The 32oz red Clearview. My review

[Autumn]

Okay so Target is supposed to release these lamps on the 28th of this month, but for some reason mine put them out earlier so I picked one up for review.

The good.

The lamps base and cap are amazing. The finish is even better than my blue wizard. It has that brushed metal finish to it, but it is highly polished with an almost iridescent shine to it. This is true of the red lamps, but I think the yellow and purple lamps have a typical glossy finish to them. I am not sure, so I will confirm this later. The lamp had a few scratches in the metal that were painted over, but you really have to look to see them. The clear ring that holds the lamp in place is made of plastic, but it is a nice plastic. It is 100% crystal clear. This lamp is powered by a 25 watt reflector bulb, which I get the feeling will allow for lamps to run for way more than 8 hours. It takes a bit longer to get the lamp to the full temperature, but once it gets there the lamp flows great. I put a USA globe on the lamp to show the potential flow of this lamp.

The bad.

The formula in most of these lamps is, just like in the past, not correct. The lamp I bought was cloudy out of the box, but the wax had shown a lot of improvement. Instead of having that crystalized urinal cake look to it, the wax was smooth and buttery when cold. There were a lot of small bits floating around, which I thought would settle and cause the lamp to clear up. They are completely gone now, but the lamp remains cloudy. It did clear up a lot from the time I bought it, but every time I run the lamp it gets cloudy again. Despite the cloudiness the lamp flowed amazingly. That is until about the fifth run when the wax had a sudden change of heart. Now the wax sits at the bottom of the lamp in a lifeless lump. After about 4 hours the lamp will begin to flow, but it is the slow round china flow that just isn't very exciting. I talked to Dale and he told me what I have heard before. The manufacturers are screwing with the lamps again. Right now the odds of getting a 90's formula clearview are fairly slim, but they are out there. Some batches are coming out right.

The verdict.

Do buy this lamp if you want the base and cap. I know this has been said over and over and it is frustrating, but it is what it is. The base and cap are really nice, and they fit in well with the rest of the lamp designs. 

Don't buy this lamp if you want a clear properly flowing globe. Sure you can get lucky and get an amazing globe, but the odds are not in your favor. If you do happen to run across a good globe, buy everything you want at that location at that time. Later on down the road they may have a bad batch at that location.

Here is the clearview when I first opened it.

Here is what it looked like when it did flow.

Here is the clear cone and 25 watt bulb.

Here is a photo of the cone. It shows the finish of the lamp quite nicely.

The scratches in this video look worse than they are because of the camera flash. In reality they are hardly noticeable.

And finally this photo shows a USA clear/yellow flowing on the clearview base and the clear/red China globe on an enchantress base.

[Erin]

Thanks for the updates Shawn! I WANT ONE. 

[lava luva ~ Tiffany]

it looks really good Dr.!

[Dr. WHAT?!]

The clearview is still "clear" after day 2. I was just talking with Autumn about how I wish these newer lamps had that long stretchy flow like wax that the old USA globes used to have and not just blob after blob liek the new stuff. I took a pic of the new clearview and my gookit metallic lamp for comparison purposes. This gookit lamp has that old school long stretchy blob or column look that's we've all come to love. Sometimes it'll sit there in a column and just "hula" for 5 minutes before it breaks up and starts it all over again. The flow is always unknown. With these new china lamps you jsut see the same action over and over again.

[Loren]

Awesome review!

...Albeit a bit disappointing. :(

I love the base, though...too cool. I also love the 25w bulb!

[Dr. WHAT?!]

well a week later and its still flowing pretty good without overheating on 8 hours run times. the wax seem to have loosened up some to as well, it's not so blob after blob flow anymore there's stretch to it now, but its still not USA flow. I'm also going to be bringing it home this weekend to run with the other lamps. That should be the to the final test of whether or not if it overheats like most chinas do. Stay tuned.

[Steven]

I wish LL sold these on their site or their smaller distributors. More than likely our local Target store will not receive them.