Nebo Galileo 1000

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Nebo Galileo 1000 specifications

Brand/model	Nebo Galileo 1000
LED	COB
Max. Lumens	1,000 lm
Max. Beam intensity / distance	21 meters (about 110 cd)
Battery config.	6*D and 1*18650
Onboard charging	USB-C for the backup 18650
Modes	5
Blinkies	N/A
Reflector	N/A
Waterproof	IPX4
Review date	April 2022

Grab your sleeping bag, pack the car… and don’t forget to take your camping lantern.

It’s time to get ready, and you’re looking at the Nebo Galileo 1000.. bring it, or leave it?

Nebo is a well-established flashlight with 20 years of experience and has a large line-up of flashlights.

The Nebo Galileo is a 1,000-lumen lantern with 5 different settings, COB LED, runs of 6D batteries, and built-in charging for the backup 18650 battery. If you’re into camping, this sounds like something everybody could use.

Package quality.

Well, what do you get for £59.99 or $69.99? This is what’s inside the box:

• The lantern: Nebo Galileo 1000
• Micro USB-charging cable
• 18650 battery with 2600mAh (this is great for a backup)

Here’s the Nebo unboxing video I made:

1 switch, and that’s the first problem I encountered. When the light is on, and you have great visibility, it’s no problem finding the switch. If you have bad eyes, it’s already harder, but in total darkness, you really have to remember where the switch is, or you’ll end up pressing the light from all sides.

I’d suggest Nebo think about the type of switch they use. I’d much rather prefer a protruding switch knob, that is an inch thick, because the lantern is large enough for this.

There’s a handle on top of the lantern which allows the light to be hung up, and also features a carabiner style clip so that it can easily be hooked onto poles or backpacks for example.

For about £60 you get a plastic lantern, of which the quality looks okay. It feels a bit too plastic, and maybe a bit more rubber would have been useful. Especially for protecting the bottom and sides.

The battery door underneath the light looks a bit low quality, with large tabs, and 2 pins to line up the connectors with the 6 D-size batteries.

In the middle of the battery carrier is a separate tube, specially made for a 18650 battery, and likely used as backup.

Since it’s very expensive to measure the different outputs, candela, and runtime graphs with 6 D-size batteries each, I just used the included 18650 for testing. Because of each test you need fresh batteries, which will become impossible with so many tests.

Warranty:

This product is guaranteed against all defects in workmanship and materials for the original owner for two years from the date of purchase.

Lanterns do something that flashlights don’t…

You guessed it right: it (usually) has a 360 degrees beam, that will light up a while area around the light. So no more one-direction light.

The light source is a COB LED, with 3 settings and ramping mode. The first setting is the 120 degrees setting (I thought it should have been 180 degrees). This is a relatively 1 direction beam, albeit very wide.

The second setting is the 360 degrees setting, where you literally light up everything around you at a full 360 degrees.

Then the last setting is the red COB.

All 3 settings have a ramping mode configuration. This means that you change the brightness fluently, instead of in steps. But keep in mind that the driver uses PWM so the lower you go, the more visible the PWM becomes.

The highest output in the 360degrees setting and red setting have PWM, but not very visible. But once you start ramping down the brightness, it becomes very visible. The 120 degrees setting has even visible PWM in the highest output setting.

• Height: about 250  mm / 9.8 ”
• Width at the bottom: 135 mm / 5.3 ”

Weight: 

• With 18650 battery (no D size batteries): 811.8 g /28.64 oz
• A D size battery is about 139 grams or 4.9 oz each… so add about 50 oz on top of the empty lantern.

Flashlight comparison

Size compared to other Nebo flashlights

Image 1, from left to right: Nebo Galileo 1000, Nebo Slyde King 2K, Nebo 12K, Nebo Luxtreme SL100

There’s a single switch that is pretty hard to find in the dark. Off is part of the menu cycle as well.

Available settings:

• 120 degrees, 360 degrees, and red light
• Each setting has a ramping brightness feature

From OFF:

• Single-click: On : 120 degrees
• Triple-click: On : 360 degrees
• Press and hold >4sec: red light lowest setting

From ON:

• Single-click: 360 degrees setting, red, off
• (if you want longer than 10 seconds, a single click turns the light off)
• Triple-click: 360 degrees highest setting
• Press and hold: ramping up-down in current setting

Mode memory:

• No

Blinky modes menu:

• No

Lock-out mode:

• No

PWM:

• Yes, in almost all settings

Conclusion:

First of all, the switch is too small, and too difficult to find. It’s hidden within the design of the lamp. A better position would be on top of the lamp, or a large and colorful button or something. The UI has OFF as part of the menu, which is kind of strange. Also a single click after 10 seconds of no use (while turned on) will turn the light off. This is also not common to see, and a little confusing.

Charging is via Micro-USB.. they used USB-C on the other lights, but Micro USB here. Also, the plastic cap for the 18650 battery is not really easy to attach. Easy to crossthread.

2 pins you need to look at, which are not easy to recognise. I’d recommend Nebo to use a different color or thicker pins.

Screwing back the orange plate can be a bit tough. you should hear a click when the cap is tightened correctly, so that should be the indicator you’ve done it correctly.

Charging works at around 0.8A (the highest I could see) and charges the 18650 battery in 3 hours. During charging there is a solid red indicator light. This turns green when it finishes charging.

Lumen measurements:

All output numbers are relative to my homemade Integrating Sphere. It is set up with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter for measurements including a Kenko PRO1D ND-16 filter. The base measurement is done with a Convoy S2+ that has been tested at 255 lumens.

The lantern isn’t built like a normal flashlight that can shine through a hole into the sphere, take the following measurements with a big grain of salt. I just put the lantern inside the sphere, until all the clear plastic was inside. This is not a good way to measure the output, but I had no other option. In the runtime graph, I just have percentages, and not lumens like I use to have.

All of my readings were taken from a fully-charged Nebo 18650 battery.

With this method, the highest output I could measure was 830 lumens. Again, this may be far from the truth because of the difficulty of measuring a large camping lantern inside a sphere.

Runtimes:

The runtime test was done with the 50cm integrating sphere, including the Kenko Pro1D ND-16 filter and Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

They were done by using the included 18650 battery (2600mAh). This is also far from the actual runtime on 6D size batteries. So these runtime are a great way to see how much the light would run on this backup battery.. nothing more, nothing less.

Each test would cost me 6D size batteries, so I just went with the single 18650 battery, and you can multiply that by 10 or so, to get some kind of reference for 6D batteries.

Below are the 2 runtime graphs, in percentages, because I don’t know if the output I measured is trustworthy.

Imagine running the 120 degrees setting on the lowest mode with 6D size batteries, that lantern would run for a couple of weeks straight, without turning it off during the day. So that’s great, but the very visible PWM would make it less enjoyable.

Total runtime for 120 degrees in the highest setting is 7h54min

Total runtime for 120 degrees in the lowest setting is: 26h58min

Total runtime for 360 degrees in the highest setting is: 2h13min

Throw Measurement

Measurements were taken indoors at 2 meters with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter.

Mode	Specs	candela	meters	yards
120	17 meters	112 cd	21	23
360	21 meters	164 cd	26	28
360 both ways**	–	328 cd	36	40

** since the 360 lantern shines from all sides, I add up the candelas.

For the following beamshots I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 and a 50mm lens. manual settings: ISO1600, 1/4sec , F4, 5000K

The shed is about 65 meters / 71 yards away. 

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to me for review at no cost by Nebo Tools. I have not been paid to review, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects.