Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've owned around 10 portable heaters over the years. Like all small heaters of this type, the thermostat is basically worthless and shifts all the time. Setting a temperature pre-set is always relative to what the heater "imagines" the actual temperature is. I would ignore this since it's fairly ubiquitous to space heaters in general, but it's particularly discouraging in a unit this expensive. Just know going in that there are no temperature accurate space heaters out there no matter what you pay. The good: Almost completely silent operation for a fan driven heater even on high. Looks very nice and somewhat stylish. The so-so: Does a slightly worse job heating than my $40 Lasko fan-driven oscillating tower heater, but I'm okay with the silent trade-off as the Lasko is anything but silent. The bad: Required running for 3 hours OUTSIDE (literally connected to an outlet near the door and stuck it out in the elements) because of the extremely strong, headache-inducing odor when first unboxed. I nearly returned it for this reason just because it's insulting that a heater this expensive should require the customer to perform the break-in that should have been done by the manufacturer. What are they thinking? I read the other reviews that cited this, and the moment I opened the box I was hit with an extremely strong plastic smell. I knew it would be a problem the moment I did. Bottom line: I'm keeping it it but I wouldn't buy a second one (or any Vornado model) unless I could buy retail and easily return it if need be. I suspect quality issues like I described are why you don't see Vornado in stores nearly as much. The stores probably got sick of the constant returns and complaints. EDIT: Changed my mind about this heater and raised it to 4 stars. After 2 years, it's still going strong. The first few days of odor have long since been beaten by consistent, quiet heat. Would buy again.