Philips X-treme or Osram Night Breakers +80%?

[TheOtherLeft]

I'm in need of new H4 bulbs and wondering what are peoples opinions on either the +80% Philips X-treme or Osram Night Breakers bulbs?

My understanding is the Osrams are a bluer light whereas the Philips are more yellow. My current bulbs are the bluish type but don't think they are that good so am tending towards the Philips.

Is it true the bluish tinged bulbs are actually worse then the traditional yellow tinged bulbs? I thought the blue tinge was to emulate HIDs but end up not being as good as brighter yellowish blubs?

[gumtree]

yes u are 100% right with your theory. recently i asked the same question here, i got both and tested both. gave away the osrams in the car i sold coz blue tinged light is dog crap. also asrams and narva 100% more light are the exact same bulb, narva just buy them from osrams and re-label them, u can still see the osram label on them if u look hard enough.

+80% phillips are the best light ive found, nothing yet is as good and certainly adding blue and saying it creats "whiter light" is NOT the way to go. think about it if u have a black piece of paper, its harder to see blueish writing and easiest to see yellow writing. white writing with ting of yellow is better than white writing with ting of blue.


others might say different to what i am, as i was recomended highly the osrams, but i got both and tested both, stayed with phillips. if u pm me your email i can send u pics i took of both at high and low beams.

[murcod]

Well I found the opposite and gave away the Philips Xtreme and kept the Osram Nightbreakers.

BTW the Nightbreakers DO NOT have any blue tint to the light. They are a lot whiter than the Philips, but not by any means the slightest bit blue.

[murcod]

Some reading for you:

http://carl.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic15 ... htbreakers

[gumtree]

Well I found the opposite and gave away the Philips Xtreme and kept the Osram Nightbreakers.

BTW the Nightbreakers DO NOT have any blue tint to the light. They are a lot whiter than the Philips, but not by any means the slightest bit blue.

i did take your recomendation last time but i didnt think the osrams were better than phillips. if u look at the bulb it has a dark blue ring around the high beam part thus tinginging it. maybe u cant see it but i can, and the bulb does have blue on it.

lol we should have swapped so i have a spare set of phillips and u have a spare set of osrams.

anyways i took pics inside and out, at low beams very very close but a noticeable blue ting at high beams. here are the 2 high beam pics takes outside against black road, fence and grass. they can be the judges.


phillips 80% more power at high beam




Narva 100% more light/osrams at high beams(exact same bulbs, different packaging)

[murcod]

Both of those pics have a yellow tinge to them, not the slightest bit of blue in either!?



What are you basing your info on when you say the Osrams and Narva are the same bulb?

A point to note is I have a vehicle with factory HID headlights and they are noticeably blue tinged compared to the Osram Nightbreakers.

[TheOtherLeft]

Both of those pics have a yellow tinge to them, not the slightest bit of blue in either!?



What are you basing your info on when you say the Osrams and Narva are the same bulb?

A point to note is I have a vehicle with factory HID headlights and they are noticeably blue tinged compared to the Osram Nightbreakers.

The Osrams definately have a blue tinge in the pics. It's not as yellow as the Philips.

It's not the fact it is blue tinged which is the problem. It's the way the bulb creates the blue/whiter light. Most/all non-HID bulbs use a bluish filter which whilst giving a blue/whiter light actually reduce lumens (brightness), which is what we are after. Plus, after speaking to an Optics nerd I've found out the human eye is more receptive around the yellow/red end of the specturm not the blue end. Of course white light is best but no non-HID bulb can produce pure white.

[gumtree]

Both of those pics have a yellow tinge to them, not the slightest bit of blue in either!?



What are you basing your info on when you say the Osrams and Narva are the same bulb?

A point to note is I have a vehicle with factory HID headlights and they are noticeably blue tinged compared to the Osram Nightbreakers.

the fact that
a) they look exactly the same in pictures
b) the narvas actually have "osrams" written on them on the metal part with the 3 prongs
c) i rang up narva themselves to ask if they are the same bulb just relabeled as narvas and they said YES they do buy from osrams.

i can only say what i see with my testing of both, maybe u saw a different result or one of us can notice blue more than the other but u cant deny the fact that there is a dark blue ring around the bulb where the high beam is, can u?????

murcod its hard to tell but are u actually laughing at me thinking im stupid and wrong coz i dont agree with u?

[murcod]

I'm laughing because we obviously have a hugely differing opinion on what constitutes a "blue" tinge!

