Challenge 6 Litre Portable Air Cooler Fan - White

Product Information

The three-speed fan gives you options from subtle breeze to full-on gusting, and on the lowest setting it’s quiet enough that it won’t disturb you while you work. What matters more is that it dishes out a consistently good, cooling airflow, with the louvres shifting side to side to spread it over a wider area.

The biggest bug-bear with portable air conditioners – and the most common gripe found in online reviews across the board – is their noise levels. You might also want to consider whether you want your portable air conditioner to come with a timer, remote control, or WiFi connectivity.

However, in reality, even the best portable air conditioners are both bulky and heavy, weighing from 20kgs for a smaller 'lightweight' air conditioner to 30kgs+ for more powerful units. With some air coolers, there’s a risk of adding to the room’s humidity, which can be a problem if it already suffers from excess humidity. In our tests, we found the best portable air conditioners, used in a well-sealed room, could reduce the temperature by up to 10 degrees in under an hour. As an electrical appliance, portable air conditioners will cost money to run, with larger and more powerful units (that means a higher BTU) generally using more energy than smaller units.

Other good points include an easy-to-fill water tank, which you can fill from the top, and simple one-button controls, where you just tap to cycle through the speeds. Personally, we'd sacrifice some chill (and save a lot of cash) and opt for the Duux Whisper Flex Ultimate Fan over the North Smart every time. That's a good size for most homes, but there are also 8000, 9000, 10000, 12000, and 14000 BTUoptions availble for larger room sizes and open plan spaces.

uk/browse/appliances/fans-heaters-and-dehumidifiers/air-conditioning/c:29440/brands:challenge/" on this server. It means running costs for the AEG are higher – as is the initial outlay compared to the Meaco – but, our reviewer did find they didn't need this unit running for as long to cool down a space. However, when temperatures inside the home really soar, even the best fan may not be able to cut it, and instead a portable air con unit will offer far superior cooling powers. The Russell Hobbs RHPAC11001 can do just that, offering 4-in-1 use thanks to air con, fan, dehumidifier, and heater functionality. That's because they circulate the air and the breeze against your skin helps heat and stickiness to evaporate, therefore making you feel cooler.

If you're spending this much on an appliance – and one that's going to take up a good deal of storage space in the home – then you might want it to do more than just cool. A window kit can be a bit of a faff to install the first time – especially as very few windows are a uniform size so a generic kit can sometimes fall short – but once installed you can leave it in place for subsequent use. We tested several portable air conditoners where the noise they emitted resembled the sound of a train engine chugging – a noisy, mechanical whirring noise that chopped and changed and soon drove us to distraction, making us want to switch off the unit off as soon as we possibly could. As well as the usual three fan speeds, it has the same Natural and Sleep modes as the brand’s tower fan, the former varying the fan speed for an outdoor breeze effect, the latter slowly ramping down the speed as you doze off.As the water on the pad or membrane evaporates it cools the air around it, and this cooler air is then blown outwards into the room by the fan. Similarly, investing in a unit with a timer function gives you the ability to programme the unit to turn off a few hours after you've got into bed, or to turn on during the hottest part of the day to keep the house cool for pets, or reduce the temperature before you get home from work. A stylish mobile air conditioner that offers 3-in-1 functionality, WiFi connectivity, and comes with remote control and window kit included, the Duux North 9K Smart Air Conditioner promises a lot.

Whilst the fan won't actively lower the room temperature like the North Smart can, all those who've tested the Duux Whisper Fan now swear by it's oh-so-silent 'natural-feeling' breeze, reaching for it as a go-to sleep aid whenever the mercury soars. Third party reviews mention this model being basic – and noisy – but still doing the job of lowering the temperature to a more bearable level. AEG states the Comfort 6000 Portable Air Conditioner can cool a 13-18m² space, which is a somewhat small estimation considering its 9000BTU cooling capacity, but that does mean it sucks the heat from a room in no time at all, thoroughly impressing our tester with the volume of cold air that gushed from the appliance the minute it was switched on. This cooler is designed to humidify as it cools, and it also has a fan-only function if you don’t need the extra chill.

Very often an air con unit will come with additional functionality, usually a fan setting and dehumidifier function. A portable air con unit uses both a fan and a compressor to cool the air, and that's a noisy process, meaning you're likely to have to turn the TV up quite a few notches if you have one running in a living space. And its curved front, minimal design, and gloss finish all make it far more unobtrusive in a room than you might expect. After studying Print Design at Winchester School of Art, Amy spent multiple years working in the interior industry, including styling and visual merchandising for many well-known brands.