Bionaire BTF001 Ultra Slim Tower Fan review – a little too slender?

The Bionaire BTF001 is one of the most stylish tower fans I tested, mainly due to its tall, slender appearance. In appealing black and grey plastic, its thin cylindrical design is simultaneously understated and visually appealing, contrasting with some of the chunkier designs seen elsewhere.

This has a couple of drawbacks. The first is that there’s no remote, and we can’t help but wonder if that’s partly because there’s no space to store it. The other problem with it being both tall and thin is that it’s pretty wobbly, especially when on full blast and rotating. Presumably, that’s why it has such a big base, making its slenderness more of a benefit to appearance than practicality.

Performance

On top of that, the thin design does come at the expense of raw power. Measuring with the anemometer right next to the air vents recorded a flow of 4.1m/s, dropping to 0.5m/s two metres away – that’s lower than all its competitors except the Honeywell Quiet HY254E1, which obviously has deliberately made a trade off between power and sound. The Bionaire BTF001, on the other hand, has made no such pact, and reaches the pretty noisy heights of 77.1db when measured up close, dropping to 50.5db two metres away.

It does have a night mode, but I’m not entirely convinced it’s one that offers a restful night’s sleep, as with some of the Honeywell models I’ve looked at, night mode cycles through the fan’s three speeds rather than offering a consistent background hum. Nonetheless, at its quietest in night mode, it measured 71.8db immediately next to the fan, dropping to 44.5db two metres away – still louder than the other fans we compared, but not too much in it. It oscillates, allowing the whole room to get cooled, and the angle of air flow from the vents themselves is a good 70 degrees – higher than average.

Conclusion

It’s amongst the most stylish of the fans I’ve seen, but in terms of cooling power, it’s relatively weak, and counterintuitively it’s also amongst the noisiest. Whether these are concessions made to its attractive design is debatable, but it probably isn’t a sacrifice worth making – especially when you consider the space saved with the thin cylindrical design is cancelled out by the wide base it needs to prevent it falling over. Check out our guide to the best tower fans for all our award-winning alternatives.