Desk lamps for working from home: six lamps for a small UK desk, from a USB clip-on to an Anglepoise

The problem this lamp solves is not light, it is real estate. A kitchen-table desk or a 60 cm-deep box-room desk has no spare corner for a base, and this one needs none: a C-clamp grips any edge up to 5 cm thick — a table top, a shelf, the side of a drawing board — and the lamp rises from it on a gooseneck to a maximum of 40 cm.

For 5 watts it is a proper light: Lepro rates the 54-LED bar at 460 lumens, with three colour modes (warm, neutral and cool white — Lepro does not give kelvin figures) and ten brightness levels. The controls sit on a small in-line switch on the cable rather than on the lamp, which is convenient when the head is at arm’s length and less so when the switch has slid under the desk. Power is USB at 5 V 1 A, from a laptop, a monitor’s hub, a phone charger or a power bank; there is no adapter in the box, which is the point for a desk with one socket already full.

The trade-offs are in the arm. A gooseneck holds any position you bend it into, but it is not a counterbalanced arm: moving the head means bending the neck, not nudging a joint, and over a long bar the neck eventually droops a little from where you put it. The 1.5 m cable is generous. The 0.36 kg weight is a listing figure, not Lepro’s, and the listing’s 1.4 cm depth is plainly the folded head rather than the lamp, so we have not used it.

If the clamp finds an edge, this is the cheapest way in terms of desk space to get a second light on the keyboard side of a screen.

This is the conventional choice done properly: a flat bar head on a folding arm, a weighted base with touch controls, and more light than anything else here with a lumen figure. Lepro rates it at 750 lumens from 72 LEDs and 9.2 watts — one bullet on the listing says 800, Lepro’s own page and the listing title say 750, and we take the manufacturer’s number.

The colour range is the widest of the group: five settings at 2700, 3500, 4000, 5000 and 5700 K, each with five brightness levels, and a memory that brings back the last combination when the lamp is switched on. That is the practical difference from cheaper adjustable lamps — you set 4000 K at 60 per cent once and never touch it again. The UK plug adapter (200–240 V in, 12 V out) is in the box, which Lepro makes a point of because so many rivals ship USB-only and leave you to find a charger.

The listing gives 16 × 10 × 39 cm and 0.7 kg; Lepro’s page does not, so those are pending figures, but they match the photographs: a small base and a head that folds down flat onto it for storage. The base does not rotate, so aiming is done with the two joints, and the light lands mainly in front of the base rather than across a wide desk — for a 120 cm desk with a monitor in the middle you would place it to one side and accept that the far side stays dimmer.

Plastic and aluminium rather than all-metal, but at this weight that is what keeps it from feeling top-heavy.

The Xiaomi is the least adjustable lamp here, and for some desks that is the recommendation. One button on the base: press to switch on and off, hold to step through three brightness levels. The colour temperature is fixed at 3900 K (Xiaomi allows ±300 K) — a neutral white that sits between warm and daylight and works at a screen at any hour, with none of the deciding that five-mode lamps invite.

Xiaomi’s UK specification page gives 7.5 watts, a colour rendering index of Ra90, approximately 0.56 kg and 400 × 413 × 125 mm, without saying which figure is the height, so the height column is empty for this lamp. The 840-lumen figure comes from the specifications page of the user manual rather than from Xiaomi’s UK page, and it is marked as pending until we see it from Xiaomi directly. Xiaomi’s product page adds a blue-light rating of RG0 (the exempt group) and no visible flicker, and describes three joints — a 90° neck, a 180° arm and a base that swings from flat to 85° — so the lamp folds to a slab for a drawer or a bag.

Two things to check before buying. This listing is the “EU” version, which usually means a two-pin plug that needs an adapter in a UK socket — confirm with the seller. And Xiaomi says it ships old (9290042673) and new (MJTD12YL) model numbers at random for the same lamp, so do not be alarmed if the box does not match the page.

The listing gives 0.98 kg, against Xiaomi’s 0.56 kg; the larger figure is likely the packed weight.

