Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White 350Lm LED Lamp

So here we go, we have finally reached the point where high power LED's are starting to poach traditional incandescent territory.

Philips have recently announced an LED package which while looking rather odd, is in both luminous and physical size terms an equivalent to a 60W incandescent lamp.  I've not managed to get hold of one of these yet, but once I track one down it will appear here.  In the meantime, I'd suggest taking a look at the page on Lamptech, a web site run by fellow lamp collector and lighting enthusiast, James Hooker.

While this lamp isn't as revolutionary as that one, it's definitely worthy of note I think.  Officially this is being touted as equivalent to a 32W incandescent, though to be honest in many applications you would be able to substitute this for a 40W lamp I would think without noticing a huge difference.

I was quite astonished when I switched this on to discover not only a colour, but a light distribution hugely reminiscent of a 40W pearl incandescent lamp.  Even down to the fuzzy bright bit that looks like the filament.

It is a bit expensive - on the same note though, if you looked at CFLs when they were just starting to appear on the market, they were similarly expensive in relative terms.  Once this sort of lamp starts to gain a foothold in the market properly I would expect to see price levels dropping quite considerably.  These aren't likely to drop to the price of incandescent lamps simply due to their being far more expensive to make, but at the same time - they're going to last a heck of a lot longer!  Unlike CFLs as well - these LED retrofits will undoubtedly handle physical abuse very much better - so you're not likely to kill your £20 lamp by whacking your head on the lamp when standing up from the desk - I've taken out more than one incandescent doing that!  Have killed a CFL by dropping it before too.


These are early, tentative steps into the market of main steam lighting for LED technology, just as was the case for CFL technology 26 years ago...As with that before it though, it shows great promise.  I will be watching with great interest to see where things go from here.  The big question remains whether we end up going down a road of somewhat expensive but high quality lamps like these or if it turns into a cut throat race to the bottom to see how cheaply they can be churned out.

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - General overview

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - Detail of heat sink and lamp cap

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp illuminating one side of my room from a distance of approximately two metres

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp shown while alight

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp shown while alight, deliberately underexposed to better show how very much like a pearl incandescent lamp this looks while lit

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp Packaging

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - Detail of text on rear of packaging

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - Held in hand to show relative scale

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - Showing size of lamp

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp Output Spectra

Philips Econic 7W A60 Warm White LED Lamp - Detail of text printed on lamp crown

This lamp added to the Virtual Display Shelf on the 11th March 2011 at 20:52.

References: Lamp packaging and markings only.

Acknowledgements: None.

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18th June 2023: Changes to page formatting to improve readability on mobile devices and some background code changes to improve search engine behaviour.