Sharp FU-40SE-K

Great device!It's simple,effective,safety,elegant,reliable.I would describe it as perfect for health improvement

Brought on ebay from Sharps largest supplier, Firstclass business solutions for a fair price of £104.98 including delivery on 22nd June so have had for just over 1 month. The unit arrived promptly and the setup was very easy. It was simply a case of opening the front cover which is released easily using two tabs at the bottom which you simply depress then lift the cover off. You have to remove the front cover for two reasons, the first is to attach the stand if you are planning of having the unit free standing and the second is to remove the cellophane wrapping from the pre-filter, hepa filter and carbon (Deodourisation) filter. The stand is then attached using the screws provided. Setup was very quick.

The unit has a three stage filter, The prefilter, then the stamina power carbon filter and finally the hepa filter. The pre-filter can be vacuumed clean periodically to get rid of the build up of dust and boy does this baby catch a lot of dust, I was surprised at just how much must have been floating in my air. Leaving the unit running full speed all the time, u will find that when it comes to your weekly or daily dusting of the room you get hardly any dust not even on the television screen which is an infamous dust collector. The stamina power carbon filter is for odour removal, as I have said in the bad points, this I am not impressed with. I only smoke three cigars a day but it does not seem to completely get rid of any smell which was my primary purpose for buying the unit, however on the plus side it does suck that smoke in pretty damn quick which means furniture doesnt go brown like it would without a purifier. Probably for a cigarette smoker the unit would have adequate odour removal too though.

The unit has four fan speeds for extraction. The first setting is silent, and it is just that, on this setting it will change the air at a rate of 30m3 per hour. On this setting it only uses 4w of electricity so you get about 10 days for one unit of electricity. The second setting is the median setting, this setting is still very quiet and is not even as noisy as the average PC systems fan. This mode uses 10w of electricty so you will get 100 hours for ya unit of electricity and the extraction rate is 117m3 per hour. The third setting is the high setting, this has a noise level I would liken to a deskfan on its lower setting. Its extraction rate is 180m3 per hour and this setting uses 21w of electricity so only 47 hours for your unit of electricity, but good value none the less when the average unit costs 8p. The final setting is the max setting, this has a noise level which is about the same as a deskfan on full speed. It can be distracting on this setting if you are watching television but you do eventually get use to it. The extraction rate for this setting is 240m3 per hour and the power consumption 39w so even on full speed you are getting 25 hours for your unit of electricity so you just as well say the maximum running cost is just 8p per day.

At the top of the unit there is an led display, this shows which setting is currently in use, which timer has been selected and has a light in the centre which switches between green, amber and red to indicate the current air quality.

You can set the unit to 'Auto operation' this will switch between the mentioned fan speeds based upon the air quality it is detecting. It can literally detect that you are smoking and will switch to the fastest fan setting a few seconds after you have lit up provided you have the unit positioned close to the area of the room you smoke, which is recommended.

The unit comes with a remote control, on here you have buttons to switch between the various fan settings manually with one button to switch to each extraction rate with each depress. Another button for the silent mode, another button for the max mode. There is a button specifically for smoking which will put the fan in maximum mode for 10 mins then switch back to automatic after. The pollen button if selected will operate in high mode for 10 minutes then cycle between median and high every 20 minutes. The timer button when depressed cycles between a 1hr setting, a 4hr setting and an 8hr setting after which time the unit goes into standby. Personally I would have found it more useful for it to return to auto mode opposed to switching the unit off. Finally there are four buttons for the plasma claster facility which I will come to next, there is an auto setting, a "+ -+-" setting, a "----" setting and an off. The remote control has a good range, and you don't need to necessarily face the unit in order to use it.

The Plasma Cluster Ion facility is suppose to send positive and negative ions into the room, these attack things like odour molecules, mould fungus and germs etc. My only complaint is that the plasma cluster has an odour of its own which I personally don't like. You wont find this odour mentioned in the sales pitch but it is mentioned in the manual in the troubleshooting section. In the clean mode (+-+-) the unit will operate constantly in clean mode and release the same amount of positive and negative ions into the air, the refresh mode (----) it claims will bring an air quality similar to forests or waterfalls where there are plenty of negative ions. The automatic mode obviously switches between the two automatically and finally you can switch it off but in the case of my unit the smell that is released is still the same.

The units filters have a claimed life of 5 years, there is an indicator light which will turn on in 5 years automatically to remind you. This is obviously based upon on general usage. Obviously the unit cannot be used in locations such as the bathroom or kitchen.

Maintainance is low, just simply vacuuming the odour and dust sensor and vacuuming the pre-filter which will also suck some dust off of the carbon filter. You are not allowed to vacuum the carbon or hepa filter though. Replacement filters will set you back £90.01 and £4 for delivery directly from Sharp. I have been unable to find them anywhere else for purchase online but maybe someone else will have better luck. It seems a bit overpriced considering the unit only costs £105 and probably in 5 years time will cost even less. The cost is for both a stamina carbon filter and a hepa filter.

After sales service was poor from First Class Business Solutions as they did not respond to my query regarding the smell from the plasma cluster and whether or not is was meant to be so bad. I am resorting to emailing Sharp regarding it instead especially as even when the plasma cluster is switched off it still smells, so I may do a follow up to this review.

Overall, for the money the unit is good value for a stylish unit. Its odour removal capabilities are no good for cigar smokers but its dust extraction is second to none.

I hope you have found this useful