I have to buy a lamp for my office desk, and I was planning to either buy the Tizio lamp, which I have at home and that I think is the most beautiful desk lamp in production, or the Tolomeo, which works better in terms of actually illuminating, and is almost as good-looking.
Searching online, I found out that, apparently, since 2006 Artemide has been making an LED version of the Tolomeo
which looks amazing. I have, however, never seen it in a store, I haven’t been able to find any review on the web other than the marketing information from Artemide, and, while it can be ordered online, it seems that no store in San Francisco has it in store to check it out.
Usually, the light of LEDs is cold and unpleasant, so I wouldn’t buy it sight unseen. (Plus, it’s supposed to be quite small, so I am afraid it could be too small for a large desk.) So I turn to the powers of the internet: have you, or maybe your roommate’s sister in law’s cousin, seen it in real life?
If not, has any of you used an LED lamp as a desk light? How did it work out for you?
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February 21, 2010 at 7:16 am
Phosphorus
Artemide products are really among the best you can buy anywhere.
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About the spectrum of the emitted light: it depends on the type of LED adopted in the lamp. There are white LEDs with a nominal light temperature around 3600K (warmer) and others with 5000K (colder). You should check which you like the most.
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From Artemide web site, they sell Tolomeo Tavolo Mini with a 5x2W LED array, which is an extremely powerful lighting power. There is also another model with 5x1W. However, the actual light cone depends on the geometric placement of the five LEDs (from the site photographs, it seems an H-planar design).
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I haven’t seen that model in person, so I cannot be more precise.
February 21, 2010 at 7:29 am
Phosphorus
Ups, sorry. The MICRO model (the one in the image) is the 5W cold LEDs model, while the MINI model is called Classic LED in the USA and has 10W warm LEDs — judging from the Artemide web site and form yLighting.
February 21, 2010 at 11:23 am
luca
Thanks, that’s more information than I was able to find online.
Indeed the one I like is the “micro LED,” which has the redesigned flat head, which looks great in picture, and goes surprising well with the Tolomeo body.
February 21, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Sarah
Great choice! Lumens does carry this light if you’d like more information: http://www.lumens.com/Desk–Reading/Tolomeo-Led-Table-Task/uu185432/3002-3024-3026/Product
February 22, 2010 at 6:35 am
Sam P.
The hyperlinks in the PDF file doesn’t work!