The 12 Best Rechargeable LED Lanterns (Bought & Tested!)

The video

Table of contents

1. 1. BioLite AlpenGlow 500 (Most Feature-Rich)
2. 2. LuminAID PackLite Titan (Best Solar Lantern)
3. 3. Goal Zero Lighthouse 600 (Brightest Lantern)
4. 4. Ledlenser ML6 (Best Durability)
5. 5. Goal Zero Lighthouse Mini (Best Budget Pick)
6. 6. Barebones Railroad (Best Vintage Lantern)
7. The Rest of the Best
8. How I Tested All my Lanterns
9. Why You Can Trust Me

Most Feature-Rich

BioLite AlpenGlow 500

Here’s what I love about the AlpenGlow. It has the most impressive battery life of any camping lantern in this review, here’s a quick table on the best few:

The battery capacity of 6,400 mAh gave me almost 2 full charges of my iPhone 12, plus another 6 hours of leftover light on the dimmest brightness mode.

On top of that, my AlpenGlow even has a great range of brightness settings, ranging from a 7-lumen nightlight, to the max output of 690 lumens.

Like the Ledlenser ML6, it also has a continuous dimming, simply by pressing and holding the top button.

And the best pro of the AlpenGlow 500 that beats out every other camping lantern in this review? You not only have a cool light mode, there’s also a warm light mode, and you can even pick from every single color of the rainbow.

It also comes equipped with:

• Multicolor mode (three different hues at the same time)
• Fireworks mode (6 continuous explosions of light)
• Directional lighting
• Candle flicker

The only mode it doesn’t have though, is a strobe, SOS, or other emergency mode. So, this is definitely more of a fun car camping lantern than some survival lantern you take out in emergencies.

Best Solar Lantern

LuminAID PackLite Titan

All 4 solar lanterns here charge over both USB and solar. Here’s a table summarizing some of the tests that I put them through:

The Titan has a max lumens of 316 lumens, not the most on the list (that’s the BioLite Luci Charge 360), but its lighting area is almost double all the other lanterns here.

And because of its 1-lumen minimum output, it ran for a whopping 250 hours, 5 times all the other lanterns.

And it also has 2 colors, which is white and red, while the other solar lanterns in this review have only 1 (white, no red).

On top of that, the PackLite Titan is my only solar lantern that comes with a twist-to-inflate design. Just twist the lantern, and it’ll pop up without needing to breathe into it, and this takes only 2 seconds.

On the other hand, all the other solar lanterns in this review require you to breathe into the lantern to inflate it, and this takes more like 10-15 seconds, which is 5 times as long.

And another huge benefit is the bigger solar panel size of the Titan, coming in at 4 by 4 inches. How does this compare to the others’ solar panels?

How does this affect solar charging? I put all 4 solar lanterns out to charge on an average day — not too sunny, not too cloudy.

Then I discharged them all, running each at as similar a lumen output as possible:

Even though the Titan was running at almost the highest output of all the lanterns, 191 lumens, it also lasted the longest, coming in at a whopping 2 and a half hours. Basically, it has the most efficient solar charging, thanks to the bigger solar panel.

But of course, with all the pros also come a few cons, and the Titan is not only the most expensive solar lantern that I bought, but also the heaviest:

• BioLite Luci Original: 6.1 oz
• LuminAID PackLite Max: 7.7 oz
• BioLite Luci Charge 360: 10.2 oz
• LuminAID PackLite Titan: 11.9 oz

If portability’s your thing, feel free to pick a lighter alternative from the list above, they’re all pretty decent picks.

Brightest Lantern

Goal Zero Lighthouse 600

It has continuous dimming over a superb range of brightness settings, ranging from 2 lumens, up to a massive, whopping, 985 lumens. This is the brightest light of all the lanterns in this review.

On the max brightness, it has a shine radius of 13.3 feet, which is also a huge lighting area of 556 square feet.

That’s the size of a studio apartment, a 37-person tent, or a small campsite. There’s no other camping lantern in this review that can come close to that.

