This is a work in progress in terms of getting comparison shots. However, you should be able to discern the differences between the halogen, HID, and LED bulbs from the early photos. All aftermarket HID and LED setups were purchased from XenonDepot. Again, I purchased these bulbs on my own accord (however they hooked me up when I told them I was from TN and going to put up legit comparison photos.) I will update this thread as I get more photos.
April 8, 2015
Materials:
No H9 bulb, because I didn't want to pay $30 bucks for bulbs that I have to modify and know I will never use.
Conditions of this shoot and camera settings:
(1) Garage (shots of driver's side only, as beam is mirrored exactly left or right)
White balance was established using a gray card in ambient light. This was to ensure we'd get a proper color comparison between each light source, and it created a photo as close to what I saw in real life. Either way, the consistent camera settings make for as best a comparison as possible.
Photos:

The "glare streak" on the right garage door is due to the puddle on the right side of the alley, and it exists in all photos (albeit not so prominent with the Halogen). Getting a good head-on photo to depict any glare was fruitless, since the dynamic range of a camera doesn't make for an accurate assessment with how intense all the bulbs appear to the camera sensor. Wth first hand experience from this shoot I can tell you that the glare was "perceived" the same from my eyes and my neighbors between all the bulbs.
Hotspots cannot be fully assessed due to the rain and wet ground, so I would like to take more photos on a dry night to further compare.

Here you can see how similar the beam pattern is at close range between the bulbs, save for the one that looks like a butterfly (H11 LED). Still, the LED bulb in dry conditions actually throws very even light that is whiter and brighter than the halogens (been running them for a month now). Dry photos to come when they come.
Halogen H11
LED H11
HID 5000K
HID Philips 4300K
April 9, 2015
Well, dry photos happened when I located a nice, empty parking garage.
Conditions of this shoot and camera settings:
9PM, 38F, Parking Garage with scattered overhead lights
I went out and found the darkest garage I could find to get dry photos of the beam pattern, cutoff, spread, and any scatter. Here are the results:
Wall shot

Distance shot

Note that in this shot the ground is not even. It slopes up about 50 yards and then begins to slope back down. If you look at the middle of the parking lot you'll see a black line going across left to right. That dark spot is the crest of the "hill", and this results in the cutoff appearing to be higher than it should be on the far wall. In actuality, my headlights are adjusted so that my cutoff is just at the top of the license plates on the cars.
Conclusions
Halogen H11
LEDs
HID 4300K Philips
HID 5000K
April 10, 2015
Conditions:
8:30PM, 55F, dry roads, 3-4 lane highways.
I just wanted to update after driving around with the HID 4300K Philips. I had several factory equipped HID cars pull up along side me on the highway at night, and I passed a few others. Comparing the beam pattern of the HID in our headlights to those of Lexus, BMW, Range Rover, Mazda, Audi, and Infiniti I felt the hotspots weren't a big deal. In fact, some of the factory cars had hotter spots in the foreground. IMO, hotspots are bad as they create strain on the eye with too much contrast on the other parts of the road you're supposed to pay attention to. The hotspots from the Highlander headlights with HID bulbs were middle of the road comparable to Lexus, BMW, and Mazda. The flattest, most even pattern in HID came from the Range Rover. Audi depends on if it's LED or HID, and it's tough to tell which cars are HID with LED accents and which are LED when you're on a highway trying to pay attention to traffic. Glare was the same. Oncoming traffic displayed as much glare as what the HL shows with HIDs in the headlights. Just some food for thought. Looking at the beam from all angles, and the head-on perspective for any glare, you'd be hard pressed to realize this was an aftermarket product. Those telling us that HIDs are bad in our headlights are blowing things out of proportion. It isn't the most refined setup, but it isn't the glaring, terrible, pervasive aftermarket upgrade they claim it to be.
Despite not having as many lumens as HID, I think the LED have the closest to stock lighting characteristics, but with more lumens and a whiter color.
If you're looking for the brightest headlights, the Philips 4300K HID is the one to pick with the 5000K not too far off. If you're looking to improve your visibility, keep costs down, improve the esthetics, maximize longevity, keep heat down, and make installation simpler (all while keeping as close to stock beam patterns as possible) the LED from XenonDepot is what you want. I hope this makes your decision making process a lot easier when it comes to which light to choose if you decide to upgrade.
April 8, 2015
Materials:
- Stock H11 Halogen headlights
- XenonDepot HID Philips 4300K Xtreme kit
- XenonDepot HID Philips 5000K Xtreme kit
- XenonDepot H11 LED Headlight kit
- 2015 Highlander XLE
- Canon 5D Mark III
- Canon 35mm IS f2 lens
- Tripod
- 600 degree F max IR temperature gun
No H9 bulb, because I didn't want to pay $30 bucks for bulbs that I have to modify and know I will never use.
Conditions of this shoot and camera settings:
(1) Garage (shots of driver's side only, as beam is mirrored exactly left or right)
- Aperture f3.2
- Shutter speed 1/400s
- ISO 100
- White Balance 4300K
- Aperture f2.8
- Shutter speed 1/20s
- ISO 1600
- White Balance 4900K
White balance was established using a gray card in ambient light. This was to ensure we'd get a proper color comparison between each light source, and it created a photo as close to what I saw in real life. Either way, the consistent camera settings make for as best a comparison as possible.
Photos:

The "glare streak" on the right garage door is due to the puddle on the right side of the alley, and it exists in all photos (albeit not so prominent with the Halogen). Getting a good head-on photo to depict any glare was fruitless, since the dynamic range of a camera doesn't make for an accurate assessment with how intense all the bulbs appear to the camera sensor. Wth first hand experience from this shoot I can tell you that the glare was "perceived" the same from my eyes and my neighbors between all the bulbs.
Hotspots cannot be fully assessed due to the rain and wet ground, so I would like to take more photos on a dry night to further compare.

