Coway is an air purifier manufacturer that offers a slew of devices in India. The company's portfolio of devices ranges from entry-level, starting at Rs 9,900, to high-end variants that will cost you around Rs 44,900. The company sent over one of its more affordable air purifiers called the Coway Sleek Pro, which is priced at Rs 14,900. The air purifier is around the same price range as some other budget air purifiers like Mi Air Purifier 2S and Samsung AX40K3020WU/NA. While we will soon publish a detailed review of the device, here are our initial impressions of the air purifier.
Coway prides itself on making award-winning air purifiers. The Coway Sleek Pro is also one such device, which won the Red Dot Design award in 2009. The air purifier sports curved design elements without any sharp corners, which is frankly a breath of fresh air in a category where you will mostly come across box-shaped devices. It sports a minimalistic design with the Coway logo on the front and a gaping hole on the upper left corner, which lends to the device’s unique look. However, it’s not just for show as it is an air quality indicator that lights up with different colours to indicate the current air quality inside a room.
While we would’ve definitely preferred some sort of a display to show exact particulate value, the colour representation of the pollution level is still better than nothing. Most air purifiers in this range rarely come with any sort of air quality indicator and having some way to tell how the air quality inside your house is, is a good option. On the Coway air purifier, red colour means there’s high pollution inside the room, while dark and light purple colours denote medium and light pollution. Blue coloured light means the air quality inside is good.
Talking about the build of the air purifier, there seem to be no major complaints here. The only thing that stood out was the shallow base of the purifier. It reminds us of the now nearly forgotten CRT monitors, but even they had a slightly wider base. The major concern here is that it feels like the air purifier could be easily toppled over if it is hit accidentally. There doesn’t seem to be any other major problems with the device’s build, at least for now.
The Coway Sleek Pro air purifier features button-based controls on the top. One gets an option to turn it on and off, a button to set the device’s speed can be toggled between Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Turbo. In addition, there is an auto mode, which once activated, the device adjusts its speed automatically depending upon the level of air pollution inside the room. It has a sensor on the side but we don’t know yet whether it counts PM2.5 or lower particles, PM10 or all of them. The buttons are also not highly tactile but the feedback is adequate.
The one thing we noted while using the device was that it is considerably quieter than some of the other air purifiers we have reviewed so far. On Level 1 and Level 2 speeds, one might not even notice that it is running. It is slightly audible on Level 3 but it is not too loud to interfere if you are watching a movie. It is really audible when one uses the device on Turbo mode but that is to be expected.
The Coway Sleek Pro air purifier has been in our test labs for a very short duration of time, but in this time, it has definitely piqued our interest. The design does stand out and its operation is significantly quieter than most air purifiers in this price range, which makes us feel positively towards this product. However, we are yet to test whether the silent operation is due to limited air flow and also, whether the Coway Sleek Pro air purifier is as effective at purifying the air as its competition.