Xanlite 48 LED XXX

The world of LED lamps is divided into two camps: high- and low-power LEDs.  This Xanlite bulb falls into the latter category.  To match the equivalent of a traditional 35 W bulb, it used 48 separate low-power LEDs.

Low-power LEDs suffer less from overheating, which is why this lamp doesn't need the cooling fans that you'll find on the 6 W bulb from Econergyworld or the 7 W from Philips.  The surface remains cool enough to touch even after several minutes.

Lighting

This is our photo lab which has a black wall and the light intensity measured in lux in different areas.  The bulb is 1.86 m back from the wall.  This lamp can only light a modest area.  Remember that the aim for a room that you use everyday is 100-200 lux, but to reach that with this lamp, you'd need at least a dozen of them.



The beam of light is a little more directional than what you'd find with a globe-shaped bulb.  The ratio between the best- and worst-lit points (the centre of the frame and the bottom left) is 2.2, compared to 2.0 or even less for some globes—the Phiiips Econic falls to 1.6.  Given its lack of power, this lamp is best off in a smaller space rather than a large room: a cupboard or corridor, for instance.  One metre away, it provides 53 lux.

Energy Consumption

This lamp's real strong point is its energy consumption.  To produce this much light, it only takes 1.5 W of power.  For comparison, the globe-shaped Philips 7 W, which has a largely similar performance, requires five times more energy.

Spectrum

This spotlight covers less of the visible spectrum than the best globe-shaped bulbs.  In particular, it struggles with red and green tones.  To compare it to other bulbs, you can refer to the spectra produced by an incandescent bulb, the fluorescent tubes used in our photography lab, an entry-level compact fluorescent bulb or a full-spectrum model from Viva-Lite.  We produced these spectra using an i1 Pro sensor from X-Rite.


The ideal colour spectrum should be even, with even intensity across all of the colours in the spectrum without any peaks and troughs.  Apart from the problems with red and green, the spectrum chart is entirely classic for an LED lamp.  There's not much violet and a big trough covering cyan and the start of green.  For more information on the benefits of a wider, more even spectrum, read our review of the Viva-Lite bulb.

Here are our technical measurements for this lamp.  The closer the CRI (colour rendering index) and the FSCI (full spectrum colour index) are to 100, the better; the colour temperature is a matter of personal taste and depends on the type of light you're looking for.  There are no good or bad values for this figure.  We have more information about these measurements in this news piece.

• CRI: 58
• FSCI: 43.44
• Colour Temperature: 2796 K