14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Finally, a quality built fan
Date of Review: Sep 21, 2006
The Bottom Line: You get what you pay for, and this product is worth the price.
When a rare heat wave hit the San Diego reigon this summer (2006), stores were unprepared for the stampede of shoppers searching for relief from the heat. The aisles of Target, Home Depot, Lowe's etc... were stripped bare of anything that moved air. Walmart, however, had a ready supply of made-in-china, off-brand specials stationed in clusters everywhere throughout the store. The first fan ($40) I bought rattled, the second one (same $40 model) wouldn't turn on at all, and the third ($50) worked for a few days then rattled as well.
Finally I broke down and chucked out $65 at Target for their last remaining Honeywell tower fan. What a relief! It really is true that you get what you pay for.
Setup
All the walmart fans required an awkward assembly process which required using a screwdriver. The Honeywell comes with a stand that can be used with or without an optional riser to increase the height, with the disclaimer that using it at the higher setting may cause instability. I've had no problems so far. The stand assembles with simple thumb screws.
Controls
The fan features a number of electronic control settings. The control panel is logically laid out and attractive, and the LCD display is easy to read, although it could have used a backlight for reading at night. You can set the fan's timer using up/down buttons, which is nicer than having just one button to push to cycle through the settings. You can also set the fan's thermostat in 2-degree up/down increments, or use both of these features at once. However, once you've set a temperature, you can't change it if you're also using the timer function unless you reset both. The display shows the current room temperature, but it tends to read 4 degrees or so higher than my central AC's nearby digital thermostat. After changing the setting on the thermostat, the display goes back to showing the ambient temperature, which is nice. The thermostat has a built in two-degree "swing" like real AC/heat thermostats do, so that unlike the walmart fans, it won't cycle on/off in 10 second intervals if the temperature is on the border of a degree and fluctuates slightly. The fan also has an oscillation setting and ionizer, both of which are controlled by the same button. The options are: oscillate/oscillate ion/ion/off. It would have been nicer to separate these two functions, but their combination makes some since in light of the appearance that the ionizer seems to be an afterthought. Fan speed is controlled by the power button, which cycles through high, medium, low, off, and speed is indicated by an icon in the display. Unfortunately, increasing the fan speed requires cycling through the options past "off," so all your other settings are lost. The fan has a breeze function which can either alternate between the current and the next lowest speed (or off, if on low) or randomly cycle speeds. Above the LCD, a small clear bubble houses a yellow power light, remote sensor and red remote indicator, and green ionizer indicator.
Remote
The fan's remote conveniently docks on the fan itself, so when you use the nicely built in carrying handle to move it around, you can take the remote with you. It snaps in securely, unlike other fan remotes which just sit on top. The range on the remote isn't fantastic, but it works OK as long as you point it at the sensor. The buttons on the remote have a nice feel to them, although the remote itself is shaped rather oddly, like a mini UFO. You can control power/speed, oscillation/ionizer, and breeze mode from the remote- and although you can change the timer or thermostat setting, you can't activate either mode from the remote. For example, to use the thermostat, you must walk up to the fan and push the mode button, then you can use the up/down keys on the remote to change the temperature. Even this is not terribly useful, since you can't see what temperature you've set it to unless you're looking at the LCD, which would require you to get up anyway. For this price, it might have been nice to include an LCD on the remote, but no product is perfect. Finally, the remote has an unusual flashlight function that activates a bright white LED next to the IR transmitter. This is surprisingly useful, but requires you to hold down the button to keep the light on.
Performance
The volume of air this unit moves is impressive. It's about as loud as any other tower fan, but still quieter than most standard table/floor fans. It has a washable filter on the back, but don't expect this fan to do the job of a HEPA filter- the mesh is very coarse. I like that it's washable (it's plastic) and it does seem to do a good job of keeping the fan blades and housing from getting dusty. The fan shuts off automatically when the back is off to keep you from hurting yourself doing something stupid. The ionizer is of questionable value, I don't notice any difference with it on/off. In fact, from peering into the housing with a flashlight, I can't find anything identifiable as an ionizer anywhere. It certainly doesn't have those big metal plates the Sharper Image units do, but those have been proven to do more harm than good anyway. Because the ionizer awkwardly shares a button with the oscillation feature and has an LED instead of an icon on the display, I'd say it was probably the manufacturer's last-minute addition to try to be trendy. All in all, I've been impressed by the quality and operation of the fan so far, and it's been squeak/rattle/defect free for the several months I've owned it.
Appearance
The housing is built of thick, rigid plastic, and doesn't vibrate much during operation. The buttons are silver and the grill has a faux-chrome surround, making it look more upscale than the competition. The overall design shows the engineers at Kaz (the company who actually makes these and markets them under the Honeywell name) put some thought into its aesthetics, but it might not fit everyone's taste. I thought it looked rather evil for the first few weeks I had it.
In conclusion, despite some interface awkwardness, I'm pleased with the features, design and performance of this fan, and can easily recommend it over its competition. It is worth the additional cost over cheaper fans.