However, the run-time on this mode is only 2.5 hours, so just take note of that.

If you want to conserve battery, the Lighthouse 600 also has directional lighting, which halves your battery usage.

In fact, on the dimmest setting on half the lantern, it can run for a whopping 355 hours, which is quite impressive.

On top of that, the Lighthouse 600 also has a dynamo hand crank, which no other lantern in this review has. And when you crank it at 120 rounds per minute for 1 minute, you can get 10 minutes of light on low power.

The biggest con of this lantern is its lack of a waterproof rating. When I tested my Goal Zero lanterns in the rain, water seeped in through the USB port and ended up inside the casing of the lantern.

It’s still perfectly functional, but extended periods out in the rain will probably kill it.

Best Durability

Ledlenser ML6

That durability starts with the ML6’s IP66 rating — one of the highest ratings of any lantern I own, and I could put it through any kind of rain.

I tested it with my water hose. A little water got around the ports, but it still worked perfectly.

The ML6 also passed my drop test — I dropped it from about hand height and it kept working. No scratches, no issues at all.

Last but definitely not least, the ML6 comes with a whopping 7-year warranty — the warranty length is simply the most generous compared to every other lantern in this review:

And it’s one of the rare few rechargeable lanterns that actually comes with a removable 18650 lithium-ion battery. (Only this and the Barebones have removable batteries.) So, you can easily change out the battery over the years, instead of changing out the entire lantern.

Durability aside, the ML6 is still a fantastic light. It has its fantastic range of brightness settings, from a perfect 0-lumen nightlight, to a whopping 720-lumen boost mode with a bright white light.

It has continuous dimming too, so you can literally pick any light setting that suits you best, unlike other lanterns that have discrete levels of adjustment instead (like the PackLite Titan).

On top of that, it also has a red light mode, a breathe mode, a strobe mode, and an SOS mode. The strobe white is the best emergency mode I’ve seen on a camping light.

In terms of physical features, the Ledlenser ML6 is incredibly feature-rich, and it’s complete with:

• 2 hooks
• Magnetic base
• Tripod thread
• Battery indicator lights
• Glow-in-the-dark ring

Because of everything you get, it is a little bit on the expensive side, second only to the Barebones Railroad. But I still think it’s well worth the money.

I also think that the battery life can be more impressive, instead of just 3,000 mAh. That gives my iPhone 12 only a 59% charge, plus 76.5 hours of leftover light on the dimmest setting. That’s not bad, but it’s not the best.

Best Budget Pick

Goal Zero Lighthouse Mini

It’s half the price of every lantern above, like the Ledlenser, AlpenGlow, Titan, and Lighthouse 600.

On top of that, it’s one of the more compact camping lanterns in this review (as portable and lightweight as any solar lantern), making it perfect for not just camping but also shorter backpacking trips.

The Lighthouse Mini is also incredibly feature rich. It features a continuous adjustment brightness from 0-lumen nightlight to its 530-lumen brightest setting.

On the 0-lumen nightlight setting, and on half the lantern (it has directional lighting too!), the Mini can run for a whopping 616 hours.

It’s also complete with:

• Adjustable legs
• The legs can act as a hook
• A hook at the top
• A magnetic base
• A tripod thread

One feature it doesn’t have is waterproofing — water will seep through the exposed USB port when left out in the rain.

Apart from affordability and features, the Lighthouse Mini performs only average in all the other tests (like battery life, etc.), so just take note of that. Nevertheless, this Lighthouse Mini is a fantastic value for money pick.

Best Vintage Lantern

Barebones Railroad

The biggest pro about this camping lantern is its beautiful aesthetic. It definitely looks like a Union Pacific lantern, just upgraded a hundred times over.

If this aesthetic is what you’re looking for, this is the best out there.

It also uses a USB-C cable for charging (unlike most other lanterns here that use micro-USB), and comes with a replaceable battery that’s proprietary to Barebones:

However, if you’re not looking for a vintage-type lantern, I’d recommend not going for this because it lacks a bunch of features, like:

• No phone charger capability
• No emergency lights
• Not waterproof