"Pipet-Lite XLS is a stylish, authoritative and sturdy pipette with a smooth action."

Having a reliable and easy to use set of pipettes is essential for every researcher and, although they are the unsung heroes, they are undoubtedly one of the most important pieces of equipment used in everyday research. Inaccurate and cumbersome to use pipettes can make life difficult at more than one level and therefore, choosing the right pipettes is crucial. Having tried almost every pipette on the market, my lab seems to be divided between the Eppendorf, Finnpipette and Gilson brands. Ignoring special offers, all three can be purchased for essentially the same price and so it’s all down to personal preference. Having started in the lab in the early eighties, I was a traditional Gilson user but I was keen to test the accuracy, reliability, and robustness of the new Pipet-Lite XLS series to determine if they were as good as they looked.

The range of liquid handling from 0.2 μL (L-2XLS) up to 20 mL (L-20MLXLS) is impressive to say the least and covers every possible experimental need. I was particularly pleased to see the pipette range include volumes not catered for by the other brands e.g. L-300XLS and L-2000XLS. The accuracy was excellent and I experienced no shift in the pipette volume because of the locking system even after a large number of samples. The Pipet-Lite XLS is certainly not cheap and flimsy but a stylish, authoritative and sturdy piece of equipment with a smooth action and easy to read display that is remarkably easy to use and clean. The only downside I noted was the fact that the metal plunger and spring were uncoated making the pipette unsuitable for use with corrosive fluids, so maybe there should be a warning to unsuspecting users or an alternative model could be sold for such applications. These pipettes come with radio frequency identification as standard and, although a nice idea, I didn’t see it as a particularly useful feature but it might have its uses in another lab. After having used the Pipet-Lite XLS for an hour, I switched back to my Gilson pipette and was amazed at the difference in resistance and how much pressure I had to exert to dispense and the stiffness of the Gilson tip ejection.

I fully recommend the Pipet-Lite XLS as a nice to handle, low resistance pipette for everyday use and I am sure that once you have tried them you will assign your old ones to the drawer - just as I have.