Honeywell SilentComfort Permanent, True HEPA Air Purifier, 18155

This air purifier is great. After much research I finally decided on this one and I'm glad I did. The ability to clean the filter myself made this a no-brainer for me. I like that it's shaped triangular because it tucks behind our recliner well. Per the instructions we keep it away from the walls and other things but like I said, the shape makes it easier to hide. It's not perfect, I mean I still gotta dust the room and all but I can tell that it's not as dusty when I do. As far as noise level, at the lowest level it's pretty quite but the sound level jumps up significantly on medium and especially on high. It works out good though; when I leave my bedroom in the morning I set it to high or medium for the day to maximize purification and when I come home I turn it on low or off. I normally keep it on low or medium at night because we like white noise when we sleep.Pros:+Quite (on low setting)+Powerful motor that really moves the air+I can clean the filter with a vacuum myself+Conveniently shaped to tuck awayCons:-Loud on medium and high setting-Large unitOverall I'm pleased with this unit. I bought a filtered purifier for the living room and I wish I'd bought another one of these instead. I've already replaced the filter on that one a couple of times and it's pricey.

I got this filter the end of March to keep odors/molds/pollens/dust/allergens down in my bedroom. When I took the HEPA filter itself out of the plastic wrapping, I noticed a strong plastic smell. I decided to put up with it as it faded after a few weeks. At that point, I was relatively happy with the filter: It had a nice quiet white noise, and it captured odors better than other HEPA filters I tried. I only had a couple minor complaints. One was that it was louder than I would like and than some other filters are (even at the lowest setting). The other was that after leaving the filter on High for a few minutes, it refused to change settings or turn off until I unplugged it for a few minutes. (The other settings' lights would come on, but the High light would still be dimly lit, and the fan speed stayed near the high speed.)Well, today I walked in to my room to discover that the filter had filled my room with a burning plastic smell. (I suspect it was related to the glitch I mentioned above, because I did have the filter on high for a while before changing it to low and walking out, and I didn't think to pay attention to make sure the mode properly changed. Regardless, I am now extremely unhappy with the filter.)UPDATE: 7/12/12: Kaz (owner of Honeywell) customer support had me ship the filter back at a $50 cost to me in order for them to send me a replacement. Checking back, the shipping address they gave me apparently had a typo, so now I don't know if I'm out the value of the filter *and* the shipping. So now I am displeased with the unit and their customer service as well.UPDATE: 8/3/12: The shipment got through and I got my replacement a week ago. I am improving my review from one to three stars because, despite the trouble I went through with the first filter and replacing it, the replacement did not have the computer glitch nor the plastic odor, so I will assume I just had a lemon. Without those problems, it really is a decent, quiet filter that doesn't make a draft, and it does a good job getting rid of odors.UPDATE: 8/16/13: After a year of having a working filter, there are a few things I don't like about it: First, it doesn't really seem to be effective unless it's on the medium setting (even when it was new). Second, while it's a lot quieter than other HEPA filters, it's by no means quiet unless you're using it on the lowest setting. Third, it tends to make a vibrating or clicking noise that doesn't go away till I reposition it, adjust the top cover, make sure nothing's touching it, and move it around a bit. That sound is annoying when trying to sleep, and it's annoying to try to "fix" in the middle of the night too.

After installing the pre-filter and turning this unit on, it would not turn off.Also the fan sound did not change between high, med, low, and it had an odor that at first I attributed to "new car smell" syndrome, but the next day the odor was much stronger and it began to appear electrical, so I returned it. The only reason I gave it as much as 2 stars is because Amazon is sending an immediate replacement.FOOTNOTE:The replacement also arrived defective! As soon as I took the purifier out of the box it was apparent that it had been assembled incorrectly. Major parts on the housing did not fit properly and there were large gaps between the main housing parts. It looked like it had been assembled by children. It's inconceivable that anyone would ship such a mess and not expect to get it back.Now for the kicker... I also bought a bunch of replacement filters from an Amazon partner that were delivered yesterday. There is nothing wrong with the filters, other than they are useless to me now. Amazon told me I would have to contact the filter supplier direct and pay the filter shipping charges, for which they will ultimately reimburse me.Considering that all of the above has taken hours of my time, and tomorrow I still have to work out the replacement filter return with that supplier, I am no longer a happy customer of Amazon.For the transactions above, and for nothing but "apologies" from Amazon for the defective purifiers, and having to ask the filter supplier to take back the filters, I now wish I could re-rate both this air purifier AND Amazon with ZERO stars.This may well be my last purchase from Amazon.EDIT April 16, 2012A follow-up by Amazon has restored my faith. Amazon rep (Charles P) was very helpful in resolving the above, researched on his own and found a different model air filter using the same prefilter, shipped and received in 2 days, and just as important, followed up repeatedly in a professional manner. Amazon finally came to the rescue in a way that left me completely satisfied. I'm still leaving two stars for the air purifier because of the 2 defectives I received, but in the end, Amazon itself is still a 5 star company!