>Yes these are several years old. Generally the hall light is switched on when it gets too dark and is switched off at bedtime. The current oldish bulbs take a second or two to come on, and tens of seconds to brighten up, I wouldn't say minutes, but one never notices when they reach their optimum.
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>We just received some new ones free in the mail, and they come on and brighten up almost immediately.

A pal of mine has installed some of the early models in his downstairs bathroom about fifteen years ago. The tiles in that room are dark brown, and the window isn't too big either. There's little to no light coming from outside at night, because there's a tree outside. The wall-mounted piece of ceramics is also coffee color. So when it takes two or three long seconds to show up, when time rushes at relativistic speeds... he regretted the decision to go into CFL tech so early, at least for this one room.