So I read they won a prize in Frankfurt. Advertised as "DE", which for Hella meant ellipsoid reflector with projector lens a while back, I decided to buy a pair of these.

Big dissapointment, no lens inside, just a reflector. It puts out a very irregular beam pattern with uneven beam colors, with hotspots and darkspots, and a lot of stray light. looking at them from the front, no matter how low you aim them, is unbearable. These are definitely very off road units, but the funny thing is that due to the stray light and uneveness they are not of much use.

Hella DE Xenon are driving lights meant to complement hi-beams. I think they would not be expected to come with sheilds or cut-off shield. I always thought that their beam pattern was pretty decent for a driving light. I have not seen them on cars in Europe, but seen a lot of Micro Xenons on SUV's. Seemed popular.

what about adding a home-made shield? or cover up the lower reflector completely?

I could not open up the units for one, and second it seems that the bulb and return wire would interfere with such a shield. I tried painting the lower half of the front lens with black and it did a nice job of blocking out the yellow glare but the lower beam pattern was still very uneven. I guess the units are just too small to do anything good with them.

Do you have pics of them? Are you going to sell them then? I could possibly be interested as I may have a use for them

Sorry Josch, already installed them in my X5 behind the lower grill. One good thing about them is they are so small they are not even noticed. It was really hard because I had to dismount the whole front bumper--about 25 nuts in all. There was a really good place for the ballasts to be afixed with screws and away from splash and pressure water. The wires also run inconspicuous. The only thing is that being xenon the illumination is not up to par.