I've been a proponent of owning one of the best air purifiers for a long time, and I've had at least one in my home for the better part of the last three years. I've used them to clear smoke out of a kitchen with no airflow, I cranked one into overdrive during the smoke-riddled summer of 2023, and I have one next to my cat's litterbox because he loves to kick up dust.
In all of these cases, my full-size air purifiers have made a significant impact on the air quality in my home. Heck, I've even used one to cover up the smell of weed pouring through my vents from my next-door neighbor's apartment.
Now that I live in a city, I've been a lot more concerned about air quality than I did when I lived out in rural Pennsylvania. As such, I've wanted to distribute air purifiers more throughout my home, but I've struggle to justify having a full-size one in every room. My space isn't exactly spacious.
Luckily, I recently acquired a purifier from Uplift that's small enough to sit tidily on my desktop. It's no powerhouse, but I figured it would be interesting to try it out and see how much of an impact it could actually make on my workspace. I didn't need it to cover a particularly huge area since I'm at my desk all day, but I wanted it to do more than move air around.
For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised by how much work this puppy could do. But the differences I noticed were more subtle and long-term than I would say they've been with other air purifiers I've owned.
Portability is no problem
The most immediate benefit of having a machine this small is that I got to experiment a lot more with placement throughout my office. This doesn't speak much to the air purifier's performance, but I appreciated having the freedom to pick it up on a whim and place it somewhere else in the room. My only limitation came from the included power cord, a USB-C cable that was simply too short for my needs.
Thankfully, USB-C cables are a dime a dozen, especially in my home, so I found a longer one and used it for the rest of my testing. Ultimately, I did end up putting the purifier back on my desk instead of anywhere else (for reasons I'll elucidate shortly). But having that freedom to move it around was nice as I figured out the best perch for it in my home.
Odor elimination works... eventually
To test how well this air purifier could actually remove a strong smell from the air, I lit a dozen matches at my desk and immediately blew them all out. Then I let the purifier run for a few hours to see how well it handled the smell. It did take several hours for me to notice a difference, but when I finally stood up and walked to the other side of the room, I was hit with a much stronger odor of smoke and sulfur. Clearly, this purifier was not meant to cover a large area, but it did its job considerably better than I thought it would given its size.
I'm impressed that this air purifier can do that much damage to a pesky smell while only needing a filter swap every six months. That's the power of Uplift's HEPA filters in action. I do wish it took less time to remove strong smells, but I'm also not lighting matches at my desk all day. All in all, I can tell from the work it did to remove that stench that it's likely doing a swell job of eliminating less perceptible pollutants.
Subtle but sweet air movement
One of my biggest concerns about having an air purifier on my desktop, especially in my apartment with horrible ventilation, is that it would blow cold air on me all day in my already chilly abode. The moment I turned it on for the first time and heard the whirring of its internal fan, I tensed up. But I was happy to see that this extra airflow wasn't blasting my head and shoulders with an icy breeze.
The air mostly shoots upward, and it's hardly enough of a current to do much more than stir up the dust floating overhead. But it's still enough air movement that I can tell the air is fresher without needing to bust out any air quality measuring equipment.
Overall, I don't think this model from Uplift is the powerhouse that's going to save your three-bed from apocalyptic smog. But if you're in the market for a little extra fresh air in a cozy space, I wager you'll be happy with the work this $60 number can do. Just don't light too many matches to test it out, lest your landlord send you a cryptic text about the smoking policy in your building a day later.
More from Tom's Guide
