Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp – the Screen Light you didn’t know existed (and that you will love)

You want to know why I did this review when I don’t do reviews on my site?

Story goes, that the folks at Benq offered me a Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp to review. My first thought was “I don’t do reviews on this site”, but then I took a second look at their product and realized it would solve a huge problem that I have.

Like many people I have my computer set up in a room which was never intended to be used as an office. There wasn’t even an overhead light when I first set up my ‘home office’. I put in an overhead fan/light combo – which is a great fan but a really poor light source. Working at night is an issue because the light is so poor and winter days can be the same – it it’s raining and grey, I can’t find things on my desk or, much of the time, even see my keyboard clearly. I’ve tried desk lamps and floor lamps but they just don’t throw the light where I need it, on the desk in front of my screen and over my keyboards. Since I’m a sucky typist this is a big issue!

This is my desk without the Benq ScreenBar Plus turned on, you can see it’s hard to see the top keyboard and there is no light on the bottom one, even in daytime:

So, enter the Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp. It arrived in a long shallow box:

packaged neatly and with some simple installation instructions:

Basically it’s a light bar about 18 inches long that sits on top of your monitor. It can fit monitors that are between 0.4 to 1.2 in wide (1-3cm) so it fits neatly on my HP monitor.

You assemble the light by slipping it into a small weighted bracket and plug in its USB cord.

This is one of the great features of this light, it gets its power from a USB socket so you can plug it into any USB port and so you don’t have to find a spare socket to plug it into. I run mine off my HP tower – I added a short USB extension cable to make this work with my sit/stand desk. Now the light turns on every time my computer turns on. Which is great because for the first time in around 12 years I finally can see what I’m doing any time of the day. The design of the light has it sitting on top of your monitor so the light falls directly onto the desktop in front of you. The casing around the light ensures that you don’t get glare from the light in your face it falls only on the desktop where you need it. It also goes up and down with the monitor when you adjust your sit/stand desk.

The light comes with a small control disk.

This lets you turn it on and off by pressing the big dial. Rotate the dial to increase or decrease the amount of light. This alone would be all I need but there’s more! Like the famous Ginsu steak knives the Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp delivers extra functionality in the form of different temperature light.

Tap the button on the right of the controller and the dial becomes a temperature selector – you can choose anything from cool blue light to (my preferred) warm orange light. It’s a great feature and one you are sure to love.

This is the warm light (which is what I love):

There is one further button on the left side of the controller and that lets you set the light to auto select – so the light reads how much ambient light there is in the room and automatically adjusts its own brightness to suit. This shows the cooler blue light.

I have had the Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp plugged in from day 1 and you’d  have to fight me if you plan to take it away from me. I leave it turned on all the time and it’s made it possible for me to work comfortably even into the wee hours on projects with impending deadlines. It has a very small profile so I forget it’s there until I turn off my computer and suddenly it turns off and I realise just how dark it is.  It is held sturdily in place by its weighted bar so I have no issues with it feeling insecure and it’s not chewing up precious desk space. It’s so good I’m seriously considering shelling out for one for my assistant’s desk which is even further away from the light source and darker still.

You can find the Benq ScreenBar Plus e-Reading lamp here on Amazon. Find more information about the Benq Screenbar Plus at the Benq Website.

Be sure to consider the one with the dial – it’s worth the extra spend.