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Color accuracy is published as an index, and it is worth more than brightness · review

NEEWER SL90C, 1090 lux at 0.5 m (1.6 ft), CRI 97 review

The brightest pocket panel on this shelf that publishes its distance — and the only light here that will also charge your phone.

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What it comes to The best-measured pocket panel on this shelf: 1090 lux at a stated half a meter, CRI 97, 113 minutes at full brightness given as a runtime at a brightness, stepless dimming from zero and a USB output that charges a phone. Three modes and 17 effects are more than most will use. It says nothing about flicker, publishes no TLCI, and nine watts is a fill light rather than a key.

What the maker commits to in print

  • Forty-five warm, forty-five cool and forty-eight RGB beads blended, delivering up to 1,090 lux at 0.5 m (1.6 ft)
  • Three lighting modes — CCT, HSI and FX: CCT from 2700K to 7500K with stepless brightness from 0 to 100 per cent, HSI with 360-degree hue selection, and FX with 17 dynamic scene effects
  • CRI 97 and 9 W, both in the title
  • A built-in 4,000 mAh battery powering the light for up to 113 minutes at full brightness, rechargeable from a car charger, laptop or USB source — with a USB OUTPUT port so the light doubles as a portable charger
  • A cold shoe adapter for a camera hot shoe, or 1/4 inch holes for a desk tripod
  • 15 × 8 × 1.2 cm (5.9 × 3.1 × 0.5 in), 235 g, aluminum alloy

NOTHING about flicker. No TLCI.

It publishes the distance

One thousand and ninety lux AT HALF A Meter.

“The distance is part of the measurement and a figure given without it cannot be compared with anything.”

Illuminance falls off with the square of distance, so 1090 lux at 0.5 m (1.6 ft) is about 270 at one meter and 120 at a meter and a half.

Of the nine American lights on this shelf: two publish both numbers, one publishes lux with no distance, one publishes lumens instead, and five publish nothing.

When a page gives a bare lux figure, assume half a meter. It is the flattering distance.

CRI 97, which is the figure to read first

“Read the color accuracy index before the output figure. A dim light with faithful color is easier to work with than a bright one that turns skin green.”

Ninety-seven is the joint highest among the American lights here, level with the ALTSON D6, behind only the published Rollei’s 98.

Most of the error in a cheap white LED sits in deep red — which is where skin tone lives. Between 95 and 97 the average gap is small and the red gap is usually larger than the average suggests.

The ENEGON panel on this shelf publishes no index at all.

A hundred and thirteen minutes AT FULL

Which is a runtime stated at a brightness, and most of this shelf does not do that.

“Up to 20 hours” on the ENEGON, at an unstated brightness, is a figure that cannot be planned with. A hundred and thirteen minutes at 100 per cent can.

And a USB output, alone on this shelf

Four thousand milliamp-hours is roughly a phone charge.

The light is already in the bag, already charged, and has a port that gives it back.

It is not a photographic specification. It is the one that gets used.

Seventeen scenes, which are decoration

A police light, a television flicker, a candle, a thunderstorm.

For narrative video they save building the effect with gels and a dimmer. For product or portrait work they are the headline the marketing wanted.

The two modes that earn their keep are the first: CCT for white light, HSI for a colored wash on a background.

And nothing about flicker

“Whether the light is flicker-free at the frame rates you record.”

Zero of the nine American lights on this shelf mention it.

On an RGB panel driven by pulse-width modulation, a flicker at 120 Hz photographs as banding at 1/500 and as a rolling bar in slow motion — and no page here lets you know in advance.

Availability

About $40 on the American Amazon store when this page was last checked.

Everything in this section is the figure Keepa carried on the day of the last update to this page. Availability and prices shift without notice.

Prices quoted in this text were read on 8 October 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.

