[MUSIC]
Hey, I'm CNET's Ry Chris, and I'm here not with the world's lamest lightsaber, but actually with a new lightbulb.
This is the GE bright stick LED and you can see it's not really a bulb at all.
It's actually more of a lipstick tube shaped cylinder that shines out light in all directions and under a lampshade looks more or less the same as the old bulb Now aside from the shape what's really interesting about this light is the price point.
GE's gonna be selling them in three packs at Home Depot for ten dollars each and that's very good deal if you've been waiting to upgrade the lights in your home.
That price puts that light right on par with the new Philips 60 watt replacement LE That's a five dollar LED you can get at Home Depot, and right now they're selling it at two for one pricing but that'll expire soon.
This GE price, the three for ten dollars, that isn't going anywhere.
So within in a month or so, it's gonna be the cheapest LED you can get from a major manufacturer.
Now I was pretty happy with this bulb when I tested it out.
A little dimmer than you might like.
It's 786 lumens but probably not quite enough to notice.
Close enough to 800 that you'll be happy with it.
It's got a nice color temperature at 2700K, and you can also get daylight versions at the same price.
So there's two options there, one that's orange and one that's kinda blue.
One caveat though, this bulb isn't dimmable.
So if you try to dial the lights down on a dimmer switch, you'll get a flicker and buzz.
You don't want that.
Now it's not quite as good as that Phillips bulb in brightness or efficiency.
The Phillips bulb has about an extra 50 lumens.
Again, a very tough distinction to notice, and also better efficiency.
The Phillips bulb uses 8.5 watts, this is a 10 watt bulb so the Phillips bulb in the long run is going to cost slightly less to use.
About $0.20 less per year in energy costs.
That said this GE bright stick does have a couple of edges over Phillips.
It has a longer warranty, at five years, Phillips gives you three, and also a longer life.
Spent 50,000 hours compared to the 10,000 hours or so that you'll get out of that Phillips bulb.
I also like that, despite the odd shape, it still casts plenty of downward reading light.
So if you wanted to read under this thing, you'll have no problem.
All in all, at about three bucks a bulb, it's a pretty terrific value and if you've been waiting to upgrade the lights in your home and looking for a good option to do a lot at once This might be the exact thing you're looking for.
Thanks for watching.
Check out the rest of our LED reviews and smart home coverage at CNET.com.
For CNET Appliances, I'm Ry Crist.
