Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Watch out for the ballast issues..., March 28, 2008
I bought two Ott-Lite lamps, one desk lamp and one floor lamp. The light is great from the lamps when they work. Unfortunately the ballast in the Ott-Lite lamps will die prematurely and the lamp becomes totally useless as soon as that happens.
My floor lamp ballast died and I was able to buy a replacement a couple of years ago from Ott-Lite. The only reason they had ballasts available and were willing to sell them was due to the fact that the same ballast type had been recalled, and they were forced to offer replacements. When calling Ott-Lite, you will deal with snooty and arrogant people who treat you like you are a telemarketer at dinnertime. That is if you are lucky enough to talk to anyone at all. I suggest if you want this or any other Ott-Lite lamp, to call the company in Florida and try to order a replacement ballast before you buy it. Of course they won't sell you one, but it will save you $100 and untold aggravation.
As soon as I bought my desklamp, I had a bad feeling it wasn't going to last very long. Sure enough, couple of months later, the ballast died and the lamp became useless.
On my desk I still have a $20 fluorescent lamp I bought 12 years ago and use continuously. It still works like new and the ballast and lamp have never failed.
The bottom line is Ott-Lite could care less about your faulty lamp and frying ballasts. Unless you are willing to buy a new lamp every year for around $100, don't waste your time and money on this junk.
My $80 Ott-Junk desk lamp that lasted less than 20 hours is going to the scrapheap and will be replaced by a Bluemax from Full Spectrum Solutions, or a Verilux desk lamp, or any other manufacturer that has an ounce left of self respect and quality control.
You will love the light, but at $4 an hour, there are better lamps out there that will last a lot longer.
UPDATE: I had by chance saved the 13W bulb from this scrap heap Ott-Lite desk lamp and had it sitting in my file drawer. Looking at my trusty old $20 desk lamp I bought 14 years ago and still works great, the bulb in it looked kind of similar to the Ott-Lite bulb.
So I did the expected thing and yanked the bulb out of the lamp and compared the two. They happened to look very similar and the plug in base is almost identical.
I figured, not much to lose here, I plugged in the Ott-Lite bulb in my trusty old fluorescent lamp and turned it on, and it works!! I mean perfectly, the lamp now has the daylight true-color bulb, no flicker and no problems.
So if you find or have a 13W fluorescent desk lamp and want to turn it into a working Ott-Lite cheap, AND have it last more than a week, buy any desk lamp that takes 13W fluorescent lamps (See the GEF13BX bulb for how it looks), replace it with the Ott-Lite OTL13R, or the Bi-Pin Ott-Lite TruColor and you have the same light for half price.
As a bonus, that lamp will probably last 10 years, not 10 days like the ballast burning Ott-Lite.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Run Away from Ott Lamp, June 13, 2006
I bought an Ott lamp for $120.00. It worked for 6 months light usage then the ballast burned out. Thank God it didn't cause a fire. When I unplugged it, it was extremely hot and making hissing and crackling noises. I emailed Ott Lamp's customer service about getting a replacement ballast but they never even bothered to email me back. These Lamps cost to much to for so much junk both in product and service. I am looking for a competitors lamp now instead. I know others make daylight lamps.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Much less eyestrain with this Ott-Lite floor lamp., February 20, 2006
The old incandescent lamp in the den had too much glare so I decided to replace it with an Ott-Lite floor lamp. The color temperature (NOT the heat emitted) of the Ott-lite is very close to natural daylight and provides noticeably less glare for reading. The 18W fluorescent bulb emits a brighter, whiter, and cooler light than the old 100W incandescent bulb. Saves energy, easier on the eyes = I'm sold! Only drawback is the high retail price but I got a great deal on an online auction so search around!
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