What it does well, and what it gives up

Strengths

  • Eleven hundred lux at half a meter, distance included
  • CRI 97, joint highest on this shelf
  • A hundred and thirteen minutes at FULL brightness, stated
  • A USB output: it charges your phone
  • Three modes, with 17 effect scenes
  • Stepless dimming to a true zero

Compromises

  • Nothing about flicker, like every light here
  • No TLCI, where the published Rollei gives one
  • 2700K is warmer-limited than the 2500K of three rivals here
  • A cold shoe and a thread, and no clamp or spigot
  • Nine watts is a fill light, not a key
  • Forty dollars

Specifications

Output in lux with its distance1090 LUX AT 0.5 M, stated — and the distance is the point. This shelf's introduction says the distance is part of the measurement and a figure without it cannot be compared with anything; of the nine American lights on this shelf, only this and the ULANZI VL49 RGB publish both. Eleven hundred lux at half a meter is a quarter of the published NEEWER 660 pair’s 3300 lux at 1 m (3 ft) once both are scaled to the same distance, which is what the scaling is for
Color temperature range2700K to 7500K in CCT mode, stated, a 4800K span. Narrower at both ends than the ENEGON’s 2500–9900K and the ULANZI VL49 RGB’s 2500–9000K on this shelf, and wider than the published NEEWER 660 pair’s 3200–5600K. This shelf's introduction notes that a light mixing warm and cool emitters usually reaches its highest output in the MIDDLE of the range rather than at the ends, and this one has 45 warm and 45 cool beads to mix
Accuracy indicesCRI 97, stated in the title — the JOINT HIGHEST on this shelf among the American lights, level with the ALTSON D6 and the NiceVeedi pair, and behind only the published Rollei’s 98. This shelf's buying tip says to read the accuracy index before the output figure, and 97 is the figure that makes a skin tone usable as recorded. NO TLCI: the published Rollei is the only page on this shelf to give one
DimmingSTEPLESS from 0 to 100 PER CENT in CCT mode, stated. Stepless rather than stepped is the better arrangement and not all of this shelf has it — the ULANZI VL49 offers five fixed levels and the ALTSON ten. A true zero means the panel can be faded out rather than switched off, which matters when it is the fill rather than the key
FlickerNOT MENTIONED. This shelf's introduction asks whether the light is flicker-free at the frame rates you record, and none of the ten American lights on this shelf says a word about it. On an RGB panel driven by pulse-width modulation that is the omission with real consequences: a light that flickers at 120 Hz photographs as banding at 1/500 and as a rolling bar in slow motion
Power optionsA 4,000 mAh internal cell for 113 MINUTES AT FULL BRIGHTNESS — a runtime stated AT a brightness, which most of this shelf does not do — recharged by car charger, laptop or any USB source. And a USB OUTPUT PORT, so the light doubles as a power bank for a phone or a tablet. That is unique on this shelf and more useful than it sounds: a 4,000 mAh cell is a phone charge, and the light is already in the bag
MountA COLD SHOE ADAPTER for a camera hot shoe, plus 1/4 INCH HOLES for a desk tripod. Standard for a pocket panel, and less than the published ULANZI K20’s dimensioned C-clamp. 15 × 8 × 1.2 cm (5.9 × 3.1 × 0.5 in) and 235 g (8.3 oz), both published — "it easily slips into your pocket"
Amazon referenceB0H4QDXQ4Q
EAN0191073135550

What people ask before they commit

Why does the distance matter so much?

Because illuminance falls off with the square of it. Eleven hundred lux at half a meter becomes about 270 lux at one meter and 120 at a meter and a half — so a figure quoted without a distance can be made to say anything. This shelf's introduction is blunt: a figure given without it cannot be compared with anything. Of the nine American lights on this shelf, two publish both numbers, one publishes lux with no distance, one publishes lumens instead, and five publish nothing at all. When you see a bare lux figure, assume it was measured at half a meter, which is the flattering distance.

Is CRI 97 worth the money over CRI 95?

Marginally in the measurement and noticeably in the reds. The color rendering index averages how faithfully a source renders a set of test colors, and most of the error in a cheap white LED is concentrated in deep red — which is also where skin tone lives. Between 95 and 97 the average gap is small; the red gap is usually larger than the average suggests. What matters more is that the figure is published at all: the ENEGON and the RaLeno on this shelf publish none, and this shelf's buying tip says to read the index before the output.

What is FX mode for?

Simulating a light source that is not there — and seventeen scenes is the most on this shelf. A police light, a television flicker, a candle, a thunderstorm, a paparazzi burst: each is a programmed pattern of color and brightness over time. For narrative video they save building the effect from gels and a dimmer; for product or portrait work they are decoration. The honest reading of a seventeen-scene FX mode is that it is cheap to implement on an RGB panel and is the headline the marketing wants. The useful modes are the first two: CCT for white light and HSI for a colored background wash.

