I have had the GermGuardian AC4825 for a few months now, but have not written a review on it, because it’s really hard to assess the effectiveness of such a product. Well, i now have evidence that it really works.
One of my better half’s student has acute nasal allergy. She would be sneezy for 5 minutes when she enters the room, possibly due to dust. Yesterday, we tried turning on the GermGuardian, and within a few minutes, she was relieved of her runny nose. Her mum was so impressed that she wanted to get the GermGuardian too.
Here’s how i got mine: I bought it on eBay for US$79 and got a friend to bring it over from the US. I first got to know about this product through Amazon, because it is the best seller in the Home Charcoal Air Purifier category. It is sold for US$99.99 on Amazon most of the time, but the price does dip down to around US$80 occasionally.
Unfortunately, the dimensions are too large to qualify for the free AmazonGlobal shipping. I took note of the weight and dimensions of the box in which it came, and it weighs 5.5kg while measuring 23cm X 32.5cm X 62cm. If you were to calculate its volumetric weight according to ezbuy’s formula, it would be 9.3kg, which means the shipping fee through ezbuy would be a whopping S$76. On the other hand, Amazon’s shipping fee would come up to about S$80, which is about on par.
To use the GermGuardian in Singapore, you need a step down transformer, which you buy from Amazon as well. The power consumption is merely 55W, so a 200W transformer will do fine. Given the price and performance of the GermGuardian, especially if you can find someone to hand carry it from the US, i would recommend it despite the slight inconvenience of having to use a transformer.
There are plentiful supply of third party consumables (the charcoal pre-filter and HEPA filter) for the GermGuardian on Amazon as well, but i went the extreme route of buying from Taobao a replacement filter that needs DIY work done to be trimmed down to the right size to fit into the GermGuardian.
I suppose there are many Korean and Chinese products that are similarly priced, but if you want one product that is tested and endorsed by American consumers, this is it.
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