I spent hours researching before I bought this light. My son requested a good book light for Christmas. We have had all sorts of book lights in the past, some bad and some horrid. This one turned out to be as good as I had hoped. This little unit puts out alot of light and the clip seems very substantial. The flex neck is a good length and bends smoothly. Some, in the past, have felt 'crackly' when bending like the wires were snapping in the neck, this one doesn't feel like that. The batteries last a long time but just in case I bought the ac adapter too. In fact, I chose this one, in part, because there was an ac adapter available for it.