Econic 3W GU10 LED

The first thing to be careful is that there are apparently as at 2010-08-10 two versions of this in circulation, one marked 15 year life and the other 25, and neither marked on the packaging with lumens output, and Philips' own site is coy too, and their customer enquiries initially suggested 300lm output which would be remarkable, and then a week later called me back to say 220lm. This confusion is unhelpful at the very least, and I expect better of Philips.

I have borrowed one of the devices labelled as 25-year life (25,000 hours), which I take to be the same as this Argos 432/9244 lamp, which is given as 250lm, ie ~80lm/W, thus beating the V3 in efficiency if so. By eye the light output is not remarkably different from the 7W V3, even allowing for the slightly different light colour and very different beam (a spot at the 25° claimed on the packaging that I have), though a subsequent rough comparison with other lamps suggests that it is maybe less than 200lm, 150lm if Philip correctly identified it (see below).

This bulb is slightly shorter than the V3, at 50mm, and does not protrude at all from our kitchen fitting.

The lamp is 'instant-on'.

My daughter preferred this 3000K/warm light over the current 6000K/cool lamp in her bedside light.

My partner liked the light quality in our kitchen.

A friend Philip C, see below) described it as not looking "quite so much like a gadget from an episode of 'Blake's Seven'" compared to the V3!

This lamp seems to be matching or beating standard CFL efficiency, which is hard to do to this style of fitting. At £20 it's still quite expensive, but the Argos page claims that it will last as long as 25 (35W) halogen bulbs at about £2.50 each, so likely cost-effective even ignoring the substantial energy savings.

The adult-proof plastic display packaging is pretty but excessive, so another small black mark against this product.

(More photos.)

2011-03-03: Philip C emailed me to say "Another week, another hardware change from Philips:"

It's this: http://www.johnlewis.com/227266/Style.aspx, which I think is the UK version of http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpindex.pl?slg=en&scy=dk&ctn=872790091824300 (certainly the specs that are on the boxes match, they look the same, and the barcode only differs slightly). As a downlight in my glass-fronted kitchen cabinets it's much more pleasant than the prior version, with the warmer temperature providing a similar hue to the cherry cabinet as a 35W halogen. Subjectively, it's also pretty similar light output. However, I wouldn't use it for more general lighting; there is a noticeable red hue (vs general warmness) when used for room lighting, with a particular red fringe at the edge of the fall-off cone.