Where this one places on its bench

At $40, it is the 9 cheapest of the 11 models in this category published here.

  • Cheapest on the bench$10
  • Median$30
  • Dearest on the bench$52

This one against the other photo equipment

photo equipment from the same category, at nearby prices. Only what all of them publish is shown: a column with holes compares nothing.

Model Price Output in lux with its distanceColor temperature rangeAccuracy indicesDimming
NEEWER SL90C, 1090 lux at 0.5 m (1.6 ft), CRI 97 $40 1090 LUX AT 0.5 M, stated — and the distance is the point. This shelf's introduction says the distance is part of the measurement and a figure without it cannot be compared with anything; of the nine American lights on this shelf, only this and the ULANZI VL49 RGB publish both. Eleven hundred lux at half a meter is a quarter of the published NEEWER 660 pair’s 3300 lux at 1 m (3 ft) once both are scaled to the same distance, which is what the scaling is for2700K to 7500K in CCT mode, stated, a 4800K span. Narrower at both ends than the ENEGON’s 2500–9900K and the ULANZI VL49 RGB’s 2500–9000K on this shelf, and wider than the published NEEWER 660 pair’s 3200–5600K. This shelf's introduction notes that a light mixing warm and cool emitters usually reaches its highest output in the MIDDLE of the range rather than at the ends, and this one has 45 warm and 45 cool beads to mixCRI 97, stated in the title — the JOINT HIGHEST on this shelf among the American lights, level with the ALTSON D6 and the NiceVeedi pair, and behind only the published Rollei’s 98. This shelf's buying tip says to read the accuracy index before the output figure, and 97 is the figure that makes a skin tone usable as recorded. NO TLCI: the published Rollei is the only page on this shelf to give oneSTEPLESS from 0 to 100 PER CENT in CCT mode, stated. Stepless rather than stepped is the better arrangement and not all of this shelf has it — the ULANZI VL49 offers five fixed levels and the ALTSON ten. A true zero means the panel can be faded out rather than switched off, which matters when it is the fill rather than the key
ENEGON Bi-color panel, 2500–9900 K, 20 hours $39 NEITHER PUBLISHED. No lux, no lumens, no distance, no wattage — in five bullets. What appears instead is "180 high lumens LED lamp beads", which uses the word lumens as an adjective for a bead rather than as a measurement of the fixture. This shelf's introduction makes output the first of three published figures a continuous light is compared on; this page gives none of it, and five of the ten American lights on this shelf share that gap2500K TO 9900K IN 100 K INCREMENTS — the WIDEST range on this shelf, a 7,400 K span, against 2500–9000K on the ULANZI VL49 RGB and the published Rollei and 3200–5600K on the published NEEWER pair. And the increment is published, which almost nothing here does: 100 K steps means 75 positions across the range, fine enough to match a tungsten bulb or an overcast sky by eye. This shelf's introduction warns that a mixed panel peaks in the middle; with no output figure at all, there is no peak to be lower thanNONE PUBLISHED. No CRI, no TLCI, no index of any kind, and this is the ONLY page on this shelf to omit it entirely — the published RaLeno gives CRI 95 or better in its fifth bullet, and the twelve other pages here all publish a figure. This shelf's buying tip is unambiguous: "read the color accuracy index before the output figure. A dim light with faithful color is easier to work with than a bright one that turns skin green." On a bi-color panel mixing warm and cool emitters, the index is also where the mixing shows — a cheap mix can be visibly green at the middle of its range, which is exactly where it will be used1 TO 100 PER CENT IN 5 PER CENT INCREMENTS, stated — twenty steps, and the increment is published where most of this shelf says only "dimmable". Five per cent steps are fine enough for practical work and are not stepless: the NEEWER SL90C and the published Rollei dim continuously, and a stepped dimmer cannot be faded on camera
