn't light till there was enough gas in the globe to have tiny fireballs on ignition), so using a lighter is perfectly fine. 

These lanterns are bare-bones functional, but they do it really well. there's no frills to speak of, no fancy stuff, but what there is is sturdy, reliable, and long-running. i really want to upgrade to a white-gas lantern, but given how ours is holding out, i don't see that happening anytime soon.