Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'll give it to Dyson... They've taken a very boring household appliance and made it sexy and cool. The design of the AM05 is super slick, elegant and very futuristic. But at $400, a cool design is not enough; to justify the price point it needs to drastically outperform standard fans and space heat by orders of magnitude. Sadly, it doesn't even come close. The packaging is quite minimal and the only assembly required is to pop the fan in the base which takes a few seconds. On the design... For such a sexy form factor, I do not know why on earth they would have a black electrical cord for the white/silver fan... I would be willing to bet that everyone that chooses the white/silver fan would prefer a white or grey electrical cord. On the performance... The "cool mode" simply blows air and doesn't actually cool. The product description and product packaging are incredibly vague (I suspect intentionally) about what the cooling function actually is. After using it for a while, I didn't notice it actually cooling the air at all, so I decided to run a test. I measured the temperature in my room with a precise thermometer. I then put the Dyson in "cool mode" blowing air directly onto the thermometer from around 2 feet away. The temperature did not change- not even by a fraction of a degree. The fan has 10 wind speed settings- 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. When set to 10, I find the fan quite loud actually. That is, loud compared to my $45 Lasko Pedestal Fan (that also oscillates and came with a remote!). Also, compared to my Lasko the Dyson wind power is significantly less. The Dyson at 10 is comparable to Lasko at medium. The Dyson also has a much smaller "wind target region" compared to the Lasko which is less effective. The oscillation function works well and the fan can be tilted up or down. Note, the magnetic remote usually falls off when tilting in either direction- a slight annoyance and a detail you would expect to be covered given the price of the fan. If you like cool yourself in bed, you'll likely need to place it on a small table as it is too short to reach a bed, even when tilted. In "heat mode," I did notice a slight burning smell on first use, but it quickly went away and did not return on subsequent uses. The heating works quite well and in a test, it brought the temperate of my bedroom from 62 degrees to 72 degrees in around 20 minutes when set to 10 and with oscillation turned on. In my living room, the "heat mode" consistently blew my fuse when used while watching the television (it didn't in cool mode though). Overall, this Dyson is less performant than both fans and heaters that can cost less than $50. Unless money isn't an issue and you care more about the visual appeal of the fan than how well it works, this just isn't a good buy.