If I asked you how much you would pay for a desk lamp, I suspect that many of you would say less than $50.00, if not less than $20.00. If I asked you how much you would pay for art for your office, I suspect that most of you would not blink at a pricetag of several hundred dollars. The D'E-light is a desk lamp created by famous French designer Philippe Starck that contains a charging dock for an iPhone or iPad, placing your device at a perfect height when you want to glance at it. It is sold by FLOS, an Italian company that has been working with Starck since 1988, and it costs $396. Whether you think that price is reasonable or not depends upon where you place it on the spectrum from a functional desk lamp to a piece of art. FLOS sent me a review unit to evaluate for a few weeks and I will say this: it is very useful, and very cool.
The lamp has a simple, efficient design with a highly polished aluminum finish. It weighs a substantial 2 lbs. 1 oz., but the base is only 5.3” wide and 4.6” deep and is flat so it doesn't take up much space on your desk. You can certainly place documents on top of the base.
The light comes from a flat panel 2700K LED, which runs cool to the touch. Because the lamp is about 8 inches high, your eyes don't see the light source unless you really duck down your head, so the light is not going to blind your eyes as you work at your desk, but it will do a nice job of lighting up whatever sits below it.
The D'E-light has no buttons on it. To turn on the light, you tap the touch-sensitive right side of the lamp. Tap it again to dim the light to 50%, then again to turn the light off. This simple design feature has been a source of constant amusement for my six year old son for the past few weeks; the first thing he does when he comes to my desk is turn the light on or off. And to be honest, I find it almost as cool as he does.
The reason that this is the first desk lamp review on iPhone J.D. is that the top of the lamp contains a spot to charge an iPhone, iPad or iPod. Your device sits at a slight angle in portrait orientation, and the lamp is more than sturdy enough to hold an iPad, and certainly has no trouble with an iPhone or iPod. This is not a dock with a USB connector so you can't use the D'E-light to sync your device with your computer; it is just a charger.
When you place an iPad on the D'E-light, part of the iPad sits over the edge. It might look like this is not stable, but because of the weight of the D'E-light, the angle that the lamp holds the iPad and the surface that the iPad leans against, the iPad is actually quite secure.
There are two things I love about charging an iPhone or iPad on the D'E-light. First, once you place your device here, you'll always know where it is and you don't have to worry about an iPhone getting lost on your desk. (This is the same reason that I have always used an Apple iPhone dock at my desk in my office.) Second, the D'E-light places an iPhone or iPad at a perfect height for you to glance at it to see the time, look at a notification for when a new e-mail comes in, look at a picture, etc. The height is also good for FaceTime calls on the iPhone, although maybe just a tad too high. (Unfortunatly, it is too high for FaceTime on the iPad.)
Would I pay $400 myself for the D'E-light? For my home? No, because there is nothing fancy about my study. On the other hand, if I had a law office with a modern decor that matched the D'E-light, I would definitely consider purchasing this because it a very nice lamp and iPhone/iPad charger and holder that also looks really cool to me — although as is true for any art, you'll have to decide whether you like it as much as I do. Goodness knows I've seen other attorneys spend far more than $400 for art, furniture and other items for their law office. The D'E-light reminds me of many Apple creations; it is a premium product that works well and looks great.
Click here to get the D'E-light from the FLOS website ($396.00).