A point to note is the Osrams are also rated at +90%, so even if the very small blue coated area does reduce the intensity, they output more light to start with. The blue coating is used to make the light output whiter.



Here's another opinion with pics of the bulbs http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthr ... ?t=1401577

The bulb produces a hint, and I mean a hint of "whiter light" maybe a few hundred degrees on the K scale. But nothing to the point that you will think, MAN those are BLUE!

and another :

http://www.ozhonda.com/forum/showthread ... ght=lights

Philips X-Treme
- Good Colour, very close to stock, still A TAD yellowish but noticably whiter
- Exceptional Throw and Flood especially High Beam. This is a must have for country road drivers or wet+night blind people

OSRAM Nightbreakers
- These are unbelievably white with no blue tinge at the bulb when on.
- Better than any other so called HID Halogen white light available here in Aus, these don't actually diminish the shortrange light quality (anywhere near as much as the blue tinted ones)
- These babies excel the most at highbeam, throws so far and sooo white!!
- Definitely for those who like the bright white light look, except these are actually functional.

Every person has a preference on what they like for lighting, I'm simply pointing out that labeling the Nightbreakers as "blue" is perhaps not quite correct.

[murcod]

Here are two more pics showing them both out in the open at night:

[TheOtherLeft]

Now I'm really confused. In the pics above the Osrams definately looks brighter, whiter and have slightly more range.

There's still not much in it though.

[gumtree]

u are right there is not much in it. murcod, i used h4 bulbs and u use a different bulb. the bulb u have doesnt have a dark blue ring so it would not have a blue ting, u are right with those bulbs. the h4 bulbs i used have a different blue ring, its darker, so i can see the different results.

theotherone, if u use bulbs like murcod, maybe go for the osrams, if u use h4 bulbs, go for phillips. or u can do what we both did and buy both and use your favourite, they are both $60 a pair and are best and 2nd best ive found.

[murcod]

Mine are H4 Gumtree (-> that pic isn't of my bulbs, it just a pic I grabbed off the internet.) Mine might have more "blue tint" on the bulb- I can't remember (and don't really care because the light they output certainly isn't bluish like the ricer brigade love.)

I also looked on the Oram Australia website and it appears the Aussie Narva "Blue Power" is an Osram supplied bulb (as you said.) Strangely I couldn't find their own "Nightbreaker" range on the Aussie site either!?! The Narva world wide site www.narva-light.com sells a slightly different named bulb ("Range Power Blue" http://www.narva-light.com/consumer/pro ... 05747e80d8 ) which appears a totally different bulb; they don't sell a "Blue Power". It's almost like Narva Australia is a different company to Narva Germany???

I actually kept the Osram because I liked the whiter light AND it seemed to be a lot brighter on high beam than the Xtreme. (As the outdoor pic shows the Night breaker seems to give better distance.) I'm not into the blue tinged lights and was only after a bulb that gave a genuine improvement in vision distance. I've previously had Philips +50% bulbs and to be honest you're hard pressed to see the improvement, whereas everytime I use the Nightbreakers I always think how good they are.

[murcod]

Actually, looking at those photos again the Nightbreaker not only gives better distance, it also provides substantially better lighting off the sides of the road closer to the vehicle. (I'm not sure what vehicle they were tested in because the photos were off some foreign language website.)

[TheOtherLeft]

I've just purchased the Osrams from Powerbulbs and we'll see how they go when I get them.

[maverick01]

does anyone know where to purchase the osram nite breakere from in brisbane

[gumtree]

does anyone know where to purchase the osram nite breakere from in brisbane

as i said in another post Narva 80% brighter, 20%whiter are the same bulb and are sold here at repco etc, u will see osrams in faint writing written on them if u can get your hands on them. no one from what ive seen sells osrams in brisbane.

[murcod]

powerbulbs is always a good option- free delivery to your door.

BTW I've heard they've got an Ebay store and the prices are even better than their website?

http://www.powerbulbs.co.uk/ - they've got sales on at the moment for Nightbreakers and Xtremes.

[TheOtherLeft]

powerbulbs is always a good option- free delivery to your door.

BTW I've heard they've got an Ebay store and the prices are even better than their website?

http://www.powerbulbs.co.uk/ - they've got sales on at the moment for Nightbreakers and Xtremes.

I've checked their ebay store and they're actually more expensive then their own website.

[murcod]

Ok, someone lied to me then! I've never actually seen their store on Ebay.