Review of Philips LED, CFL, and incandescent bulbs

Aug 7, 2011 by Candace Lombardi

The new Philips 75-watt LED (Credit: Candace Lombardi)

Many sites have been doing head-to-head tests of various LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs coming on the market. However, I’m often asked where someone can find just a “regular person review” on how LEDs stack up against CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) and the soon-to-be-phased-out incandescents without getting too buried in stats on lumens, kelvins, wattage, and the rest of the jargon that typically comes along with in-depth discussions of these different technologies.

By pure luck I happened to have not only a Philips-brand CFL but also a Philips 75-watt Dura Max incandescent bulb on hand. So I was able to do a real-world, side-by-side comparison of each type of bulb from the same brand.

Philips estimates the bulb costs $2.05 a year in electricity if you use it for three hours a day and your electricity company charges you 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. The average price for residential electricity in the U.S. as of February 2011 is 11.2 cents, but it ranges between 7.31 and 17.6 cents per kilowatt-hour within the continental U.S. and Alaska. Hawaiians pay an average of 31.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.The Philips LED feels heavy and sturdy in your hand. Its hefty plastic and metal casing is obviously less breakable than an incandescent glass light bulb or CFL. When I was done testing it out, I threw it around and dropped it from different heights onto different surfaces. (That’s probably not something recommended by the manufacturer, but at $40 a bulb who’s going to try this if not a tech journalist?) It survived with absolutely no perceptible damage. And, of course, if I had managed to break it, I would not have been exposed to mercury, which can happen with a broken CFL. Like all LEDs, the Philips LED does not contain any mercury or lead.

There is a good reason the Philips AmbientLED bulb is made to be so sturdy. The bulb is intended to last you 22.8 years, according to Philips’ statistics.Some users have reported that the bulb is too big for average lamps. While the Philips LED bulb is slightly taller than an incandescent, I had no problem fitting it into my very average bedside table lamps purchased at a discount home-goods store.

The visual difference between the Philips LED and its incandescent equivalent while under a white lamp shade was …

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For photos of my tests: