Cheaper competitors outshine the Titanium LED

The market for LEDs is maturing rapidly, and that means that it's easier than ever to find light bulbs that offer high efficiency, satisfying light quality, and
a reasonable price point. It's a reality that spells competition for off-brand bulbs, and unfortunately, the Titanium LED from Green Creative comes up short.
A Bay Area startup, Green Creative first impressed me with its Cloud LED, a uniquely shaped, low-price LED floodlight that performed well in our tests. The $14 Titanium LED, the brand's more traditionally shaped 60W replacement, was also a fairly strong performer, but not as strong as similar bulbs like the Osram 60W Replacement Ultra LED that are available at a lower retail price point. Until that price catches up with the competition, the Titanium LED is a tough bulb to recommend.
The Titanium LED doesn't share the Cloud LED's outside-the-box approach to bulb design. With a frosted globe sitting atop a white plastic body that conceals the heat sinks, it's more or less the default build of today's common household LED.
That isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you just want a light bulb that'll blend in with your home decor. Still, it might be a disappointment for fans of the Cloud LED's unique design.
Yearly energy cost (3 hr. per day @ .11 kWh) Color temperature (measured / stated) Other color temperatures (price difference)
The Titanium LED checks most all of the boxes you'd want to see checked when replacing an incandescent. With a stated light output of 800 lumens (we measured it higher than that, at 835), you aren't getting shortchanged on brightness, and with a power draw of just 9 watts, it's efficient enough to claim more than 90 lumens per watt. It's also dimmable down to 3.8 percent of its maximum brightness, and it comes with a 3-year warranty.
All of that is very good, but compare it with that second column in the chart posted above: the Osram 60W Replacement Ultra LED, which costs $4 less than the Titanium LED. With 852 lumens from 8.5 watts, Osram's bulb is good for 100 lumens per watt, dims smoothly down to zero percent, and comes with a 5-year warranty. About the only place the Titanium LED can claim an edge is in the color-rendering score, where it beats Osram by a nose, 80 to 78.
The Titanium LED dims down smoothly, but not quite as low as Osram, and with more flicker than the Cree 4Flow. Tyler Lizenby/CNET
The Cree 4Flow LED is another strong competitor for Green Creative here. While it can't boast efficiency that's quite as high, Cree's plastic-bodied LED does manage to match the Titanium LED's light output, and it also dims down low without the same degree of flicker that we saw from Green Creative (or the Osram, for that matter).
More importantly, the 4Flow also costs just over half of what you'll need to spend for the Titanium LED. For an even cheaper option, you could consider the surprisingly impressive Ikea Ledare LED, which costs just $5.
That's pretty stiff competition for Green Creative. With bulbs like those from Osram, Cree, and Ikea each selling for less than $10, I would have liked to have seen something more from the Titanium LED to justify the $14 price point. It's in a similar position as the $15 Philips 60W Replacement LED, but that bulb at least offers near-perfect dimming. A feature like that, or perhaps a color-rendering score closer to 90 might have helped the Titanium LED to set itself apart.

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