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Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
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This fan's flat design makes it small, lightweight, and portable, without sacrificing power. Its dial can be set freely, offering a range of speeds.
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Whether it's in your home or at your office, desk fans can be a real quality of life improvement. Desk fans are an energy-efficient solution to a home air conditioner (at least up to 90°F), and they can help you stay cool at work when the office isn't quite chilled down to your liking.
Whether a desk fan is a constant companion at your desk or provides you with white noise and a comfortable breeze as you fall asleep, finding the perfect one for your needs can be tough. To find out the best desk fans for different situations, we brought them all into our labs for testing, so we can recommend the best performers.
Based on our lab testing, the Vornado Pivot Personal Air Circulator(available at Amazon for $19.88) is the best overall desk fan, offering the perfect mixture of wind speed, quiet operation, variable settings, and aesthetics. While it is our favorite overall, there are a lot of great picks on this list you may like even better.
These are the best desk fans we tested ranked, in order:
Vornado Pivot Personal Air Circulator
Iris USA Woozoo SC15 Globe Fan
TTKTK Desk Fan
Aikoper Twin Turbo
EasyAcc Desk Fan
Lasko Platinum Desktop Wind Tower Fan
Holmes Mini High Velocity Fan
Honeywell QuietSet Mini Tower Table Fan
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
The Vornado Pivot was the best overall desk fan, with a small footprint and settings that offer a good mix of strong breeze and quiet operation
Best Overall
Vornado Pivot Personal Air Circulator
It should come as no surprise that Vornado blows away its competition, just as it has on our round-up of full-size fans.
This time around, the Pivot Personal Air Circulator manages to check all the boxes of what makes a desk fan great. With its three speeds, it is capable of providing the strongest breeze of the bunch and, for circumstances where you need to keep noise to a minimum, two lower settings are each appropriate for an open-office environment.
At around $20, the Pivot offers a lot of power for its price. The Pivot also comes with Vornado’s five-year warranty—a process that online reviewers claim is straightforward and easy to complete.
Hello! I'm Mark Brezinski, and I've been testing and reviewing consumer tech for over a decade. At Reviewed, I’ve developed testing for dozens of different categories, from smart phones to headphones to full-size fans and more.
The Tests
Credit: Reviewed / Naidin Concul-Ticas
Point A was directly in front of the fan, point B was 3 ft. away, and point C was 6 ft. away. We also took measurements 4 ft. away from points B and C (points D, E, F, and G).
To test fans, we set up a closed-off testing area to isolate our measurements from any external airflow. Once the fan was up to speed, we took measurements at seven different points in the room: three directly in front of the fan, and four to the sides.
We measured average wind speed at each of these points during a 30-second window and calculated the volume of air being moved (cubic feet per minute, or CFM). We performed the same tests again with oscillation on (if applicable), and recorded the average air movement at each measurement point over five full oscillation cycles. On average, we recorded desk fan wind speeds between 3 and 21 mph.
While a fan’s ability to move air is its primary function, we also tested other aspects of the fans’ performances as well. We measured how much energy the fan required to run at full capacity, both with and without oscillation. We utilized our headphone testing lab to isolate exactly how much noise the fan makes at each of its speeds. We also tested how easy and intuitive each fan’s interface felt to use.
What You Should Know Before Buying A Desk Fan
How Do You Clean A Desk Fan?
While desk fans can have all kinds of different designs, you can clean most of them in the same way. Start by unplugging it, then remove the grating covering the blades. From there you can use a vacuum to get rid of the majority of dust clinging to the blades, then use a damp paper towel to mop up the rest.
Do You Need A Fan With Oscillation?
In short, no. Oscillation is where the fan rotates on its base to help spread a breeze around. If you’re trying to disperse smoke or provide air coverage for a wide area, oscillation might make sense for a full-size fan. Desk fans, on the other hand, rarely have the power necessary to leverage oscillation to any particularly meaningful end. Our measurements showed almost all wind movement had dispersed after a few feet.
While oscillation did allow some desk fans to distribute airflow across a wider area, the amount of cooling breeze felt by a single, stationary person will be greatly reduced. Almost across the board, we recorded speeds of less than 2 mph at our closest side measurement points (spots D and F in the diagram). At the two points flanking the 6-foot mark (spots E and G in the diagram), the breeze was barely perceptible and didn't even register on our anemometer.
Desk fans use even less—about 1% of the energy of a full-size fan. We find this is true across the board, so energy efficiency isn’t a meaningful differentiator between the fans we tested.
