I'm serious, I absolutely love this fan. When I first got this fan, my initial thought was there's no way it would be worth the price tag when you can easily get your simple everyday pedestal fans pretty cheap. You know the ones I'm talking about, the cheap plastic ones most households have that surprisingly seem to last. But the moment I pulled this fan out of the box, I knew it was nothing like those cheap fans. It's built of quality materials and doesn't feel flimsy at all like those other fans.
Still, I thought that's not enough to overcome the higher price, but the more I used it and the more I tried it's many features, it slowly changed my mind and now I completely believe it's fully worth the price. The key here being the thought put into its design and most importantly, its versatility.
So let's talk about all the things that this fan is and can do, starting with just being a fan. Pull it out of its box, assemble the pedestal stand, insert the fan into the pedestal and plug it in. At this point it can do everything those cheap pedestal fans can do. Turning it on it blows air with multiple speed options and can oscillate. But even before we get to other features, it does these 2 basic features so much better. It doesn't just have 3 speeds, it has 5 speeds, plus a 'boost' option to really kick it in high gear. And it doesn't just go between oscillating or not, it has multiple oscillation settings to customize how much area you want it to cover, all the way up to 180 degrees! Of course it tilts up and down as well, but even this is better. It can easily be adjusted up or down by simply moving it into position, no tightening knobs required!
Yet we're still not ready to move onto other features, because we have to talk about the airflow. This is yet another thing that puts it well past other fans. The airflow is just so smooth, and quiet. It's tough to describe in words but as the air is blowing past my skin, it just feels velvety smooth, even at high speeds, whereas other fans will be choppy and turbulent. Did I mention it's quiet too?
With all the speeds it's plenty powerful too. This brings me to my one and only negative thing I have to say about this fan, and in truth it's not really that negative. Shark says you can feel the breeze up to 70 feet away. As I've learned over the years with all manufacturer claims, achievements like that tend to happen in ideal perfect world conditions. I tried several different conditions, outdoors and indoors. At over 20 feet the breeze was strong and easily felt, but outdoors if there's any kind of natural breeze at all you won't be able to feel the fan's breeze much past that. So I took it inside my house and placed it down one end of a hallway to practically create somewhat of a tunnel effect. As I slowly walked back, at 20 feet again it was a strong breeze, at 30 feet I could feel it but it was very light, at 40 feet I could barely feel anything at all, and that's if I stood still with my eyes closed and really concentrated. So I couldn't get anywhere close to that 70 foot claim. My guess is that it was achieved in some kind of wind tunnel. That said, I don't really have a use for a fan to be felt from 70 feet away. As strong as it was at even just 20 feet means its more than strong enough to cool you down in normal use cases, which for me will honestly be mostly in my garage when I'm working on my car in the summer or on the outdoor patio when grilling or guests are over.
Now though is when we get to all the cool stuff, no pun intended, that really brings in the value. I'm not even sure which feature to start with or what order I even like them in, so in no particular order, let's start with the fact that this isn't just a pedestal fan. It's also a table fan. With a simple push of a button, you can pull the fan out and the bottom splits into legs. This is what I meant by the thought put into the design. They literally incorporated the legs in a way that you never have to worry about attaching them or losing them, they're just always a part of the fan. And the plug for the power cord? There's 2! One at the bottom of the pedestal stand and one underneath hidden by the legs. Another well thought out design feature.
Speaking of that cord, all that cool design was really just icing on the cake, because you don't even need the cord all the time since this fan is cordless too! You don't realize how nice this is until you use this fan in multiple places and never have to worry about where to plug it in. Or stretching it out and creating a tripping hazard with the cord. So far it's hard pretty good battery life too.
While we're talking about moving it around, in yet another well thought out design feature, the back of the fan has a built-in handle that's perfectly designed into the body, making it even easier to move around, and it's not really that heavy either. This also makes it the perfect fan to take on camping trips, or weekends at the racetrack.
Since we're no longer tethered to a cord, we might have the fan further away from us, but don't worry, there's no need to get up every time you want to adjust the speed or turn the fan on or off, because this fan has a remote! I tested it during my wind distance check and it easily worked from over 40 feet away. You might be thinking, great, another small remote to lose, but Shark thought of this too, and made it to be able to magnetically attach to the back of the fan, I mean, how cool is that!
If all that wasn't enough to add up to getting your moneys worth, this last feature is what puts it over the top. The misting attachment. I didn't think I would love this thing more than I do after first trying it out. The 2 misters on the attachment produce a super fine mist, and that's without the fan even on. You could actually use the mister attachment on its own without the fan if you wanted. But putting it on the fan is where it's best. It very smoothly snaps into the front of the fan, so no water actually goest through any part of the fan itself, and as fine of a mist it creates without the fan on, once you turn the fan on too, well, all I can say is wow.
I know it almost sounds like I work for Shark but I promise you I don't. I rarely write reviews this positive, I just really, really love this fan and almost can't wait for the summer to really see the benefits of it. It's one of those products I struggle with trying to find something negative, like the fact that I couldn't replicate a 70 foot breeze distance, which really isn't a big deal at all to me. If I have to find one other thing to nitpick, it would be that the pedestal height can't be adjusted, but even that isn't really a big deal considering you can just pull the fan out of the pedestal and place it just about anywhere you want.
Overall, this fan is much more amazing than I initially thought it would be, so much more this review is amazingly long for something as simple as a fan. All this to say it's worth it though, you won't regret it.