Light Bulb: Pharox 300 Dimmable LED
Price: $29.99 at Amazon
Household Use: General Reading Lamp
Light Appearance: Warm, 2900k
Incandescent It Replaces: 60-watt equivalent
Overall Rating: Weak Recommend*
The 6-watt Pharox 300 dimmable LED bulb is a is a fairly standard looking bulb. It works great with clip-on shades, and comes with a 5 year warranty. The best part of the bulb? The packaging, which is little more than cardboard tube and a cap.
The Test
Control Bulb: n:vision 23w CFL
Primary Use: Reading or ambient light.
Time of Day Tested: 7:00pm
How It Performed: This LED bulb, along with the GE Energy Smart LED bulb, were the first two LED bulbs I ever had the pleasure of testing. My home is full of nothing but CFLs, thus that is the context for my comparison. I purchased the Pharox from Amazon and it arrived two days later. The reviews online were fairly promising, earning 4 stars out of 5 based on 35 customer reviews.
Compared to the CFLs in my home, this light was very similar. It was very similar in terms of brightness to the 23w CFL that it replaced. Unfortunately, the bulb produced less light than I had expected at 60-watt equivalent. Infact, the 40 watt GE Energy Smart out performed it significantly. While the price of the Pharox was slightly less than the GE Energy Smart, I'd gladly pay more for the extra brightness. Finally, the Pharox bulb produced significant interference with my radio which was tuned to NPR. I have since relegated it to another room due to the interference after initially planning on using it as my primary bedside light.
More Facts About This Light Bulb
Dimmable? Yes
Brightness: 360 lumens
Life: 25 years
Energy Used: 6 watts
*Our Ratings:
Strong Recommend
Recommend
Weak Recommend*
Don't Recommend
Apartment Therapy Media makes every effort to test and review products fairly and transparently. The views expressed in this review are the personal views of the reviewer and this particular product review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf.
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
White Enamel Flatwa...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
First, it's great to see the LED light test articles appear to be an on-going series. It would be nice if the article also listed the color temp of the lights & CRI in the specs list.
Second, the control light isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. A 23 watt CFL (about a 100 watt incandescent equivalent) is going to output something like 1600 lumens. Why compare the LED to that bulb, they would not be used in the same use-case. Since LED & CFL bulbs 'equivalent to' ratings are all over the map, it might be worth while to focus on the lumen output when comparing bulbs.
Lumen outputs have been invaluable for me in buying new bulbs for my place. The "equivalent to" stuff is useless. This one is more like a 40 watt equivalent IMO.
I have the Pharox 300 and of the 5 different LED lights I've bought so far, this one is my favorite for it's slightly warmer output, good dimming capabilities, and more uniform light coverage. Most of the LED bulbs I've tried are too unidirectional- this one behaved more like a traditional bulb.
I'll have to try the GE one next.
BTW, what's with the "dimmablem" in the 'After' image?