I saw this taillight won an award at 2011 EuroBike, but can't seem to find much more information, such as when it might be available in the US.
I saw it on DutchBikeBits.com and Bike24.com but shipping costs are pretty high...

Found a site that reviews lights. Link to site that features a beam shot, but here's what they have to say:

Tested: From 28 Nov. 2011

My favourite taillamp: Very well visible while not being too bright. Compared to the Toplight Line plus: side visibility is better, medium to short distance visibility is better because of the larger illuminating area and very long distance visibility (>100 m) is comparable. On the wallshot the lightoutput does not look impressive, but it puts the light where it's needed, better than any other taillamp I tested so far. So the light it puts out is used very efficiently... Recommended.

Review in progress

Nice site! Glad to see some people are actually objective enough about bicycling requirements and responsibilities to state 'NOT RECOMMENDED' against more than just a few products. It means the average consumer will actually get a product that will perform well when it is 'RECOMMENDED'.

Coincidentally you can buy the recommended lights there too.

Objective?

The 'objective' and 'balanced' reviewer has also a big Ebay presence selling the 'recommended' lights. I won't be surprised if he surfaces here in a moment with an angry response.

LOL I missed that one! Thanks for pointing it out!

In general though, I personally haven't seen any poor reviews on the Philips front or back stuff.

I'm not criticizing the reviewer, just saying he has a different perspective than I. I want a motorist approaching from the rear to be attentive of my presence. I want to redirect their focus and include me in the field of view. The reviewer considers a blinking/flashing light to be an annoyance and dangerous (including daytime) to some extent because the driver should be focusing on other possible hazards. I consider the approaching driver a potential hazard.

Yeah, I think the reviewer is mainly looking at taillights from a MUP-centric viewpoint, it's pretty evident he's thinking of how these look to a cyclist who's riding in close proximity to you for extended periods in full darkness. Any taillight without a flashing / strobing function is not even a contender for my purposes (dealing with American city arterial and high-speed highway traffic).

I have the Philips front and find it a pretty mixed bag - to me a wasted potential due to apparent lack of design experience and subpar manufacturing - not quite what the mentioned site finds. I have no experience with the rear.

These was the minor issue of the mounting breaking on the front light.

Yeah - I saw REPORTS of that mentioned in the MYBR review but the reviewer didn't personally experience that first-hand. A mounting bracket I could personally deal with. Faulty electronics is a different story.


In the long run I ended up putting my own set-up together. What did you end up with?

I have the Philips Lumiring tail light (battery operated version). It is very different from the design philosophy of tail lights sold in the US. You can look at it six inches from your face without blinding yourself. Yet it is very visible from a long distance at night. If you are used to a DiNotte or a Cygolite tail light you might be disappointed. There is no flash mode, no brightness levels. Just on and off. It is quite large (about 4 in wide), which I think is the key to visibility. I agree extremely bright and flashing tail lights are good for grabbing attention and that is what I use during dawn/daytime/dusk (Cygolite Hotshot 2W on the seatpost and L&M Urban 500 on the handlebar). However, IMHO, overly bright and flashing lights make it hard to estimate the the position, distance and speed of the bicycle in darkness. The Lumiring solves these problems. It behaves like a car tail light, not too bright, but yet very noticeable. Also, the Lumiring has a really big reflector in the center - almost as big as the light itself - which adds serious passive visibility. I realize that drivers in the US are conditioned to identify flashing lights with bicycles. So, in addition to the Lumiring on my seatpost I use a moderately powered red "blinkie" on the back of my helmet. This grabs attention and helps identify me as a bicyclist, while the Lumiring clearly locates me spatially. I'm sure not everybody will agree with my philosophy

BTW, I also have the battery operated Philips Saferide headlight. Its, the best headlight I've found so far for road biking. It goes to show the quality of the beam pattern is far more important than raw quantity (lumens). The only real downsides are the choice of power (come on Philips, NiMH batteries, really?!!!) and power management (the newer units switch from high to low mode after 70mins - I have an older version that runs for 2 hours on high). And, I wished it could be twice as bright. I like it so much that I had a second unit modded - the Philips Luxeon Rebels were replaced by a pair of CREE XM-Ls (!), new controller board and powered by an external Li Ion battery. I estimate the hot-rodded version is about 6 times brighter than the stock unit; beam pattern suffered a little bit, but not too much.

Finally, the broken mount problem was with the dynamo version and not the battery operated version.

In summary, IMHO, the Philips rear light (as is the front light) is excellent for night use.

I can't say much about the rear light - I built my own out of automotive LED lights before hearing about the Phillips (See total geekiness, near the end these days). The front light is a nice light, which I just retrofitted with a 5V regulator (ibid.), though I haven't gotten to ride it yet. I like the shaped beam, though I would like even more light, especially for those times when there aren't cars around. Thinking about building a narrow beam light to aim at the end of the LBL.

Tor

I personally haven't seen any poor reviews on the Philips front or back stuff. i think so.