For much of my adult life, I’ve been a staunch user of warm lightbulbs. I think they make spaces far more inviting, even if the light is slightly subdued as a consequence, and the rosy tones pair well with other light sources like candles and fireplaces, which I also love using. More often than not, if one of the best desk lamps comes with a daylight bulb, I either toss it or give it to someone else. I truly detest that cold, sheer, lifeless light cutting through the air in my home.
I do have one exception to this disdain for cold light though: I’ve always had a daylight-toned lamp at my desk. Whenever I’m working past sundown, which is an increasingly common occurrence these days, I’ve found that I’m most productive when I can try to simulate sunlight. It’s not a perfect substitute for the actual flaming orb in the sky, but it does its best. To be clear, I still don’t love how it looks, but I’ve ultimately resigned to prioritizing function over form here.
Here’s where I’ve run into an issue: in my current apartment, because of its strange layout, I’ve had to combine my office and my den into one room. For a long time, that meant that one half of my room was lit the way I enjoy, and the other half felt like a doctor’s office. That finally changed, though, when I scored a temperature-changing lamp from BenQ.
To be clear, BenQ’s e-Reading Desk Lamp isn’t one-of-a-kind for boasting on-the-fly color changing. Nowhere close. But I love its neutral but stylish appearance that helps blend the two halves of my room aesthetically. I also like that it’s super easy to use.
The adjustment knob of power
The best part of this lamp’s appearance is its considerable lack of physical buttons, switches, or knobs. All the controls are confined to one area on the top, and you only have to turn one knob or press on a touch-sensitive switch closer to the arm joint to adjust it.
Did I spend the first 20 minutes after setting this lamp up just playing with it because it felt good? I plead the fifth.
With the knob, you can toggle between temperature and dimming controls, and the haptics feel amazing when doing this. Did I spend the first 20 minutes after setting this lamp up just playing with it because it felt good? I plead the fifth.
Most importantly, the temperature adjustments this lamp offers are phenomenal. They range from 2700K to 5700K, which is enough of a difference that you can easily swap between a deep, hearty orange and a sanitizing bluish white with one twist. The former is great when I’m entertaining in that room, and I often supplement it with a candle or two, but I’m happy to have the latter when I’m churning out stories after hours and trying not to fall asleep on my keyboard.
One-touch activation
Another issue I encountered when setting up my office/den for all-day use was that I can’t operate any of the outlets with a switch. In other words, I originally had to walk across the room in the dark and paw at my old lamp until I found the switch. This only took a few seconds, but it became infuriating quickly enough.
Luckily, with this lamp, I just have to feel around in the dark for the touch-sensitive ring on the end of the lamp’s head. This switch is so sensitive that I’ve mistakenly toggled it on a hundred times just by brushing it a little. It may turn the room into a strobe-lit rave when I’m trying to adjust the lamp’s angle, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay to stand around in the dark for a few seconds less. Maybe it’s time I give a few of the best smart plugs a try.
Lights up the whole room
Unlike more targeted lights that simultaneously leave most of the room dark and give me a migraine, this lamp uses an angled head to cast light across a much wider area. It’s made to cover the entirety of my desktop, but it also throws plenty of light onto my white walls, which subsequently bounces back into the rest of the room. I do have another lamp in the other corner that I still prefer to turn on, but I’ve forgotten it’s there before, and I’m sure I will again.
Overall, this makes my room’s ambience a lot more cohesive, which stops it from feeling like two incredibly small rooms stacked next to each other. Heck, sometimes I’ll sit in my 3D-printed office chair instead of my futon when I’m doing laps in Mario Kart, just because it’s more comfortable. And I don’t feel like I’m playing from a room away when I do that anymore.
Like I said in the beginning, this lamp isn’t the only one out there that can change colors, but I love how it looks, feels, and lights up the whole room. I have plenty of other temperature-changing lamps that I’m testing right now, but this BenQ model has cemented itself as a permanent fixture in my home.
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