I've been reading the net about best temperature for human eyes and came to conclusion that there is none. A human eye can adopt to a variety of light temperature from a very cool overcast sky to a very warm sunset. There is however consensus that cool lights are good for concentration while warm are good for relaxation.
Also I tried the white balance of cool whites with a camera and it turns out its quite close to white balance of camera flash that is supposed to match "daylight white"
At the end I'm staying with cool white just because I want my lights to match each other in temperature and cool white is most common tint.
Well said. I have to confess that I'm very bad at recognizing tint subtleties, whether in flashlight beams or anything else, come to that. I can see differences side by side, but a beam has to be very cool or warm for me to see it that way on its own. After much indecision I finally ordered the DQG Tiny (AAA) in NW, but I still wonder now if I shouldn't maybe have chosen CW for extra brightness. Oh well, I'm sure I'll like it 
I much prefer the neutral white. Cool white just looks blue to me.
It also depends on the application - for inside lighting (home/cabin/motorhome etc), I actually prefer a warm white - gives a cozy feeling - even neutral white is too cold for indoor use.
I used to wonder why they still make cool white LEDs - I thought everyone liked the neutrals, but I guess that there is a place for everything.
Be a boring old world if we all liked the same things!
Pete
+ 1
CRI? Guessing: Colour Rendition Index? :~
Ah, so that's why we can't come to an agreement 
Cool white for me. I use lights for night riding and CW appears brighter to my eyes.
Yep. You got it right . Except for the way you spelled color . 
neutral is OK as long as it stays Neutral!!
A bad example of neutral in market is Zebright, which should be labeled as warm. DRY 3C is best what I have seen neutral-wise.
i like cool white when im messing with friends lol.
i like neutral when outside at night or tailstanding a light in the house.
i like warm when im in a scary attic or basement. its soothing. :)
Brian
Also if less efficient I prefer warmer/daylight tint with higher CRI possible... with the maximum lumen output at the lowest price xD
Don't like the change of colors with cool lights the tings looks like kinda 2D for me
I prefer Cool-White, my favorite tint is 1C or 1A.
I don't like warmer tints because it reminds me incans...
Indoors or in a thrower I prefer a 1A or 1C cool. A warm LED just looks like crap indoors IMO and I just can't grow to like it. Outside I prefer a neutral like 3C tint between 4500-5000k. Like FX-32 said, warm emitters remind me too much of old dim incans.
A lot of "warm" tint lights try and replicate the temperature of incan lighting and I find that has way too much red/amber/orange... they all make everything too brown looking at first. Then after a few minutes my brain adjusts and re-centers around that color and it appears perfectly neutral (even though in the back of my mind I know its much warmer than high noon sunlight).
5000K is the perfect color for me. Its a little more pale-white than high noon sunlight, so its not way off... yet still appears very bright on account of the slight cool-ness.
Of all my warmer tint lights (including MAG ROPs and 1185 incans) the only one that continually impresses me with color tint is the Fenix LD25. Its the only one that exact-matches high-noon sunlight. Its a little (very very slight) more yellow than early morning sunlight, but by the time the sun is directly overhead the LD25 is like a small sun in the palm of my hand. I generally am not impressed with color tints... but this one impresses me more than any other. Its a moderately driven XPG so its a nice smooth beam. One of the things I can't stand about the XPG is that its color dramatically green-tint shifts when under driven in low output modes. With the LD25, its color shifts to a warmer yellow/amber (no-green) in the two low lumen modes, so this I think helps it give off a more "pleasing" light at low-lumen close range modes. Overall an outstanding light.
Thanks Jack, though I'm still a bit puzzled. Do Tint and CRI mean different things?
Yes they are different. Tint is a specific color temperature, expressed in Kelvins. CRI is a unitless value on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the color rendering abilities of high noon sunlight. I am not an expert on the subject however and could not tell you specifically how CRI is measured and quantified.
Wikipedia is your friend though for anything CRI and color temperature related.
The two terms are often confused because manufacturers sometimes use them interchangeably.
Ah.. Thanks kramer5150.
I don't want to highjack this thread, but I think some people and especially beginners confuse CRI attributes with tint attributes. With Cree emitters you normally have to go "warmer" to get better color rendition. More details on (high) CRI here and there are some high CRI Nichias sold here for a reasonable price for those who want to try them.
Then shine an incan . Or the Sun .
You will see that the color spectrums are different .
This can be a looong discussion .