Here you can see how similar the beam pattern is at close range between the bulbs, save for the one that looks like a butterfly (H11 LED). Still, the LED bulb in dry conditions actually throws very even light that is whiter and brighter than the halogens (been running them for a month now). Dry photos to come when they come.
Halogen H11
- Easiest installation since it's stock
- Operate at about 300 degrees F +/- 60 degrees
- Brief warmup to peak light output
- Produces a warm light
- It's stock, what do you expect
LED H11
- Super easy to tuck away and cleanly install. The fewer parts to this upgrade make it nice.
- Operate at about 100 degrees F +/- 20 degrees at the base AND diode regions.
- Instant on with peak light output (really cool, and really nice)
- Produces a cool white light
- Definitely brighter than stock
HID 5000K
- More stuff to install means more places you need to mount your hardware... a bit of a pain
- Operating temperate at the arc was 300-400 degrees F
- Must warm up to reach peak light output
- Produces a cool white light
- Definitely brighter than Halogen, and slightly brighter than LED
HID Philips 4300K
- More stuff to install means more places you need to mount your hardware... a bit of a pain
- Operating temperate at the arc was 300-400 degrees F
- Must warm up to reach peak light output
- Produces a warm white light
- Brightest of all the bulbs
- Will color shift to approximately 4700K
April 9, 2015
Well, dry photos happened when I located a nice, empty parking garage.
Conditions of this shoot and camera settings:
9PM, 38F, Parking Garage with scattered overhead lights
- Aperture f2.8
- Shutter speed 1/20s
- ISO 400
- White Balance 3800K for wall shot, and 3800K for distance shot
I went out and found the darkest garage I could find to get dry photos of the beam pattern, cutoff, spread, and any scatter. Here are the results:
Wall shot

Distance shot

Note that in this shot the ground is not even. It slopes up about 50 yards and then begins to slope back down. If you look at the middle of the parking lot you'll see a black line going across left to right. That dark spot is the crest of the "hill", and this results in the cutoff appearing to be higher than it should be on the far wall. In actuality, my headlights are adjusted so that my cutoff is just at the top of the license plates on the cars.
Conclusions
Halogen H11
- Pretty mediocre. We all knew that
- Barely noticed the beam pattern compared to no headlights on in the parking garage
LEDs
- Definitely brighter
- Clean cutoff
- Very little glare and scatter
- Even beam spread along the ground
- Better distance than Halogen, but not as good as HID
- No crest at the top of the beam (parallel/inline to the projector) due to diodes only being on left and right of the LED bulb. This likely is the reason glare is kept to a minimum compared to the HID bulbs.
- Closest of the 3 aftermarket bulbs to keeping stock beam pattern
HID 4300K Philips
- Brightest of the bunch
- Slight scatter and glare up above
- Hotspots concentrated in parallel with projector
- Great distance
HID 5000K
- Not much dimmer than 4300K Philips
- Slight scatter and glare up above
- Hotspots concentrated in parallel with projector
- Great distance
April 10, 2015
Conditions:
8:30PM, 55F, dry roads, 3-4 lane highways.
I just wanted to update after driving around with the HID 4300K Philips. I had several factory equipped HID cars pull up along side me on the highway at night, and I passed a few others. Comparing the beam pattern of the HID in our headlights to those of Lexus, BMW, Range Rover, Mazda, Audi, and Infiniti I felt the hotspots weren't a big deal. In fact, some of the factory cars had hotter spots in the foreground. IMO, hotspots are bad as they create strain on the eye with too much contrast on the other parts of the road you're supposed to pay attention to. The hotspots from the Highlander headlights with HID bulbs were middle of the road comparable to Lexus, BMW, and Mazda. The flattest, most even pattern in HID came from the Range Rover. Audi depends on if it's LED or HID, and it's tough to tell which cars are HID with LED accents and which are LED when you're on a highway trying to pay attention to traffic. Glare was the same. Oncoming traffic displayed as much glare as what the HL shows with HIDs in the headlights. Just some food for thought. Looking at the beam from all angles, and the head-on perspective for any glare, you'd be hard pressed to realize this was an aftermarket product. Those telling us that HIDs are bad in our headlights are blowing things out of proportion. It isn't the most refined setup, but it isn't the glaring, terrible, pervasive aftermarket upgrade they claim it to be.
Despite not having as many lumens as HID, I think the LED have the closest to stock lighting characteristics, but with more lumens and a whiter color.
If you're looking for the brightest headlights, the Philips 4300K HID is the one to pick with the 5000K not too far off. If you're looking to improve your visibility, keep costs down, improve the esthetics, maximize longevity, keep heat down, and make installation simpler (all while keeping as close to stock beam patterns as possible) the LED from XenonDepot is what you want. I hope this makes your decision making process a lot easier when it comes to which light to choose if you decide to upgrade.