LIGHTZY RATING: 63
This is a very bright bulb, outperforming the reference cases with ease (it claims to replace a 180w incandescent, although that seems like an over-claim). Its Lightzy Rating was hurt by it being a cooler white (5000K) and by the fact that it's easy to look up into the bulb and see the LED chips, whether on or off. But it's a decent performer, as long as you don't need dimming. And as long as you don't mind paying a high price. NON-DIMMABLE, note. Also, at 16w, it's still much better than an incumbent bulb, but does use more electricity than many of the other bulbs we've reviewed.



Directly below the bulb: 89 lux
4 feet to the side: 56 lux
8 feet to the side: 26 lux

Price: $48.99. Claimed lifetime: 15,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 5000K.

LIGHTZY RATING: 49
I really want to like this bulb, but that's just the geek in me. It feels bright enough (similar to a CFL), it handles dimming well, and I like the diffuser lens. The cooling fins are a bit much, but the big issue I have with this bulb is that the light has almost a green tinge to it. If you're not sensitive to light color, you won't notice it and it's an okay bulb. But if you have this lightbulb on and some other lightbulbs also on, it's noticeable. Also note that they claim a 50k hour lifetime, which is a lot. Emphasis on "claim". No way to test that in this setting.

Brightness directly below the bulb: 33 lux
4 feet to the side: 21 lux
8 feet to the side: 11 lux

Price: $39. Claimed lifetime: 50,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 2700K.

  

LIGHTZY RATING: 77


So far (4/23/12) this is the top bulb we've tested. It's not perfect, but it generally performs well against all our criteria, aesthetic and performance-wise.

This dimmable bulb has a cover that makes for a similar look-and-feel to incandescent bulbs when it's in the can and off. And when on, it's a little bit cool at 3000K color but not an overly harsh white unless you put it right next to a warmer bulb. The chips are arrayed in a cross pattern that shows when the bulb is on, which is a bit of a bummer. But it performs admirably from a brightness perspective, and is priced comparably to other options. If the price were half as much it would be a no-brainer vs most current competition.

Brightness directly below the bulb: 102 lux
4 feet to the side: 47 lux
8 feet to the side: 14 lux

Price: $45.  Claimed lifetime: 25,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 3000K.

  

LIGHTZY RATING: 60

This is a very bright and comparably priced bulb. And it's a prime example of why just going by the spec sheet on Amazon or somewhere else won't be good enough for many customers. On a lux per dollars basis, if you're standing directly under this bulb it works great. But its "shower head" design is off-putting. That's not me saying that. That's my 6 year old daughter, who saw the bulb sitting on my desk, and unprompted described it as "spooky". "It's like an alien, with lots of eyes," she said. Out of the mouths of babes... 

It's also perhaps the most focused beam of light we've reviewed to date. That's not a bad thing per se, but it means that while it's a super bright bulb when standing directly below it, at the edge of the room it provided very pedestrian levels of light. If you don't care about bulb aesthetics, you just want light, and you have a high ceiling, this is a decent choice. But for all the other reasons, it was ranked low.

Brightness directly under the bulb: 144 lux
4 feet to the side: 60 lux
8 feet to the side: 10 lux

Price: $30. Claimed lifetime: 30,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 3000K.

LIGHTZY RATING: 67

This "bulb" is a very cool concept -- rather than have a bulb inside the socket, take advantage of the flexibility of LEDs to instead have a flat disk of light that fits as a cap on the can. For power, it uses an attachable edison screw plug so you don't need to mess with any electrical gear. Plus, since the lighting element is all outside the can, it spreads the light around the room nicely.

But this nifty concept ended up being a lot tougher to install than I'd expected. After much wrestling I finally got it in, but along the way I cut myself, took a couple of very mild shocks, and still ended up with a visible gap between the "bulb" and the ceiling. Other bummers: It has a (very) slight hum, it can have a delay in turning on, it does protrude down from the ceiling a noticeable amount, and its light can't be the advertised 3000K - it feels more "cool" (ie: pale) than that.

That said, it's a smart concept. And if you feel like putting in the effort to attach it more permanently than I did, you might like the results. But it's also a relatively expensive bulb, in any case.

Brightness directly beneath the bulb: 62 lux
4 feet to the side: 39 lux
8 feet to the side: 18 lux

Price: $45. Claimed lifetime: 25,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 3000K.

LIGHTZY RATING: 42

This bulb is exactly why Lightzy exists... It claims to be a 60w equivalent bulb, but doesn't come anywhere close to that light level, and is simply hideous. Plus, it's not dimmable.

Stay away.

Brightness directly beneath the bulb: 47 lux
4 feet to the side: 3 lux
8 feet to the side: 0 lux (really)

Price: $18.  Claimed lifetime: 30,000 hours. Claimed color temperature: 3000K.

LIGHTZY RATING: 54

You could do worse than this bulb. It's clearly cheaply put together, but has a lot of of the minimum requirements you will care about -- warm enough light, bright enough for many applications, dimmable. But it just looks a bit cheap, has a delay to turn on, is more pale than the typical "warm" bulb, and certainly isn't worth the price tag.



Brightness directly beneath the bulb: 28 lux
4 feet to the side: 21 lux
8 feet to the side: 10 lux


Price: $35. Claimed lifetime: 40,000. Claimed color temperature: 3100K.