This is one cute little torch and built for kids clearly, so I thought I'd run it past my lot to see what they made of it and whether they could work out how to use the little chap without using the instruction sheet (who reads those anyway?)
I handed it to an investigative 7-year-old and it took her exactly 8 seconds to work out that you had to unclip the button on the side to release the penguin wing and half a millisecond to work out that you needed to pump it to generate light! I thought my 10-year-old son might find it a bit too babyish to be honest, but he loved it and found it to be an excellent accessory for finding worms in a dark, wet garden and for reading an extra 5 minutes of Enid Blyton under the duvet after I'd called for ‘Lights out'. He loved the fact that it was so easy to power up and he liked the fact that it was animal shaped, making it interesting and exclusively for children to use.
There's a non-adjustable, hardwearing little wrist strap at the base of the flashlight, it stands up on it's wide feet at around 5 inches tall and has an ultra-bright LED light shining out of the top of its head, which can light a path of 20 meters and in my household the squeezy penguin has clear appeal for both boys and girls!
When you pump (sorry, when ‘they' pump) the wing to generate electricity, you can hear the dynamo fire up and the cogs go around and so it's not ideal if you're looking for a silent companion to light the hallway on a nighttime visit to the lavatory, because it makes a fair bit of a noise as one would expect from a dynamo. But as a torch for general use out camping, or in a shed to light your way to putting your bike away, it's perfect.
1 minute of wing priming will give you 5 minutes of shine time and the LED bulb should see you clear for 100,000 lighting hours. It also comes in a robust black and yellow plastic casing that stood the test of three young and over-zealous panellists, who've enjoyed putting the piece through its paces and all of whom enjoyed giving it a good drop test.
It's a very inexpensive, educational and functional flashlight that has solved the problem of birthday gifts for classroom chums in my house.
A quick couple of squeezes on his wing will charge up enough light to find your door lock or fuse box in the dark. We all know how un-earthfriendly batteries are.
Now you can give a great present that doesn't have the batteries included, because you don't need them!!
***It is so cool Mum - can we keep it?*** was the first response I got to the Penguin squeezing torch when I brought it home for my seven-year-old daughter to put to the test.
The Penguin is 11cm long - so it sits neatly in the palm of the hand. The design is clearly intuitive to a child's mind - so whilst I was making my way through the instructions, Jess had already found the switch to release the hand squeezing mechanism and found the on/off button. There really is nothing to it - one minute of squeezing the penguin's wing in and out and the torch was shining brightly.
According to the instructions, one minute of squeezing will provide five minutes of power - after a good 20 minutes plus of power we gave up the test! As to the intensity of light - on these long summer nights it has been hard to get a dark night to really test this aspect but what I do know is that it has been regularly used for secret reading sessions under the duvet after lights-out has been called!
Overall verdict - a great little torch for children.