How a Lepro Rechargeable Camping Lantern Changed Our Weekend Trips

Friday night, end of a framing week. I threw the tent, the rods, and a cooler into the bed of my half-ton and headed for a state-park campground in the Finger Lakes. By the time we got the tent up, it was dark enough that the old lantern was the last thing I wanted to deal with. That is when the Lepro rechargeable camping lantern earned its spot in the truck.

I am Russ Kettering, 52, a framing carpenter. Terri and I camp most weekends from May through October, and Kyle joins us when he can get away from work. I have used battery lanterns my whole life, the kind that eat D cells and go dim right when you need light to find the tent zipper. I bought this Lepro this spring to replace one of those. A few months in, here is what I would tell a guy standing in the aisle.

The short version: it does what the box says and it keeps doing it. Four light modes, a 4400mAh battery, and it charges with a cord I already had. No fuel, no mantles, no hunting for batteries at a gas station on the way to camp.

I will be honest about the weak points before I go on. The single button cycles through all four modes, so you can click past the one you wanted and have to go around again. The hanging loop is fine for a tent ridge pole, but I would not trust it to hold the lantern over the water from the jon boat. Neither one is a deal breaker. Both are worth knowing before you buy.

The first night out, I hung it from the ridge pole in the tent. The low mode was enough to read by, and the high mode lit the whole tent like a porch light. I left it on low while we played cards and it did not dim on us once. That was the night I stopped missing the old lantern.

The old lantern ran through a set of D cells every other trip. That added up, and it always seemed to go dim right when I needed it, usually at midnight on the way to the outhouse. The Lepro charges with a USB cord, and one charge got us through a three-day weekend, including a night of fishing off the dock.

The thing that sold me was not the brightness. It was that after a full weekend of use, the Lepro still had light left Monday morning.

What it does well is sit on a picnic table and light the whole eating area without glare. The four modes give you a low setting that does not wreck your night vision when you are walking back from the water, and a high setting that makes setting up camp in the dark almost easy. Terri reads by it. I use it to tie leaders. Kyle grabbed it for a midnight walleye trip and brought it back still lit.

I have also used it in the truck, which is where a lot of my camping gear lives. It rides in the bed cap with the tackle box and the stove. When I need light to find something in the dark, I grab the Lepro before I grab the flashlight.

Is it the right lantern for everyone? No. If you backpack miles into the backcountry, you want something smaller and lighter. If you camp where there is no way to charge anything, you will still need batteries. But for what we do, weekend trips in a state park with the truck nearby, it has been the most reliable piece of gear I bought this spring.

One more thing about charging. The cord is a standard USB, the same one I use for my phone. I keep it in the kitchen drawer, and the lantern lives on a shelf by the back door. When we pack the truck, it goes in last. When we get home, it gets plugged in before the cooler gets emptied. That routine takes two minutes and means the light is always ready. It is the kind of habit that makes gear last.

I will say this about the build. It has been thrown into the truck bed, knocked off a picnic table, and left sitting in the rain long enough that I thought I had ruined it. It still works. The switch is stiff in a good way, and the lens has not scratched. For a piece of gear that lives in a truck, that matters.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were sitting at my kitchen table with coffee, I would tell you this. Think about how you actually camp, not how you wish you camped. If you are like me, truck bed full of gear, weekends from May to October, a lantern that charges in the house and runs all weekend is worth the switch. The Lepro is not a replacement for a good headlamp or a reliable flashlight. It is the lantern you grab first and charge when you get home. I would buy the same one again, and I do not say that about much of my gear. That is the whole review.