CONCLUSION

   Although as mentioned earlier I’ve used numerous solar lights through the years the Albany is actually the very first spotlight so because of its somewhat tiny size i didn't know what to expect (aside the promotional material i got from The Solar Centre). I've known CREE and their LED modules for many years now but I’ve only used flashlights with their solutions inside so again i had no idea of what to expect. Well pictures speak louder than words so you can all see that two Albany spotlights can produce very good results and although my backyard is nothing exceptional in terms of size still to be able to compete with a 1500 Lumen LED bulb is great in my book. Unfortunately I’m not saying that the Albany is perfect since it has some things we’d really like to see improved on. For one the solar panel is quite small which means that if you happen to live in a place without much sun (like some parts of the UK) it may not be able to fully charge the 6000mAh battery pack inside and thus the spotlight will not work long enough at night. A larger solar panel would reduce the time needed to recharge the battery pack and thus it would be a win win scenario. Also a model with a more powerful CREE LED would not be a bad thing since there are people out there with huge backyards so using for example 3-4 Albany lights instead of 6-8 would obviously be preferable. As for battery life that strongly depends on the how strong the sun is each day and whether or not the solar panels are placed correctly. So although some nights the lights would keep going up until almost 7 in the morning other times they wouldn’t make it past 5 (this is overall caused primarily by the small solar panels).

   A single Albany Premium Solar Spotlight will set you back roughly 50Euros directly from The Solar Centre website so although certainly more expensive than your average solar garden light it’s not really that expensive for what it offers. Of course as we’ve pointed out already it has room for improvement and we hope The Solar Centre will do exactly that in the near future but for people who are looking for a tiny solar light to illuminate large areas things can’t get much better than this and for that the Albany gets our Golden Award.

PROS

- Spotlight Build Quality (Brushed Aluminum Enclosure)
- 125 Lumen / 5500k CREE LED
- Weatherproof
- Solar Powered
- Up To 10 Hours Run Time
- Battery Pack Access
- Easy Installation
- Available Mounts

CONS

- Solar Panel Size (Recharge Time)
- LED Brightness
- Price (For Some)