Review: Gritin LED Rechargeable Book Light

 

The Gritin rechargeable LED book light

When I went to make my first nocturne this season, I found that the batteries in my Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Book Light had died. Looking back at the date of my review, I was impressed that the three AAA batteries had lasted 11 years! For nocturnes and occasional concerts, the lamp has served me well. I could have simply replaced the batteries, but I’ve been trying to get away from products that use disposable batteries. The Gritin LED book light on Amazon looked promising.

I gave the light its first charge on USB overnight, so I don’t know how long it took, but my guess is that it wasn’t long. A charge is supposed to last 80 hours (which is probably another decade for me if all I use it for is nocturne sketches!). Instead of varying light levels (the Mighty Bright has two), the Gritin offers three color temperatures of light, which I didn’t think would be a remarkable feature. I was surprised, though, that the warmer setting is less reflective on black paper. I think the feature would be useful for reading, too (what – people actually use book lights to read by instead of making nocturnes??). The bulb casts a wide, even light across the page.

Its best feature, though, is that it is lighter and slightly less bulky because it doesn’t contain batteries. The Mighty Bright is tolerable in weight with a hardcover or thick sketchbook (like my “Stefano” sketchbook cover and a black Stillman & Birn Nova I had been using when I bought the Mighty Bright), but a thinner, softcover Uglybook doesn’t give the lamp enough support, and it tends to flop over. The new Gritin hardly weighs anything and balances well with a softcover book.

Like the Mighty Bright, its illumination is way too bright to use in a concert hall without potentially annoying others. If I take it in public, I’ll try putting some tape over the LED bulb to dim it down, just as I did with the Mighty Bright. In my dark livingroom, though, it was ideal illumination for sketching across the street before dawn.