Customer Reviews

Sylvania 29972 Compact Fluorescent Micro Mini Light Bulb, 13-Watt

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sylvania invented the Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) and they seem to continue to be the leader in the field.

PROS:
1: Instant-On. As soon as you hit the switch, they light up. Some CFLs take up to a second to turn on after you hit the switch. This causes people to flick the switch on and off numerous times because nothing happens instantly. Can be confusing.

2: Good initial brightness from cold-start. One downside to all CFLs is that when you turn them on after being off for over 20 minutes (cold-start), they take time to warm up and obtain full brightness. On cold-start, these Sylvania CFLs are about 70% of their eventual full brightness. Sylvania 29781 CF13EL/MINI CFL 3,500K are full brightness from cold-start, but the color of the light is closer to halogen than incandescent. Other CFLs I've tried were so dim on cold-start (imagine a cigarette lighter) that I had to wait a couple minutes for them to reach full brightness: Frustrating, potentially dangerous and just plain unacceptable.

3: After cold-start, quicker to full brightness than most CFLs. Similar to my last point, it doesn't take the CFL very long to reach full brightness after cold-start. As mentioned, the only CFL I've ever seen that has full brightness at startup is Sylvania 29781 CF13EL/MINI CFL 3,500K.

4: Warm light color. The light color from these CFLs looks very close to the yellowish-colored light from incandescent bulbs. These are NOT the blueish CFLs that look like hospital lighting!

5: Tiny little bulb!

CONS:
1: I wish they were full brightness at cold-start. Better than most, but since Sylvania has demonstrated their ability to produce Instant-On with Instant-Brightness, I would have hoped their newest CFLs would have this function.

I bought some of these bulbs (along with others) as part of a process to "go green" in our house. Unfortunately, CFL bulbs are very expensive and there's little to no good information out there as to which ones are good and which ones are not. These particular "instant on" bulbs are actually quite good and come as close as possible to the traditional incandescent bulbs.

What I like most about these bulbs is the light they produce is actually soft white, as it is advertised. I bought a variety of 2700K soft white bulbs from Sylvania and others and quickly realized that there are varying definitions of what qualifies as "soft white." Some of the Sylvania bulbs I bought were clearly whiter even though they had the same rating as these ones. So if you're looking for a true CFL that produces light as your regular bulbs and can turn on instantly, these are the ones you're looking for.

Why not 5 stars? Simply, I'm not sold on having 'twisty' bulbs hanging from ceiling lights quite yet.

We really like these bulbs. We put them in some new vanity mirror fixtures with downward facing bell shape glass shades. These bulbs are so small you don't see them at all sticking down below the shades, yet they give a very pleasing light. One caveat- yes they are instant on but they do take a short time (less than a minute) to reach full brightness. We will be getting more for other applications.