I tried this tiny $35 desk heater and it heated my entire room

If you're after a mini yet effective best space heater, the Morento Space Heater for indoors is the smallest heating unit I’ve tested so far this winter.

As such, I assumed it would be relegated to the space beneath my desk, used solely to warm my toes during the work day. But I was pleasantly surprised by the Morento’s ability to pump out substantial heat.

I used it in our bedroom, and the small Morento was up to the task of warming the space, albeit modestly. But in much larger spaces, its heating capabilities will falter. Still, I really enjoy having this in my 100-square-foot home office, and as a spot heater for warming toes while reading in the living room!

Find out how the Morento Space Heater ranked in our tests.

MORENTO Space Heater: $35.99 at Amazon

This compact and budget-friendly heater is a brilliant option for small space or those who want to keep toasty when working from home. It did a great job in both small and larger spaces, and is a relatively quiet choice.

View Deal

Morento Space Heater review: Price and availability

The Morento Space Heater is available for purchase on Morento’s website for $44.99, but is slightly cheaper on Amazon for $35.99 and other retailers. Regardless of where you purchase the space heater, a 1-year warranty is included.

It’s a solid heater at a good price, so long as you’re not looking to heat large spaces over 3000 square feet with it. In this case, the Lasko FH500 is our overall winner when it came to quickly heating large rooms.

Morento Space Heater review: Design

Image 1 of 3

The Morento is small at just 7.4 x 6.9 x 11.4 inches. That’s great if you’re tucking it under a desk or on a side table. Yet despite its small stature, it can pump out a lot of heat. The high setting operates at 1,500 watts, while the low setting operates at 950 watts.

As such, there’s a wide heating range — from 41 degrees Fahrenheit to 95 degrees. There’s even a fan feature that operates the fan without the heating element turned on, in case things get a little too toasty and you want to cool your space a bit.

There’s also an Eco mode, which is sort of like ‘manual’ mode. You set the temperature you want in the room, and the heater will change its intensity to reach and then maintain that setting. So when the setting is reached, the heater will automatically use less power, and when it needs to kick in again to get back up to temperature, it will use more power. This generally leads to more efficient use over time.

The Morento also features 70 degrees of oscillation to spread heat throughout your space, and light-touch buttons on top of the unit to control everything. There’s also a remote control included, so you can control the unit from across the room. An LED display panel on the front of the unit clearly displays vital information, like the temperature, setting, and mode.

If you keep the unit plugged in, you can take advantage of the memory function that remembers the last settings you used and automatically loads those settings the next time you turn the unit on.

A host of safety features come standard on the Morento heater as well. There’s a 24-hour auto shut-off, tip-over protection, and overheat protection, in addition to an auto-off timer you can set to any duration up to twelve hours.

If you're after something a bit more stylish, the Vornado VHEAT Whole Room Vintage Heater can heat small spaces evenly and add color to the room.

Morento Space Heater review: Performance

Image 1 of 2

I tested the Morento space heater in two different spaces in my house: my home office and my master bedroom. The home office is right around 100 square feet, and the bedroom is right around 200 square feet.

Small spaces

During the first test in my office, the temperature in the room hovered just under 67 degrees F. I turned the central heating off in the house to ensure any heat produced was exclusively from the Morento.

I turned the Morento on its highest setting and initiated the oscillation mode during all testing. In the office, it took almost exactly a half hour to reach 71 degrees, and a full 40 minutes to 72 degrees F. The humidity in the room remained stable during testing.

Those are pretty darn good numbers for a heater this small, though admittedly, 100 square feet isn’t a lot of space to heat. So I then moved the Morento heater to the bedroom.

Large spaces

My primary bedroom is an addition to the house, and it stays colder than the rest of the house on most days. On the testing day, the temperature in the room was 66.6 degrees before I turned on the heater.

The 200 square-foot bedroom reached 69.8 degrees F after 40 minutes of running the Morento on its highest setting. Once again, that’s not a bad number for a small heater like this, and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of heat it generated in such a short amount of time.

That said, it isn’t likely to work wonders on spaces much bigger than 200-300 square feet. In those larger spaces, you’re better off with a larger heater, or using the Morento as a ‘spot’ heater close to where you’re sitting. You can use it to warm up your toes, for example, while you’re reading in the living room, but don’t expect it to make an open floor plan of 500 or more square feet a toasty space on its own.

I used it as a spot heater in my office again, to warm up my feet in the cool space. On the high setting, it was actually a bit too warm. So I popped it down to the lower setting (H1) and that was ideal for positioning the heater close to my feet without feeling as though I was being scalded.

Overall, the Morento is simple to use. The buttons on the top of the unit operate with a light touch and give you all the control you need to get it running and warm quickly. The remote control works well, too, though it’s small, so it would be an easy little unit to lose between the couch cushions.

Wattage

According to my smart plug, the Morento pulls around 1,325 watts during use on high. That’s well within the advertised range. Like any space heater, be aware that they tend to use a lot of energy compared to their sizes. They pull more energy than larger appliances, like dehumidifiers, for example.

Noise

Morento advertises a decibel range of 23-36 decibels during operation. According to my decibel meter, the heater pumped out an average of 57 decibels on the highest setting. On the lower setting, I got closer to the advertised range, but nowhere near the low end of that range. That’s not loud, but if you prefer working in a silent environment, or sleeping in similar, you might find the Dyson Purifier Hot + Cool HP07 more suitable.

Morento Space Heater review: Features

The Morento also beeps when you are cycling through settings or turning the unit on or off. This is useful if you place the unit under a desk or somewhere else similarly out of sight, so you know that it’s picking up input from the remote control. But you can also turn the beeps off, which I did, if you don’t want the noise.

When you turn the unit off, the Morento displays a 30-second countdown before it shuts down completely. At first I was a bit baffled as to why I would need an extra 30 seconds of run time before it shut down, but when I put my hand in front of the unit, I felt cool air. Those 30 seconds cool down the heating element — a nice, small safety feature I appreciate.

Speaking of which, you can use the Morento as a fan, too. It will pump out cooler air so you can easily tailor the temperature in your immediate vicinity. I like this feature, since I often used the Morento in close proximity to my body.

However, there one downside: the 24-hour auto shut-off also seems ridiculously long. A heater running for 24 straight hours seems like a fire hazard, and it feels as though the auto shut-off should kick in after just a few hours. I can see extending all the way to eight hours — the length of an average workday, when folks might have this running underneath their desks. But beyond that, I don’t see much of a point in allowing the unit to run for 24 hours.

Morento Space Heater review: Verdict

The Morento Space Heater is small, generally quiet, and easy to use. It pumps out more heat than I expected, and it’s ideal for small spaces — it would likely max out at 300 square feet. But you could still use it in larger spaces as a ‘spot’ heater, too.

I like it because it’s easy to move around, the remote works well, and the safety features make sense (except for that 24-hour shutoff timeline). If you’re looking for a small heating unit that’s ideal for warming your toes at work or heating up a small to medium bedroom before bed, the Morento is a solid choice.

If you need a little more coverage, the Lasko Ellipse Tower Space Heater is very good for small and medium size spaces. It impressed us with its powerful heat, and performance, despite it's small size. But if you prefer a wall-mounted model, to maximize on space, the Dreo’s WH517S Smart Wall Heater is our favorite option.