The Philips is the one lamp here you can pick up and carry to the sofa. It charges over USB at 5 V, and the box shown in the listing promises stable output for about six hours on a full charge — a figure Philips’ specification sheet does not repeat, so treat it as approximate. At 0.5 kg and 35 cm tall, with a single hinge at the top of the stem, it is built to be moved rather than positioned once.

That portability comes with the smallest light of the group by a wide margin: Philips’ own specification table gives a total fixture output of 130 lumens at 5 watts, and a colour rendering index of 90. This is a reading light for the space beside a laptop or a bedside, not a light for paperwork across a desk. Philips’ pages also disagree with each other on colour: the header, the leaflet and the listing say three settings at 2700, 3600 and 5000 K, the specification table on the same page says 2700, 4000 and 6500 K. Either way there are three, changed with a touch, plus step dimming.

Philips backs it with a two-year warranty and a rated life of 15,000 hours, and the metal-and-plastic build is what you would expect at this weight. If the question is “which lamp for the kitchen table that gets cleared at dinner”, this is the honest answer; if the question is “which lamp to work under for eight hours”, it is not.

The BenQ is designed around a different measure. Where the other lamps quote lumens leaving the head, BenQ quotes what arrives on the desk: 1600 lux at the centre with the head 45 cm up, and a lit area 90 cm wide at 500 lux — the figure the office lighting standard uses for reading and writing. The curved head is the reason: it throws light sideways as well as down, so a 120 cm desk with a monitor in the middle and paper on both sides is lit from one lamp.

Colour temperature runs from 2700 to 5700 K and brightness is set on the same knob on the head; BenQ’s current page counts 13 colour and 23 brightness steps, and we mark those as pending because this listing’s ASIN dates from 2015 and may be an earlier revision of the lamp. A built-in sensor reads the room and adjusts, with two presets — a screen mode at 500 lux and 4000 K and a paper mode at 1000 lux and 5700 K. Colour rendering is Ra 95 or better. Power is a mains adapter at up to 18 watts.

The cost is size. BenQ gives 59 × 22 × 62.5 cm and 4.8 kg: the arm reaches over most of a small desk, the base is 22 cm across, and the whole thing is a permanent fixture, not something cleared away. Aluminium alloy, zinc alloy and resin, on a ball joint at the head and a two-section arm. On a desk that is a desk every day, with a monitor and paper, it does what none of the others do; on a kitchen table it is absurd.

The Anglepoise is the only lamp here with no electronics of its own: an E27 bulb, a switch on the cable and a cast-iron base. One correction to the listing first. Its bullets talk about the constant-tension spring arm that made the brand’s name, but the photographs — and Anglepoise’s own support page for this model — show the Type 75 Mini Table Lamp: a fixed curved stem with a shade that pivots at the top. The sprung Desk Lamp is a different product. What you are buying is a small, well-made table lamp in the Type 75 shape, 46 cm high, 25 cm wide and 15 cm deep, at 1.5 kg.

Anglepoise supplies a 6-watt E27 LED bulb at 470 lumens and a warm 2700 K, rated for 15,000 hours, and allows up to 10 watts of LED in the socket. That is the whole strategy: the light quality is whatever bulb you choose. Want 4000 K for daytime work? Fit one. Want dimming or a colour that changes with the hour? Fit a smart bulb — the lamp has no dimmer of its own, and Anglepoise says dimming needs additional electrical hardware. The 1.8 m cable is longer than the Lepro lamps’ 1.5 m.

What you do not get is anything the other five take for granted: no brightness steps, no colour switch, no USB, and no arm — the shade aims the pool of light, and the stem stays where it is, so this is a lamp for a fixed spot on the desk rather than one you swing over paperwork and back. What you get instead is a lifetime guarantee on registration, materials (aluminium, cast iron, brushed aluminium fittings) that do not yellow or loosen, and a lamp that will still be on the desk when the laptop it lights has been recycled twice.

The listing is for the Mole Grey finish, one of the current Anglepoise colours, and at the time of writing showed a single unit left — this model comes and goes on Amazon, so if the colour matters, look at the other finishes too.