When Should You Use An Air Conditioner Instead Of A Fan?
Given how energy efficient fans are, in almost every instance you should use one instead of a traditional air conditioner. The only exception to that rule is when temperatures are above 90°F, because at that point or hotter they actually exacerbate the effects of heat stress.
Other Desk Fans We Tested
Iris Woozoo SC15
The Iris USA Woozoo SC15 globe fan might not be the quietest fan on this list, but it does offer a great range of functionality. In addition to its five different speed settings, timed mode, and oscillation, this fan also has a breeze mode, which attempts to mimic a natural pattern of wind by smoothly cycling through different speed settings. Whether this mode is serenely calming or distracting is up to the user, but as it’s an option you don’t have to enable, we like its inclusion regardless.
Unlike many other desk fans, this one does come with a remote. The remote has a nice layout with clear labeling and responsive buttons that allows access to all of the fan’s functionality.
This fan isn’t as portable as the battery-operated options on this list as it does require a power outlet, but its small footprint and high power makes it an excellent addition to any desk.
This one surprised us. When we initially saw its wood-patterned plastic exterior, a mix of cheap and decent-looking components, and dial with six positions yet only three different speeds, we thought it would be a dud.
Despite all this, the TTKTK Desk Fan surprised us with its impressive wind speed, though its impressive throughput does create a lot of noise. Fortunately, the lower speeds offer a better breeze-to-noise ratio for an office setting.
We like its vertical adjustability, which allows you to angle it appropriately at a variety of distances.
Pros
High speed
Adjustable angle
Cons
Cheap components
Loud
Aikoper USB Desk Fan
This little USB-powered fan has one of the more interesting form factors we’ve seen, resembling a piece of elbow macaroni with a tiny fan stuck inside. Its metal base is touch-sensitive and will power on with one tap, switch to a lower speed with two, and turn off again with three.
While the Aikoper Twin Turbo fan actually had the slowest wind speed out of everything we tested, it was also the smallest and quietest by a large margin. We think this fan is perfect for someone who doesn’t necessarily want a lot of breeze.
Pros
Touch-operated
Quiet
Cons
Slow
EasyAcc Desk Mini Fan
During testing, we were surprised at the wind speed we were able to get out of this incredibly lightweight, USB-powered fan. At its highest speed, it competed with our top-performers, but its lowest settings provide decent wind without much noise.
Aside from its flat form factor and battery-powered portability, the EasyAcc Desk Fan is notable for being the most customizable—its dial operates like a dimmer switch, allowing you to finely adjust its speed.
As with other USB-powered options on this list, the EasyAcc needs a separate adaptor if you want to plug it into the wall.
The Lasko Platinum is a small tower fan that has an interesting design, full of curves and asymmetry. You can twist the top and bottom halves independently to help share the breeze with a friend, and it also has an oscillation mode to cover an even wider area.
The Lasko Platinum might not have as many settings as other fans on this list, but it covers its bases well enough, providing everything from a decently high wind speed to a moderate, quiet breeze.
That being said, on most settings this fan is on the louder side—it’s definitely more for those who favor power over quiet operation.
This tiny fan doesn’t offer much more than an on/off switch and 10 mph winds. We like its design, which looks like a miniature version of an industrial floor fan. It's also quite small—it’s impressive how much wind you get out of its relatively quiet, 4-inch fan blade.
The one downside is it creates some minor vibrations. Depending on your desk, this may be enough to rattle a coffee mug full of pens. Otherwise, this is a small, simple, inexpensive desk fan that will likely meet the majority of users’ needs.
Right out of the box, we were a bit confused about this fan. It features a tower design with a single, small fan centered vertically inside. There’s quite a lot of space between the fan and its top, as well as the fan and the controls, leaving us wondering exactly why it’s so tall.
Much like the full-size QuietSet we reviewed for our other fan round-up, this version didn’t put up a particularly impressive performance. This fan seems to be aimed at consumers who want a quiet desk fan with plenty of options, but a number of other fans we tested are much quieter. This fan also doesn’t impress with wind speed.
While it does have some features we don’t see on all other models, like a timer mode, they don’t make up for its lack of performance. There are better fans on this list.
Our team is here for one purpose: to help you buy the best stuff and love what you own. Our writers, editors, and lab technicians obsess over the products we cover to make sure you're confident and satisfied. Have a different opinion about something we recommend? Email us and we'll compare notes.