DeWalt Cordless/Corded Area Light

First impressions and setup

I spent the last month rotating this DeWalt area light through a handful of tasks—early-morning garage work, drywall patches in a dim hallway, and a couple of late-day punch lists—both on battery and on AC. The design is simple and familiar: a compact, fold-up frame that protects the lamp and makes it easy to stow, with a spring-loaded battery hold-down that keeps packs secure when you’re on the move. It’s not flashy, and that’s a compliment. Out of the box, it’s ready to work with 12–18 V DeWalt batteries or a standard extension cord, so it slots into a lot of existing setups without drama.

Build and design

The build is classic jobsite DeWalt—sturdy plastic over a metal frame, more about durability than elegance. The folding mechanism feels confident; there’s enough resistance that it doesn’t flop open or closed when you’re carrying it. The protective frame keeps the fluorescent tube well guarded against bumps. I tossed it in the truck bed, slid it under a miter saw stand, and it came out no worse for wear. DeWalt’s spring-loaded battery hold-down is a small but smart touch; it prevents a pack from loosening when the light is jostled. That matters if you’re moving between rooms or hoisting the light up a set of stairs.

There’s no telescoping tower or height adjustment—it’s a ground/bench light—so plan on setting it on a floor, tailgate, or step. The footprint is stable, with no tendency to tip if the cord snags. While it’s not featherweight, the balance is good enough that carrying it with one hand and a toolbox in the other doesn’t feel precarious.

Power options and runtime

The big value play here is AC/DC flexibility. On sites with power, I ran it off an extension cord and never thought about it again. On quick tasks—tight attic spaces, garages without reachable outlets, the trunk of a wagon—it ran off my old 18 V packs without complaint. Fluorescent lighting at 38 W isn’t miserly by modern LED standards, but it’s predictable. For rough planning, a healthy 18 V, 5 Ah pack got me a bit over two hours in my testing; smaller packs scale down accordingly. On 12 V packs, expect shorter stints that are best suited for inspections or one-and-done cuts rather than multi-hour sessions.

Swapping from battery to cord is tool-less and straightforward. There’s no dimmer or brightness adjustment, and no USB charging frills. This light is about consistent output and basic dependability.

Light quality and output

DeWalt rates the output at 2700 lumens from a 38 W fluorescent tube. In practical terms, it’s a broad, even pool of light without hot spots or glare. Compared to halogen work lights, the fluorescent runs cooler and doesn’t bake you as you lean into a project, which makes a difference in small rooms or during summer work. It also does a better job of filling a space uniformly—great for painting, sanding, and general carpentry where you don’t want harsh shadows.

Color-wise, it’s neutral enough for everyday tasks. For fine finishing or color-critical work, it won’t match a high-CRI LED panel, but for cutting, fastening, drywall, or wiring, I had no complaints. There’s a very brief warm-up to full brightness—seconds, not minutes—typical of fluorescent lamps. On AC, there’s a faint ballast hum if the room is silent; nothing I noticed once tools started running.

Cold weather performance

Fluorescent tubes and cold weather have never been best friends, and this light is no exception. In freezing temperatures, the tube starts dimmer and takes longer to reach full output. Below freezing, startup can feel sluggish, and light output loses a bit of punch until the lamp warms. If your work regularly happens outdoors in winter or in unheated spaces, that’s something to weigh carefully. It still functions, but LED jobsite lights have a clear advantage in cold environments. In shoulder-season mornings and cool garages, it behaved fine; it’s the deep-winter use that exposes the inherent limitations of fluorescent tech.

Everyday usability

What I appreciated most is the set-it-and-forget-it nature of the light. The fold-up design makes it compact in transit, the frame protects the bulb in the truck, and the AC/DC redundancy covers a lot of use cases. It’s bright enough to illuminate a single-car garage or a small room without needing to reposition it constantly, and the diffuse output keeps shadows soft around the workpiece. For a bench setup—sharpening, layout, small assembly—the light is comfortable to work under for hours because it doesn’t throw heat like a halogen.

There’s no daisy-chain outlet, no tripod mount, and no adjustable color temperature. If you want those features, look to LED systems. This light’s value is in straightforward dependability. The trade-off is you’re living with fluorescent quirks: fragile tubes compared to solid-state LEDs, a bit of warm-up time, and the cold-weather caveat.

Maintenance and durability

Fluorescent tubes are consumables. Replacements are inexpensive and easy to find, and swapping them is quick, but you’ll want a spare in the shop if you’re running the light daily. The flip side is that you avoid the potential headaches of sealed LED arrays that can’t be serviced. Over my time with it, the tube showed no perceptible flicker or color shift, and the housing shrugged off the bumps and dust typical of jobsite use.

On batteries, the spring-loaded hold-down mechanism kept packs locked in even while bouncing over gravel in the back of a truck. Contacts stayed clean and positive. The AC cord port is well recessed so it’s protected, though there’s no built-in cord wrap, so plan accordingly for storage.

DeWalt’s warranty—3-year limited, 1-year free service, and a 90-day satisfaction guarantee—adds a layer of confidence, especially for a tool that may live in a shared job box.

How it compares to modern LED lights

It’s impossible to ignore that LEDs have taken over jobsite lighting for good reasons: efficiency, impact resistance, instant full brightness in the cold, and richer feature sets. If you’re building a lighting setup from scratch today and you work outdoors in winter or you need maximum lumens per watt, an LED tower or panel light is the smarter long-term bet.

That said, this area light still has a niche. The light is soft and uniform. It runs much cooler than halogens. It works on older 12–18 V DeWalt packs as well as AC, which is useful if you’re still maintaining those batteries or you want a light that doesn’t lock you into a single power source. And because the lamp is serviceable, you’re not discarding the whole unit if the light source fails—just replace the tube.

Who it’s for

• Tradespeople and DIYers with existing 12–18 V DeWalt batteries who want a dependable AC/DC shop or jobsite light.
• Painters, drywallers, and carpenters who prefer an even, low-glare field of light over the harsh spotlight of some LEDs.
• Small-shop and garage users who value low heat output and don’t often work in below-freezing conditions.

If your work is exterior, winter-heavy, or you need compact brightness with minimal power draw, an LED alternative will serve you better.

Recommendation

I recommend this DeWalt area light for users who prioritize consistent, even illumination, AC/DC flexibility, and a rugged, serviceable design, especially if you already own compatible 12–18 V packs. It’s a reliable, no-nonsense work light that covers a lot of indoor and temperate-weather tasks without running hot or throwing harsh shadows. The main caveat is cold performance; if you routinely work in freezing conditions—or you want the efficiency and feature set of modern LEDs—consider an LED jobsite light instead. For shop work, garages, renovations, and punch lists where AC power is hit-or-miss, this light still earns its keep.