I love camping with my family. It gives us the opportunity to escape the city and head outdoors. But when camping with kids, I find that we bring a TON of stuff! There is no light packing for our family. Since we do mostly car camping, that’s okay! But the gear I do bring has to be versatile, kid tested (durable), and long lasting. I recently found a lantern that fits all these criteria.
Now that my youngest is 9 years old, we don’t take as much as we used. That’s in part to finding compact gear that does double or even triple duty. I recently saw a new lantern from Coleman, the Quad Lantern. This 4 in 1 lantern looked like the ideal solution to replace the usual 5 flashlights, 2 campsite lanterns, and head lamps for our family camping trips. I reached out to Coleman and they sent me one to review.
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Coleman Quad Lantern
The thing I like best is the versatility of this lantern. It is actually 4 lights in 1. You have a base and 4 panels that fit together for a lantern that shines 360 degrees. Each of the four panels can be removed and taken anywhere you need them. The water resistant design comes in great for camping, outdoor adventures, and emergency kits.
We took this lantern with us on a recent camping trip and used it on the campsite table. The lantern lights up an area of 8 meters around it. When we needed to head to the restroom, find something in the cooler, go to the tent, etc., we could detach one of the panels and take it with us. That left the lantern with three other panels to provide light at the camp site.
The lantern measure 6.5 x11.7 inches and is made from a sturdy hard plastic material. I find is easy to store in our camping box because there is no glass or metal to dent or break.
Nov. 7-13, 2016 – Enter to Win a Coleman QUAD Lantern in the #OutdoorFamilies Network #ThankfulforFamilies Giveaway. Click here for details.
Bright Light
The base houses 4 panels with 6 LED bulbs in each panel. The whole lantern (24 LED bulbs) produces 190 Lumens for up to 75 hours. When you use each panel separately, each will produce 47.5 Lumens for 1.5 hours. Special diffused lenses also reduce the glare from the LED bulbs.
Powering the Lantern
This lantern base and each panel runs off batteries. The base uses 8 D batteries and each panel uses 3 AAA batteries. The panels arrive from Coleman with the rechargeable AAA batteries already included. These rechargeable AAA batteries recharge when the panel is attached to the base.
I bought rechargeable D batteries on Amazon ($25.96) for this lantern. I have only charged them once and have taken this lantern camping over a total of 8 days so far without recharging. So I’m super pleased with both the lantern and the rechargeable batteries. Well worth the cost in my opinion.
Heavy Lantern
The lantern with the batteries is a little over 6 pounds. Depending on how you use it, that can be a positive or a negative feature to this lantern.
The weight of this lantern makes it stable on a table or horizontal surface. On a windy day, there is little worry that the lantern may fall over or be blown over. On a windy day, I find this LED lantern may be a safer choice compared to other lanterns using liquid fuel and an open flame.
The whole lantern is too heavy to clip to the attached hook at the top of our tent. If I want to illuminate the interior of my tent, a single panel would be better suited. I could hang the individual panel with the help of a D hook inside the tent. The output would be dimmer than the full lantern, but the weight would not be an issue.
Great lantern for car camping
All in all, I really like this Coleman Quad Lantern with LED lights. The overall design is great and meets the needs of my family really well. The retail cost is $64.99 and is available on the Coleman website and other online retailers. I have not seen them in stores yet, but an sure they will be available soon.
Disclosure: I received a Quad LED lantern for testing purposes. All opinions are my own.
Looks like a very versitile lantern. I love that it can be one bright light or 4 smaller portable ones. Lots of batteries though. 🙂 Thanks for the info!
Wow! Who knew that there was such a clever lantern? I love the idea of it both being a nice bright light and four separate lites for individual use. Lucky girl!!
When not in the camping box, it will be in the emergency closet
That’s awesome! You can never have too many lights in the woods!
This is true!!!!
You can never have too many of these around our farm.
I don’t think it’s possible to have too many of these 🙂
Love that lantern, we may need to grab one when we start using our rehabbed camper
It’s a great lantern. I love that you can separate the panels and use individually. Plus the anti-glare light cover is really good. I think Santa should bring one for the holidays 🙂
Great lantern! Its like roadeavour.