About two months ago my shower blew up. That isn't an exaggeration, blue flash, large bang. lights out. Never mind the shock of seeing a big blue flash of electricity when you are standing in water!
It turned out a connector had overheated, the insulation on the live cable melted and it shorted against the neutral. The shower had blown, the shower switch went, the shower fuse went and the 80A house mains fuse ran away screaming.
It was Saturday afternoon and my landlord's office doesn't open at weekends so I knew I'd have no electricity until Monday daytime at the earliest. As it turned out my electricity was switched back on Monday evening.
No electricity, that is a bit of a problem for a vaper.
So this is what I did, I grabbed a Vivi Nova (easy to refill in virtual darkness), took every 18490 and 18650 battery I have out of my PVs and I reached for my ProVari.
What I needed was the most reliable PV I have, I knew I'd be spending time in the dark and the last thing I needed was more drama. It is not the most efficient PV electricity wise but as a trade off against peace of mind, no contest. It gave me that much needed feeling of security. Until this point I hadn't realised how much I actually appreciated my ProVari.
Was it worth the money? For the peace of mind of reliability right when I needed it, oh yes!
I am not a ProVari fanboy, i have other devices that I prefer, but it is what it is and it does it particularly well.