Oregon Scientific PB500 is a combination of camping lantern and power bank to charge our devices through USB. It has 8,000 mAh built-in lithium battery, more than enough juice to charge our phones or even tablets multiple times. The lantern feature offers 4 different settings: low light (200 lumen), medium light (280 lumen), high light (440 lumen) and SOS flashing. Thanks to its huge battery capacity, one full charge can power the lantern for 84 hours (low), 73.5 hours (medium) or 24 hours (high).

Last year, I reviewed a simpler charger + lantern product named Concept Green CGF7800-W. That lantern still works fine until today and I use it a lot. Sadly, the store that used to sell it no longer have it in stock. I could not find it in eBay with reasonable price, hence I felt the need to have a backup unit. Getting a new one with cheaper price, from a known brand, plus it has 4 different lantern modes is a nice bonus.

Oregon Scientific Ultra Bright LED Camping Lantern is weather-proof with IP65 rating, meaning some water from rain and splashes will not damage it, but we should not submerge it under water. There’s a rubbery seal protecting its ports. Its website says it weighs 345 gr, but the actual unit I receive weighs only 273 gr. Well, I won’t complain for a lighter product, especially since it still works as expected.

Overall, this is definitely a nice niche product mainly for the lantern. There are plenty of other power bank products out there with even bigger capacity and interesting form factors and I probably won’t use it to charge my phone either. For me, this is a very handy lantern to carry everywhere.