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Discontinued: The Nitecore LA10 has been discontinued, so there’s nothing left to link to. I’m keeping this review up as a record of how it tested. If you’re shopping for one now, my Best Lantern Flashlights article has the lights I’d buy instead.

See the 14 tests

1. In the box
2. Lanyard
3. Light modes
4. Power source
5. Run times
6. Lumen output (lantern)
7. Lumen output (flashlight)
8. Shine distance (lantern)
9. Beam distance (flashlight)
10. IP rating
11. Impact resistance
12. Magnetic base
13. Quality
14. Portability
15. Pros, cons & recommendations
16. Bonus – MUST read!

In the Box

• The LA10
• A lanyard
• An O-ring

Lanyard

The thin end of the lanyard is supposed to hook into a tiny hole on the LA10, but I couldn’t get it through for the life of me.

With the lanyard on, it hangs from any open lantern loop.

Light Modes

The LA10 has no buttons at all.

• On: Rotate the tail cap clockwise
• Off: Rotate it anticlockwise
• Change mode: Turn it back on within 2 secondson, off, on, off, until you land on the one you want
• Modes: Low, Mid, High, Beacon

• Lantern: Rotate the ring above the tail capthe diffuser slides out
• Flashlight: Rotate it backthe diffuser retracts into the housing

Power Source

• Battery: 1x AA
• Spring: Magneticit pulls the battery out for you
• Fitting it: + end towards the head

Run Times

I ran every mode down to flat and timed it. Once the usable light goes, it keeps running, first dim, then blinking in Beacon mode.

Mode	Usable light (hours)	Then dim (hours)	Then blinking (hours)
High	1.5	0.75	1
Medium	4.25	1	1
Low	16	1	1
Beacon	23.5	2	–

On Beacon those last 2 hours are dim blinks rather than bright ones. My batteries are old, so a brand-new AA should push all of these up by 20% to 30%.

Lumen Output (Lantern)

I pointed the lantern straight at a lux meter on a full battery.

Brightness	My testing (lumens)
High	285
Mid	126
Low	31

Lumen Output (Flashlight)

To test for the flashlight lumen output, I bounced it off a white wall from 11.8in away and worked back to lumens.

Brightness	Reading (lux)	My testing (lumens)
High	99	28.0
Mid	39	11.0
Low	9	2.5

Note: A bounce test gives a rough estimate, not a lab measurement.

28 lumens at the very top is bad for a flashlight, and it’s my biggest problem with this light.

Shine Distance (Lantern)

I hung the LA10 up, then backed a lux meter away from it until the reading hit zero.

• High: 5.2ft
• Mid: 3.9ft
• Low: 3.0ft

I couldn’t measure Beacon, but it looks about the same as High. That 5.2ft radius lights up roughly 85 sq ft, which is about a 5-person tent.

Beam Distance (Flashlight)

Same method again, with the flashlight.

• High: 8.6ft
• Mid: 6.5ft
• Low: 4.3ft

Beacon looks the same as High here too, though I couldn’t measure it.

IP Rating

• Official rating: IPX6heavy rain and water jets
• My tested rating: IPX6it passed both

I started with 30 minutes of heavy rain, and it came out working.

Every mode still worked afterwards.

Impact Resistance

• Official rating: 1 meter
• My tested rating: 1 meter

I dropped it from that height and the surface didn’t even scratch. The light stayed on and every mode still worked.

Magnetic Base

• Tail cap: Magnetic

The tail cap doubles as a magnet, so it sticks to metal and you can go hands-free. It’s the only one of the 7 lantern flashlights I tested that does this.

Quality

• Body: Aluminum alloylightweight
• Diffuser: High-grade plastic
• Light color: Cool, not warm
• Made: China
• Warranty: 5 years

The whole body feels solid for something this small.

Portability

• Weight with a battery: 2.43oz
• Weight without: 1.52oz
• Packed size: 2.95 x 0.9in
• Extended length: 4.05inwith the lantern diffuser out

That makes it both the lightest and the smallest of the 7 lantern flashlights I tested.

Pros, Cons & Recommendations

Now, what are the pros and cons, and would I recommend the Nitecore LA10?

Pro #1 – Chapstick-shaped

I really liked how portable it is. It’s about the same length as a ChapStick, just slightly thicker.

Pro #2 – Very inexpensive

It’s also very inexpensive for what you get.

Pro #3 – 5-year warranty

On top of that it comes with a 5-year warranty, which surprised me. Every other lantern flashlight I tested came with just 1 or 2 years.

Pro #4 – Plenty of basic features

You get:

• 3 brightness modes plus Beacon
• An included lanyard
• A magnetic tail cap
• An IPX6 rating that took water jets
• A 1-meter drop rating that held up

Pro #5 – It runs on a single AA

If you’d rather not charge anything, this takes one AA battery, so you’ve got an unlimited supply of light as long as you’ve got spares on you.

Pro #6 – The lantern beats its own spec

Every lantern mode came out well above what Nitecore quotes for it:

Brightness	Marketed (lumens)	My testing (lumens)
High	135	285
Mid	40	126
Low	10	31

That’s 2 to 3 times the marketed output, on a freshly charged Eneloop.

Con #1 – Missing a lot of features

There’s a fair bit it doesn’t have:

• No memory, so it always comes back on in Low
• No battery indicator
• No mobile charging
• No red-light mode

Con #2 – The flashlight is bad

This is the big one. The flashlight is just the lantern retracted into the housing, so you don’t get a focused beam at all.

Here’s how its brightest setting stacks up against the others I tested:

Lantern flashlight	Flashlight (lumens)	Beam distance
Nitecore LA10	28	8.6ft
Goal Zero Micro Flash	99	24.5ft
UCO Leschi	517	48.2ft
Nitecore LR70	1,281	90.0ft

Nitecore rates the beam at 10 meters, and I measured 8.6ft, so I got less than a third of that. It’s fine if you want something dim in the middle of the night, but not if you need an actual beam of light.

Bonus – MUST Read!

I measured every number on this page myself.