Desk Lamp Face-Off: $650 Dyson vs. $20 Voncerus
One costs as much as a car payment and is sleek, while the other is less expensive and understated. One suffered major damage during our testing. CR reveals the one to buy.
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A desk lamp is an essential item you’ll need in your home office, bedroom, or dorm room to prevent eye strain and allow you to keep working and reading long after the sun has set.
But task lamps, as they’re sometimes called, range in price from the cost of three Starbucks coffees to a monthly car payment.
- About These Lamps & Our Tests: Key Features First Impressions Test Results The Winner How We Tested
Dyson vs. Voncerus: Key Features
Our lab results surprised us (and we don’t surprise easily). Before we reveal what we found, here are some quick key features about each lamp we tested.
Dyson Solarcycle Morph Desk Light
Photo: Consumer Reports Photo: Consumer Reports
- You can adjust this lamp to provide red, amber (yellow), or blue daylight via two sliders at the top. The on/off button isn’t a button at all—it’s a sensitive touch-activated feature positioned on top of the light.
- The light can also be controlled via the MyDyson app, which allows you to adjust color temperature and brightness. An intelligent design uses a GPS-driven algorithm to track your local daylight and adjust your light accordingly.
- The optical head glides and swivels with ease and can be positioned to provide direct and indirect light.
- A portion of the base doubles as optional ambient light even when you aren’t using it as a desk lamp.
- Cord length is 128 inches (per testing).
- Weighs 7.7 pounds (per testing), but feels even weightier and more substantial than this.
- Prepare to dip into your savings: It costs $650.
Voncerus LED Desk Lamp
Photo: Consumer Reports Photo: Consumer Reports
- You can adjust this lamp to provide red, amber (yellow), or blue daylight and choose among 10 brightness dimming levels via a simple control attached to its wire.
- Cord length is 72 inches (per testing).
- Weighs 1.2 pounds (per testing).
- You must clamp the lamp to your desk to keep it in place—it won’t stand on its own.
- Its flexible gooseneck can be easily adjusted to provide direct and indirect light.
- Sweet relief: It costs about $20.
Where to buy: Amazon
First Impressions
Dyson
Never in my life have I been seduced by a lamp, but I felt as if I’d been transported to 19th century England and the Dyson Solarcycle Morph Desk Light had dropped its handkerchief in my direction. It’s sleek. It has magnets in places where I’d never think of placing magnets, yet the effect is enthralling. You can adjust it to give sensual red, warm amber, and pay-attention-to-your-work blue light. And it provides an angle of indirect light when you point it upward and clean, sharp direct light for reading or working on your laptop. You can operate it via an app, though we didn’t test this.
But this lamp isn’t without drawbacks. Assembling it is absolute madness. The illustrations on the inside of the box didn’t help. The manual that came in the box didn’t help. It was only after CR lab tester José Amézquita caught me shoving pieces where they don’t belong that he took pity on me and showed me how to insert the (heavy) base into the (heavy) base leg, screw on a base cap, and insert the power cord (and even Amézquita admitted he had to glance at Dyson’s online manual to figure it out).
After the lamp is in place, it isn’t going anywhere, though. Something about its gliding optical head reminds me of an early 20th century doctor’s office tool (which is to say, it nails a futuristic and anachronistic vibe), and the head cleverly clicks into place on the leg base via those aforementioned enthralling magnets.
I want to stare at it. I want to make it mine. Do I want to pay $650 for it, though? Never. But depending on whether Amézquita’s tests reveal it is more than just a shiny, pretty thing, I will be your biggest cheerleader should you decide to open up your heart (and wallet) to let this lamp into your home.
Voncerus
The Voncerus is everything the Dyson’s isn’t. it’s budget-conscious ($20 at time of purchase), lightweight, simple to set up, and in place of bells and whistles you get a controller you’ve seen before and will know how to operate: there’s an on/off button, a button for switching among red, amber, and blue light options, and minus and plus buttons for increasing or decreasing brightness intensity. The Voncerus has more flexibility than the Dyson Desk Light, which can pivot at three points but cannot lower or raise the arm more than 1 inch.
Compared with the Dyson, the Voncerus’ flexible gooseneck can position a fairly wide rectangular lamp closer to your reading material if need be, or even upward for indirect light. It has a clamp that has to be attached to your desk, so moving it would be annoying (but it feels solid and strong once it is clamped down).
Will you be writing home to your family that you found the lamp of your dreams? No. You will buy it, clamp it to your desk, and forget it’s even there. But it’s a respectable lamp—a lamp that shows up for work every day, does what it’s supposed to do, and doesn’t show off to get a promotion.
Now the burning question: Which, if either, of these two lamps passed Amézquita’s tests with flying colors?
