I guess it is common knowledge that using a fluorescent lamp saves lots of electricity in comparison to an incandescent lamp bulb. A 2 feet fluorescent lamp with 18 W power rating can emit 1,000++ lumens which is enough to keep a decent size bathroom bright enough to carry your "chores" in there.

Put a 50 W incandescent lamp there and you would only get around 50 lumen which is barely enough to lit the same place. 50 W against 18 W and most of the electricity consumed by a light bulb is wasted through heat generation. No wonder the fluorescent lamps are so ubiquitous around any household.

And to light a decent size hall room in a house, you only need a 4 feet fluorescent lamp with a 36 W power rating. I can bet that no matter how high a rating you use for a incandescent lamp, you won't get the intended brightness exhibited by the fluorescent lamp.

Of course, in terms of energy saving, we could step things up by going for those light bulbs that make use of LED. It is a well known fact that LED consumes very small current (in the range of tens of milliamp). Not only that, LEDs can lasts a very long time; with typical lifetime from 30,000 to 50,000 hours.Now, do you notice the similarity of the lifetime of a LED backlit LCD monitor?

Super bright or high intensity LED does consumes more electricity but still, its current consumption is only in the hundredth of an amp. And please don't forget that LED operates in a few volts only. Therefore, power consumption (that is voltage x amp) of an LED is really miniscule when compared to a fluorescent lamp. Let us take a look at the 84 LEDs side mounted light bulb lamp. This LED bulb lamp consumes 6 W and output 600 Lumen.



Compared this to a 18 W fluorescent lamp that outputs 1,000 plus Lumens. Well, a picture .... actually two pictures are worth a thousand words!!! This is the bathroom lighting brightness illuminated by the 84 LED lamp bulb.



Now, compare the above condition with the lighting condition illuminated by a 18 W fluorescent lamp tube. See the difference?

So this simply means that even though LEDs lamp really saves electricity but in terms of brightness illumination that is required to lit a room, it fails miserably. Maybe, in the above example, we could use 3 pieces of the super bright LED lamp bulbs to get the required brightness, but then again, the electricity consumption would be the same as a typical 2 feet fluorescent lamp tube.

And don't forget one thing. LED bulb lamp is still way too expensive in comparison to a normal fluorescent lamp tube. That must be the reason why we don't see many LED lamps being used. Until the price and brightness issue of the LED lamp improve, I guess we will be sticking to the fluorescent tube for quite a while.
However, the concerned LED light lamp can still be used as a night lamp ( a light source to illuminate the stairway or corridor when the dwellings are asleep) or simply as a flood lamp.

On a side note, LEDs are immensely suitable to be used in a flash light. Due to its small viewing angle and deep penetration range, LED flash light is quite prolific in the flash light market.