Oreck XL Tabletop Professional Air Purifier

February 2009. As reviewer Ed Sherbenou, who runs Air-Purifier-Power.com, says a lot of the information about Oreck on the web is sheer advertising (we included one such "review," at Clean-Air-Today.com, as an edifying example). Based on his own observations, Sherbenou gives Oreck air cleaners extremely low scores (primarily because of their high ozone emissions). Two out of three owners of the Oreck XL Tabletop posting on Epinions defend this machine, though one says it's very noisy and another says it's difficult to clean. The review on YouTube is particularly helpful; you can hear this machine's noise at its highest speed and learn that cleaning it requires 24 hours of downtime (the Truman cell, which can be washed in water, has to be completely dry before it's reinserted). For the price, you'd clearly be better off with a higher-rated air cleaner such as the IQ Air HealthPro (*est. $750) or Alen A350 (*est. $400).

When evaluating Oreck air purifiers, many sources lump multiple models together, with only brief mention of individual machines. With this in mind, we found the most convincing review of Oreck air purifiers in general at the enthusiast site Air-Purifier-Power.com, and of the Oreck XL Tabletop Professional Air Purifier in particular from three owners posting at Epinions and an owner posting an eight-minute video to YouTube. The Oreck XL Tower and Oreck XL Tabletop are both evaluated in lab tests at Consumer Reports.