Light and magnification are critical, the drink holder is probably optional, but who knows, could be critical for some. In any case, a lot of us using e-cigs and building mods are in the older group with vision not so great so for sure we can't do any project without something like that. I need lots of light and lots of magnification for anything I do with e-cigs, except mixing juice maybe. I can still see the tick marks on the graduated cylinder without my magnifiers.