Full Spectrum Natural Daylight Effect Heavy-Duty Magnifier Lamp with Metal Clamp, Brushed Satin (VS103S)

Bought a used version to replace one just like it but about 40 years older that had a broken hinge. It was indeed very lightly used. Looking hard, I could find a minor cosmetic scuff; something I'd do to it in the first week anyway.Well made. Good optics. Nice clamp swivel. Good lighting. Moves easy and stays where you put it without constantly tweaking the hinge clamps.Other thoughts: Read the other reviews regarding clamping space, location, and desktop width. My desk is a massive steel WW2 office relic that doubles as a formidable earthquake shelter so I don't care about clamp damage. If you have a desk worth protecting, put something between the clamp and the desk, like a piece of thick cloth or rubber. You can find rubber clamp ends in your hardware store tool section with the woodworking clamps. Of course, this will shrink your max clamping width.

As advertised. Nice tight hinges, holds positions well, so far. If it does get weak, and you're halfway mechanically inclined, the plastic thumb screws can be replaced with stainless wing-nuts to make it like new. The magnifier is glass. Very clear with only a small amount of distortion at the edges. The illumination is great. The table clamp is strong.The only con I have found is that the sleeve over the post on the table clamp that allows the V-Light to swivel is not very tight. If the desk/workbench isn't perfectly level it MAY start to swing by itself. A small piece of friction tape fixes this.I use this to wrap coils for my e-cigarette atomizers. I'm 58 years old and this makes the smallest part look HUGE! It will serve a jewelry maker, model builder or document examiner superbly. I would recommend this to my friends.

It seems like a good quality lamp compared to others on the market. My only personal gripe is that it's so large that one must be able to attach it to a desk or other object that will allow enough room ( I would suggest 24" even though it may require less) for the lamp to rotate. Otherwise the arm will hit the wall or any object that could be in its way. I have mine on the side of my drawing table but even so, I had to make enough room for it to swing without hitting the opened door. The lamp is easy to turn on and off but the movement of the arms/springs is a bit tight and will take some getting used to. The magnifier works great and is very clear but again, takes a bit of muscle to get it into a comfortable position. Hopefully, it will loosen up a bit. The hardware that attaches to the desk or table seems to be strong and works well on my oak drawing table. However, if you are attaching to a smooth synthetic surface, you may want to put a piece of rubber between the table and the screw to help keep it from twisting loose with use.

I do a lot of cross-stitch and beading and I find myself looking down over the tops of my glasses while holding my work inches from my face. This can't be good for me -- at a minimum, it is causing eye strain. Also, my living room (where I do most of my work) is very dark. So I wanted a magnifier lamp.I had previously been using one of those ones you hang around your neck but it wasn't a perfect solution. The light wasn't powerful at all and I had to hold my head at a weird angle (and it didn't rest correctly on a female chest, either, I might add). I was open to either floor or table-mount lamps and this is the one I settled on. I am happy with my decision and would make the same one again.This was pretty easy to set up. There was very little assembly required. I put the clamp on my work surface (basically not much more than a TV tray). My tray is fairly thin but this will fit on something up to or maybe a little larger than 2 inches, so many tables should also be OK. Then I unscrewed a little screw in the clamp and inserted the entire top part of the lamp into the only opening in the top of the clamp. You put the screw back in (this keeps the arm and lamp from falling out and/or swiveling 360 degrees -- it does still turn pretty far, maybe 180 degrees). There are a few bits of cardboard and such to remove, but unboxing is basically hassle-free.This is a little bit large for my current set-up; I find I have to work over on the far side of my tray because of how long the arm is. But it does work for me and I like that I can either have it up high for just some light, or down low for light and magnification. The arm stays in place wherever you adjust it to; there is a little screw for securing the light/magnifier part in the orientation of your choice.This takes a circular fluorescent bulb (the relevant wattage information is printed on the bulb, which does come with the unit -- T9 22W 6400K is what it says). It gives off a white light (fine by me, I feel I can see colors more accurately that way). The cord is somewhat short (maybe 3-4 feet?) but I plugged it into a power strip and the cord from that gives me enough reach to get to the wall socket.This is not the most powerful magnifier out there, but it represented a good compromise for me in terms of value, lighting, and magnification. I tried some cross-stitching under it and was really able to see much better -- I didn't have to hold my work up to my face, and the eye strain was a lot less. (I am 38 and while I have been nearsighted all my life, I do not have age-related vision problems. If you do, you might need stronger magnification. This does 1.75x.) This is much more comfortable than any solution I've tried in the past, which means I can work for longer without stopping.I have the black one and all the metal surfaces were evenly coated with no scratches. If you do put this on a TV tray, make sure it has a secure base because this does change the center of gravity of my work surface.Overall, I'm very pleased with this purchase and would buy the same one if I had it to do over again.

This thing rocks! I was looking for a lamp like this that would be big enough to completely light my hobby table, and magnify when I need it. You can't tell the size from a picture on your phone, and the advertised lens size was 5". Didn't sound very big. But the head itself is more like 10" across. More than enough. It's also made of steel. Pretty much like something that might have been built 50 years ago.When I first turned it on I was a little disappointed. It didn't put out much light. So I turned it up to look at the light bulb. That's when I discovered that the bulb was completely covered with cardboard for shipping purposes. Not mentioned in the directions. (As if I read directions). Remove the cardboard and all the foam pieces and it puts out a ton of light.The people that give this lamp a bad review are the same ones that complain about taxes when they win the lottery.