Review by T. Higgins:

I was impressed with the price of these bulbs, and the reviews were mostly favorable. However, I have not been impressed with these bulbs–several have died. Specifically, one was DOA and had to be replaced by the seller. Furthermore, after precisely 8 months of use 3 bulbs in different fixtures all died separately over the course of one week. I have also not been impressed with the consistency of brightness and color temperature–there is marked differences in both among bulbs. In addition, the bulbs do buzz when dimmed, but I have not had problems with flickering bulbs. I would suggest passing on these.

Review by smoothblues:

These dimmable CFLs work very well with Insteon dimmers. They start up at very low brightness (5-10%) and dim all the way down to the lowest level. Insteon dimmers use high quality electronics that create a clean output signal. Alot of people who complain about buzzing/flickering are likely using cheapo dimmers which use triacs. Triacs and similar circuits do terrible things to the AC waveform, chopping it to pieces instead of reducing the amplitude and retaining a sine wave. Incandescents tend to absorb the noisy output of triacs better, so people don’t realize they’ve bought crappy quality dimmers until they use non-incandescent lights.

Color temperature is good, leaning towards the warm side and not the colder bluish temperatures that some people dislike. I’ve noticed a pinkish bias as the lights dim down. Under a shade or cover it’s not noticeable at all. If you are lighting with the bare bulb it may be more noticeable.

Excellent value @ prices from Amazon sellers. You’d easily pay 4-8x as much per bulb at Lowes or Home Depot which have very limited selection of dimmable CFLs.

Review by Chris Paul:

These PureSpectum CFLs dim perfectly and they instantly turn on when you flip the switch. No flicker, no buzzing sound, and no waiting to warm up! These are the real deal. I replaced all of my incandescent lightbulbs on dimmer switches with these PureSpectrum CFLs. They emit a soft white/yellow glow.

Review by Wayne Meagher:

I’ve had these bulbs in my house for a few months

they light right away no waiting like most CFL’S

and they dim fairly well

unlike most dimmable bulbs I have tried and throw away

I just wished they sold in a larger pack 6 to 8 per pack

but their still worth the price paid

Review by Red Harvest:

I’ve used CFL’s for four years in several homes and these GE bulbs are some of the worst I’ve tried. These “flood” lights start out more like a trickle–after a long and erratic delay in starting at all. The two end spirals don’t even illuminate at first, instead casting a shadow. Initial luminosity is probably 50% at best. After a minute or two they are finally fully illuminated. The only place these are fit to be used is in a location where the bulb is always on. They also fail as dimmables, because they do not turn down very much (in fact, no more than a standard GE CFL flood–although the standard one will flicker and whine when turned down.)

So the bulbs have three strikes against them: 1. Slow to actually turn on compared to other CFL’s 2. Starting very dim taking a long time to reach normal brightness 3. Insufficient dimming characteristics. My recommendation is to avoid these and other GE CFL’s, the GE’s are the poorest examples of CFL’s I’ve tested so far.

Review by K. Denninger:

The good: They will start on an electronic “soft start” dimmer, such as a ZWave, X10 or Maestro unit. MOST DIMMABLE CFLS WILL NOT. However – if you try to start them “ramped full”, they may freak out your dimmer and cause it to cycle on and off a few times, which isn’t so good. If you start them at ~50% or less this doesn’t happen. Note that MOST other “dimmable CFLs” will NOT start reliably AT ALL on a low setting, with an electronic dimmer, and some will cycle the dimmer incessantly with the electronics thinking it is shorted or open. The GEs are the ONLY CFL dimmables I’ve found that (mostly) work ok. Note thay many other brands interact VERY BADLY with one another if you have one (or more) fail to start on a circuit – gee, you think most rooms have more than one on a circuit? In particular “1000bulbs” sells a brand (unknown actual brand) that is called “most reliable dimmable CFL” – don’t believe it for a second. Those are ok in non-dimmable applications, but they’re absolutely unsuitable for anything in a dimmable application, in my view.

The bad: The dimmable range isn’t as wide as I’d like as 20% output is about the minimum. If you try to turn them down too far they will go out instead. They do not reliably start on an ELECTRONIC dimmer at full power and in some cases will interact badly with the dimmer switch – this is especially troublesome on the Leviton Vizia-RF (Zwave) switches. But – other CFL dimmables do the same thing – or worse. These WILL start reliably (and not freak out the switch) at low to moderate levels (e.g. 20%, 50%, etc)

I have tried a half-dozen different brands of CFLs, and have over 0 worth of another manufacturers that are WORTHLESS for the above reasons.

The GEs aren’t perfect, but they work and for the most part don’t interact badly with dimmers. I really, really hate the fact that nobody has bothered to make a TRULY COMPATABLE CFL that will not interact badly with electronic dimmers, will reliably start and run at low output levels, and yet provides the energy savings of CFLs. I do NOT like my lighting on “full blast” as I find most household lighting to be radically overlit for 99% of circumstances. Yes, I want it “hospital bright” when cleaning, but not the rest of the time!

Review by Gary Minnaert:

Overall, these bulbs are good replacements for typical incandescent flood lights. The amount of light they put out is comparable.

These are also the first fluorescent flood lights I have found which work with dimmer switches. So a couple plusses in their favor.

There are a couple important differences between these bulbs and a typical incandescent bulbs:

1) they are more expensive

2) they have about a 1/2 second ‘pause’ when turning on. When hooked up to the same switch, an incandescent bulb will come on first, by maybe a half second. More of a small annoyance than anything, but the expectation is immediate light when you flip the switch

3) there is a ‘warm up’ time before these bulbs emit their full light output. Probably 90 seconds before they are 100%. They start at probably 70%.

4) these bulbs work with a dimmer switch, but the levels are different than a typical bulb. They probably range between 20% and 100%, whereas a typical bulb would go from 1% – 100%.

Overall, I am satisfied. They use less energy, put out the same light and work with dimmers.

Review by J. Siepmann:

Dimmable CFLs only dim about 20% (Sylvania 10%, Philips 20%, GE20%) so don’t buy expecting them to dim like incandescent bulbs. Also the way they dim is by producing harmonic distortion (changing the waveform to one where less light is produced) which can cause flickering and even without noticable flickering possibly even headaches or eye strain in some people. So go with the nondimmable CFLs instead.