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Two Lights Compared
While traveling I wound up in a situation with incredibly poor light for reading anything, much less my K3. A quick look around found a Fulcrum "Light It!" multiflex LED task light powered by 3 AAA cells. Once I added a pair of cork dots to the clip to give it a little more holding power, it worked well. You do have to shift the light around when you change positions if you're reading in bed, but that's not a problem.
Later, my wife noted that she'd like a light like that for paper books. A trip to B&N got the essentially identical Mighty Brite "XtraFlex2". It was $5 more, but came with 3 AAA cells included and a little rubber pad where I added the cork dots, which pretty much made the price identical. It worked about the same.
Differences:
The Fulcrum is matte silver, which is very distracting when the light hits the clip. The MB is semigloss black; less distracting. (Can no one make these things in Nextel low reflectance black?) Advantage MB.
The MB has two LEDs that can be turned on separately. It's a little brighter, but probably runs down the battery faster. Since the double brightness doesn't make much differences on my K3 Pearl screen, I'd say the brightness isn't much of an advantage. If you have an older reader with a poorer screen (neener-neener!) you might prefer the MB. Advantage neither.
The little rubber pad on the MB holds slightly better than my two little cork dots added to the Fulcrum, and I didn't have to fiddle with it. Advantage MB.
Morals:
You get what you pay for.
Durability TBD.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
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