I was presented with one of the Coast model EAL 20 battery powered lanterns earlier this fall. I thought it would be very handy to have around the house and even in the boat, given the solid red feature, that allows you see what you’re doing at night, without compromising your night vision. The claim that set this unit apart from others that I have owned or seen it that it will burn for 100 hours on four D cell batteries. Now, I’m not saying I didn’t believe this, but I had never had a battery powered lantern that lasted more than a few nights in the tent. So I decided to give this a test of my own. I loaded it with four new batteries, nothing special, just off the shelf at the local grocery store. I switched on, turned it up to the brightest setting and left in a corner of my garage where no one would disturb it. I left it there on Monday, October 10th and I finally brought it in the house on Monday, October 24th. That’s 15 days, and this lantern was still burning! It wasn’t as bright as it was when I first turned it on, but I could still dial down the brightness, and if I really needed light I was still getting it from the Coast lantern. If you multiply 24 hours by 14 you get 336 hours, far more than the 100 hours that Coast said their lantern would work. Finally, there is a light source out there that will work when you need it. Coast makes a whole range of other quality outdoor products, like a folding tool with built-in LED lights so you can see what you’re working on, and a great headlight, just to name a couple. You really need to log onto www.coastportland.com and see the range of products they offer. You can bet that if they guarantee their products, and they do for the life of the item, the product will not just meet their claim, it will exceed it—by a long ways!