We purchased this to get us through Hurricane Sandy. Used it 3-4 hours at night when moving around the house and in bedroom. It worked well, had to replace the batteries once in the 5 days we were without main power. Created enough light to act as bedside lamp. But not enough to read a lot of material. Couldn't tell a great deal of difference between low and high brightness. Would recommend over 90% of the battery systems out there. Stock lots of D batteries.