Review by J. Pawlowski:

At a little over 10 bucks for 8 of these, you can’t go wrong.

These are just your basic CFLs, at the 2700 kelvin temperature range. That means they’re about the same shade as your basic ordinary 60W incandescent bulb. A pale yellow white, not pure white (5100 Kelvin), or daylight (around 6300 Kelvin).

Pure white or daylight CFLS cost more because the phosphors in them are more expensive, but they do have the advantage of being more natural light, rather than imitating the poor quality light of an ordinary light bulb.

So if you’re thinking of upgrading to CFLs these bulbs are a great deal to start from. But do take advantage of the technology & get a higher quality light at a higher color temperature for some of your areas, & enjoy better quality light, rather than just using CFLs that imitate the poor quality light of old fashioned light bulbs.

Winter depression can be triggered by lack of natural light because of less hours of daylight, & more cloudy, overcast days in winters. In northern climates when it’s cold, people stay inside more, use heavy insulating window curtains, further reducing their exposure to natural light. 5100K-6700k CFLs help with winter depression by exposing you to more natural light. Colors look more rich & vivid. Things look more cheery. It’s even easier to read under natural light.

I find I can read just as easy under a 4-watt 5100k CFL than a 13 watt 2700k CFL.

The backlight in your LCD display that you’re probably reading this from is probably a 5100k-6700K bulb.

Look at the white areas on the screen & then look at your lighting in the room. Doesn’t that ordinary light bulb or 2700K CFL look a lot more yellow by comparison?

Review by George B.:

Things to look on the package:

1. Kelvin temperature (K): The only accurate measurement for the kind of light or “color” of light you’ll get. 2700K is pretty close to the “warm” incandescent we are all used to, 4100/4200K is known as “Cool White” (you might look “ghostly under that) and 5,000+ is the daylight/sunlight. If the lamps do not have the K designation, do not buy them – they are the cheaper variety since establishing the K temp. costs more.

2. Lamp Life (Hrs): The life of a light bulb is the MEAN life, that is at the stated hours HALF of them will be dead and HALF of them will still be working. Life can be affected by many factors, one being how many times a day you turn them on and how long they stay on. As a rule, the more on/off’s, the less they last.

3. Initial lumens: If it is not listed try another brand. For the typical 60W equivalent it ranges between 700 and 900 lumens. Try for 800+ In general the highest the K temp. (see #1 above) the higher the lumens.

4. Make sure you read what they say about DIMMERS, as well as photocells, timers, etc. Avoid costly surprises.

5. Make sure they are rated for outdoor use – if that’s where you want to install them. The environment’s temperature has a lot to do with the CFL performance.

6. Buy as few as you can first and redo, say one room. See how YOU like it (allow 90 seconds warm-up time). If you are a male, have your female with you…she might have some objections you can’t even think about!

HAPPY HUNTING!

Review by K. Chaney:

The bulb gives light which is not as yellowish as standard soft white bulbs, improving the readability of written text. The bulbs themselves are very compact, slightly shorter than a standand incandescent bulb. Turn on time is less than half a second.

The two bulbs come in a container made of thin cardboard that offers little protection. Both the original shipment and the replacement shipment each had a broken bulb. The bulbs do contain small amounts of mercury which is toxic. They probably should be ordered separately so as to lessen the chance of them being damaged by other items in the shipment and prevent mercury contamination of the other items.

Review by S. Smith:

I chose this bulb because of the full spectrum and the extra light it would give. After installing two bulbs I turned on my two table lamps in the living room. I wasn’t quite expecting such a white-blue light. My plants are going to love it, my mood will be given a lift by it, but the romance factor of the room just went Martian.

Review by Marshal Giggleman:

After reading the 2 previous reviews I wasn’t expecting much light output from the bulb, so I wasn’t really disappointed. The light output is about that of the coleman battery powered camping lanterns, which is to say not bright but “bright enough” when you really need light. While it is somewhat dispersed the light mostly seems to shine more or less straight out the top of the bulb, and so would make an excellent choice for a directed reading lamp. I will use it in my bedside table lamp since I really only need to see well enough to get dressed in the morning. You’d probably need 2 or 3 such bulbs to adequately light a small room such as a bathroom if it is going to be your main lighting source and not just an accent light. While perfect for “off grid” homes where extreme measures of conserving energy are crucial, the price would have to come down to make sense for most of you.

Review by Dr. C:

I have a fairly old Sears chain garage door opener that was killing light bulbs about once/week. This light is immune (so far) to the vibration.

Even though this is very dim (60 lumens versus 1085 lumens in a 75 watt bulb), it at least puts some light in the garage until my other automatic lights go on when I get out of the car.

***1+ year update: Still hasn’t burned out!

Review by M. Anderson:

We recently converted a recreation room into a scrapbook and photography craft room and needed accurate lighting for color management. These lights were installed in the ceiling above a work table and they work very well for our needs. They do take about a minute to warm up and reach full brightness but after the warm up period they seem to duplicate daylight.

Review by Paestum:

Not what I expected. This bulb does not emit anything close to the equivalent of 125W in my opinion. The light is waaaay too blue/gray. I tried it for two days and after a few headaches went back to the original Verilux 75W.

Review by Wavers:

Really don’t bother..

I ordered four of these and installed them in our Kitchen High Hat lighting. The light from the bulbs was not quite what I was expecting, which didn’t concern me, and I quite liked the light it produced.

one of the main reasons I bought the bulbs was, I imagine, just like you, be greener and reduce costs over the lifetime of the build. The manufacturer indicated 50,000 hours so it seemed like it would be worth the additional cost for the bulbs.

The issues came a little over a month of use, since it’s installed in a kitchen it only gets use about 1-3Hrs a day. After this time the light began to fail. One by one each one started to provide a light show, where half the led’s would flash on and off until the lamp got bored and the the flashing half would stop working all together. a few days later and the lamp fails entirely.

So within a month and a half of use, here’s what we ended up with:

Bulb 1 – Dead

Bulb 2 – Half LED’s Failed

Bulb 3 – Dead

Bulb 4 – Half LED’s Failed

Conclusion… Don’t bother. You can’t be green with this bulb.

Cheers

Wavers

Review by P. Thomas:

EDIT: This was a great bulb till it died a month later. I contacted the manufacturer and they stated they can not warranty the bulb, in spite of it stating a 2 Year Warranty on the package. They said I have to go through Amazon. Amazon states I can no longer return the bulbs.

DO NOT BUY!

I have found that these lights are pretty amazing. It meets the specs on the bulb. It uses very little electricity. It is a non-glare. The light is in the white spectrum, not the normal warm color of a floodlight.

Problems that happen when people use these:

1. They want a warm glow, like you would find in an incandescent.

2. They want a bulb that pumps out the same amount of light, so they can’t look at it like a normal bulb.

I am using these bulbs in my kitchen. I am very happy as I replace the old incandescent bulbs. They do not seem as bright, but if you measure them with a light meter, it is labeled correctly.