Torjim TJ-RGB, two lights with stands $35 NEITHER PUBLISHED. No lux, no lumens, no distance, no wattage — only "70 LEDs of high performance" per light. This shelf's introduction makes output the first figure, and on a pair of lights sold as a studio set rather than a pocket fill the omission matters more: a panel on a 57-inch stand is two meters from the subject, where illuminance is a quarter of what it is at a meter3000K TO 6000K, stated, plus 16 EXTRA Colors beyond the cool and warm whites. Three thousand kelvin is warm tungsten and six thousand is a cool daylight, a 3,000 K span — narrower than everything else adjustable on this shelf except the published NEEWER pair. Sixteen fixed colors is not the same as an RGB panel’s 360 degrees of hue: the NEEWER SL90C and the ULANZI VL49 RGB here mix any shadeCRI 90+, stated — the WEAKEST index published on this shelf, level with the EMART spotlights and the ULANZI K20 and behind the 95 of five lights, the 96 of the published NEEWER pair, the 97 of the SL90C and the ALTSON and the 98 of the published Rollei. This shelf's buying tip says to read the index before the output, and above 90 is usable rather than good: the error in a 90-CRI white LED sits mostly in deep red, which is where skin livesTEN BRIGHTNESS LEVELS from 10 TO 100 PER CENT, "conveniently controlled by wires" — a WIRED IN-LINE CONTROLLER rather than buttons on the panel, which on a light at the top of a 57-inch stand is the right arrangement: you adjust it from where you are standing. And the controller is BACKLIT, "so you can operate the lights even in a dark environment", which no other page on this shelf mentions
EMART EM-7W-LTL, two spotlights, 600 lm each $30 600 LUMENS PER LIGHT — and lumens are not lux. Lumens measure the total light LEAVING a fixture; lux measures how much ARRIVES on a surface, which is why this shelf's introduction asks for lux with a distance. The two cannot be converted without knowing the beam angle, and no beam angle is published here. Six hundred lumens from a 12-LED spotlight is a narrow, concentrated beam rather than a panel wash, so the lux at half a meter could be high and the coverage small. This and the published ULANZI K20 are the two pages on this shelf that publish a flux instead of an illuminance5500 K, FIXED, described as a "perfect daylight temperature" — and then the mechanism that moves it: TWO WHITE, TWO ORANGE and TWO BLUE GEL FILTERS, two color gel filters, stated to change the kelvin temperature for cooler or warmer photos. That is color temperature by subtraction rather than by mixing: an orange gel in front of a 5,500 K source makes it warmer and dimmer, where a bi-color panel fades between emitters and loses nothing. The ULANZI VL49 on this shelf is the only other fixed-temperature light here, and it has no gelsCRI 90+, stated — the JOINT WEAKEST index on this shelf with the Torjim pair and the ULANZI K20, behind the 95 of five lights, the 96, the three at 97 and the 98 above them. On a spotlight intended for tabletop product work the index matters as much as on a portrait light: a 90-CRI source renders a red product slightly brown, and a product photograph that needs its color corrected is a product photograph that will be returnedNOT PUBLISHED AT ALL — no range, no steps, no mention. This is the ONLY light on this shelf with no dimming described, which on a 600-lumen spotlight means the only ways to reduce it are distance, a gel and switching one of the pair off. This shelf's introduction lists dimming among the things it compares; this page lists a swivel, a bracket, a temperature and a warranty

What sets the models apart, in photo equipment

  • If price decides: EMART EM-7W-LTL, two spotlights, 600 lm each, at $30.
  • Highest Color temperature range in the table: EMART EM-7W-LTL, two spotlights, 600 lm each (5500 K, FIXED, described as a "perfect daylight temperature" — and then the mechanism that moves it: TWO WHITE, TWO ORANGE and TWO BLUE GEL FILTERS, two color gel filters, stated to change the kelvin temperature for cooler or warmer photos. That is color temperature by subtraction rather than by mixing: an orange gel in front of a 5,500 K source makes it warmer and dimmer, where a bi-color panel fades between emitters and loses nothing. The ULANZI VL49 on this shelf is the only other fixed-temperature light here, and it has no gels).

Where the price stands, among photo equipment

Details checked on October 8, 2026.

What use this one answers, among photo equipment

A pocket key or fill light where color accuracy comes first and the panel has to earn its place in the bag twice over

What buyers actually choose

Amazon reports what buyers took in the month before this page was last checked: at least 500.

The figure is a floor, rounded by Amazon, and read through Keepa — it says what buyers picked, not what a maker claims.

Sources

Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for photo equipment and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.

What we judge this photo equipment on

More of this catalog

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